El Pirata Mexican Restaurant

My wife and I have definitely experienced much better Mexican Restaurants. To start with the chips seemed a little stale. The salsa was on the sweet side. There isn’t any zip in this salsa… None. I ordered the Taco Salad with whole beans and chicken. I was advised, «We only have refried beans. We don’t have whole beans». The chicken I thought was on the salty side. The «Taco Salad» was on the small side.
My wife ordered the «Chile Relleno» which came with refried beans and rice. She said, she had definitely experienced much better.
As far as being really authentic Mexican food, well both my wife and I been to Mexico numerous times. This restaurant is definitely Americanized.
The service we thought was slow. Someone delivers your food and then hurries away. They didn’t ask if there was anything else we needed. Just flop the food down and disappear as fast as they could. We waited patiently over 10 minutes for the check. It never came! We finally went to the front counter and there were a stack of checks of customers still in the restaurant. I could understand if it had been 12:00 lunch time. But it was 1:30 in the afternoon and they weren’t that busy.
I think the next time we are in Acadia, we’ll pick another restaurant.

Love this place. The food is good, service is awesome and every time we come in it’s like we are family. They love kids. Our son is very active and the «Mom» owner of the business treats him like a grandson. We go every time we are in town!

The food at El Pirata isn’t good or bad, it’s just edible. I tried the Enchiladas Supreme, which included a beef, chicken, cheese, and bean enchilada and it was ok. The enchiladas were covered in a syrupy red sauce, which seemed to mask much of the flavor of the enchiladas. But, on a positive note, the chicken was tender. The complimentary chips and salsa were also pretty average.

Big disappointment after good Unilocal reviews. Chips were bland and stale. Salsa flavorless. Burrito deluxe was buried in a pile of lettuce and was mostly refriedbeans, with little meat. Flavor wasn’t bad, but not a good meal for the price, overall. I’d pass on this place and keep looking.

Love the food, but the service is sooo slow. Am always late back to work after lunch.

Excellent lunch service. Great margaritas. Super duper carnitas xoxo. Salsa and chips on table, pretty darn good too.

We eat here at least once a week, drive over 45 minutes from Manatee county if your looking for great real mexican food this is the spot. Here the food brings us back the owners make us stay Dora is the sweetest makes you feel at home.

If interested in great homemade Mexican food at a great price then this hidden gem is for you! If interested in a great Mexican experience with festive Mariachi music, loaded bar, extensive beer selection on tap with happy hour margaritas– then this place will disappoint you. For starters on the outside it looks like a hole in the wall. It is a family run business that is trying to impress you with the quality and price of the food. They are not interested in providing you with the «It’s a small world» Disney experience with ethnic trinkets and colorful knick knacks on the walls. The service can be a little slow during rush hour, but the wait is worth it. The chips are fresh and the salsa is excellent! The salsa is thick and sticks to the chips! Nothing ruins a Mexican meal quicker than stale chips and runny salsa! I had a bottled domestic beer and it came with a frosted mug so cold that ice crystals formed on the top of the beer– so satisfying living in Florida after a long work day! I had the carnitas and they were excellent! The pork was crispy on the outside and moist and flavorful on the inside– seasoned perfectly with onions. The pico de gallo was robust fresh and packed a great cilantro kick! My wife had the enchilada and chile relleno combination. The home made mole sauce was great– nice mellow cinnamon taste. The seasoning in the meat really hit those taste buds. So we had two great meals with two drinks for $ 25! And I did not have to ask for more chips I was so full! Highly recommend and will return when I am out that way.

Excellent Mex breakfast I just had. Charizo, eggs, rice and beans, flour tortillas… and fresh jalapenos deep fried. Perfect. I did not give 5 stars only for lack of Mex CocaCola and Mex coffee. Either will make this 5 stars. I walked to here from nearby hotel. Nice real Mex stop and I overheard talk that only fresh made items here. Tortillas… probably also. Hard to tell sometimes.

Don’t do it! Just waited 45 mins and still no food. Ended up telling our waitress we had to leave. No apologies or explanation of why they couldn’t get the orders out to the customers

Visit on Fri what a wonderful lunch there were 7of us .We all got our food around the same time Will return

Nasty! Food was so gross my husband and I couldn’t even eat it. We got combination plates. And the waitress never checked on us to see how we were doing. after waiting a while for her to come to our table she never did so we had to go up to the counter to get her attention. When I told her we didnt like the food and couldn’t eat it. and that she never even checked on us. she said I’m sorry. Over priced too! $ 22.00 for 2 combinations and a chesse dip for lunch!

Not exactly sure why this place has such a high rating. It’s decent Mexican food but nothing amazing. I guess if you consider the limited options available me on State Road 70 and Arcadia it seems better. Fresh salsa was very good. Cheese enchiladas were average.
Be wary if you don’t order a combo platter – my cheese enchiladas were $ 5.50. I asked the waitress if that came with rice and beans and she said yes. Bill comes and the rice and beans was $ 2.50 EACH additional which added $ 5.00 to the enchiladas. I thought that was kind of crappy. Overall? Meh. Good if you’re really hungry and can’t wait until you get to Palm Beach or Sarasota.

Great Tortas
The best taco salad
Great burritos
Almost everything is homemade salsa, chips, taco shells, taco salad bowl.

Was in the area for a car show fixxfest. Best Mexican food in the south east. Salas was amazing. I had the Taquitos Mexicanos.#amazing ill make the drive here more often.

Did go there yesterday, food very cold, charge for chips and extra salsa… would not go back… wait staff was pleasant… place needed to be cleaned… used same rag to wipe tables as the seats… just not the best… and been there 3 times and food is not consistent… done with it…

We went to Arcadia for a Cinco de Mayo festival and decided to stop for lunch based on the reviews. We should have known something was wrong when it was 1 p.m. and there were very few cars in the lot. I can only assume that the locals know of a much better Mexican restaurant. We tried 2 combination plates and both were very bad and we didn’t finish either dish. I had a beef taco and I’ve had better from a box of Old El Paso taco mix made at home. I don’t even know how to describe the chile relleno? It was incredibly bland, as was the salsa. The salsa actually tasted as if they had made it with canned tomato sauce. The tostada was ok, but given that a tostada is basically nothing but refried beans on a shell, that isn’t saying very much. I will say that the rice was ok, as well, but this was easily the worst Mexican food I’ve ever had.
The service was very poor. Our waitress forgot our guacamole dip even though there were only 2 other tables that she was waiting on. She seemed very irritated and not very pleasant. Perhaps she was upset that she was working on Cinco de Mayo. Perhaps most of the regular staff and the regular cook was off in celebration, but based on this one experience and food, we won’t return.

This is a nice Mexican restaurant that outgrew its original location and relocated across the street to a larger building. A family run restaurant that is a bit informal with the owner having children and grandchildren in the restaruant. However, the family seems to add to the quaint, warm comfortable environment.
The menu is enormous. You can literally find any one of 19 katrillion combinations to make sure you get what you want. Generous chips and salsa typically without asking. The food is delicious.
Ample parking. The only items for improvement… beverage refill had to be requested multiple times on multiple visits and the décor is cheap.
Friendly service and good prices make some faults, faults that can be overlooked. It’s not just worth a visit, it’s worthy of being a regular if you’re from the area.

Nice to have chips and salsa at the table. Service was generally prompt, but they brought everyone else’s food before mine. Several minues later they finally brought out my fajitas on a cast iron skillet, but they weren’t sizzling and appeared to have been sitting for a while before being brought to the table. Overall, everything we ordered was tasty and in fairly large portions.
Food: 4 *s
Service: 3.5 *s
Ambiance: 4 *s (it’s clean)

The four perfect 5’s brought us in here. I had the tilapia & my wife had a mixed plate of meat, shrimp & fish. All with rice, salsa chips, etc.
The food here is truly excellent. This is the best Mexican restaurant I’ve been to in SW Florida. The prices are reasonable and it’s well worth a special trip for a visit here.
Ambiance — 4 STARS
Service — 5 STARS
Food — 5 STARS
Location — 5 STARS
Cleanliness — 5 STARS
I just had to keep the string of 5 star ratings going for the nice little mom & pop restaurant.