Casa Chapala

Ok… where to start? This here, regardless of the 4 star rating, is a bitter sweet review. Mostly sweet, but the bitter should be pointed out as well.
First, I am going to start with the taste and quality of the food. AMAZING! That’s why 4 stars is easy! Ambiance? Wonderful. Staff? Also very wonderful. Everyone was very nice and helpful and each of them played a part in making our visit pleasant and enough so, to make us return.
Let’s start the night.
Saturday night, very busy to say the least. Wait time? They told us 20 minutes and it was about 16. So good on them, because that is a difficult thing to calculate sometimes.
Once we were seated, we were greeted with salsa made table-​side and chips. Both delicious.
Waiter came by, Travis, is his name, took our drink order and appetizer order. That was served to us with a smile. A bit later we were ready to order. placed our order, which seemed to have gone well… (maybe not so much, not sure).
Took longer than normal for Travis to come back to us, In my opinion (all through the night, actually… but in his defense, I think he might have been new? Possibly? Not sure, but I’m not complaining, really… it was BUSY… And please don’t hold this against him, he was very friendly and nice and doesn’t deserve to be frowned upon).
Our order came… yowza. This is where the reality set in. There was quite the confusion when the server attempted to hand out the plates… All 3 plates were wrong. Not terribly wrong, but wrong enough to warrant us having to swap out hot platters across the table which had very little room all to find out, it was still wrong. Ha. Not funny. We excused the mishap, attempted to get one corrected, mostly did, but my husband was stuck with queso (which most people would love to be stuck with, but not him as he doesn’t care for cheese, in general… so this was a little annoying). Because it took so long for the food to come (almost an hour) we didn’t dare send it back and wait for more. so we moved on.
We started eating. Once we tasted the food, all the bad went away, mostly. lol. The food was truly tasteful. The Mariachi band was pleasant to listen to while savoring that delicious food, too!
When Travis came back by, he asked how everything was. well, we told him. He went to grab a manager, who greeted us, and offered to correct it somehow… and he did, happily. This is what helped make everything ok. Why? Because mistakes happen. Doesn’t matter whose fault it was, I’m still not sure if it was Travis or the cooks. Doesn’t matter, either. Things happen. and like I stated earlier. they were very busy.
All in all…
Food: Amazing
Ambiance: Happy and Pleasant (loved the music)
Staff: Friendly, helpful, eager to please
Prices: Amazing
Quality: Good (it’s Tex-​Mex)
Will we return? You betcha! I want to go when it’s not busy and experience the quieter, softer side of the place that I know it possesses. Love it!
So, thank you all for your services! See you soon!

Spending the evening with my good friend and compadre Rodney Bustamante, Mark Madrid and owner Lupe Barragan, of Casa Chapala. Casa Chapala is an Austin community institution and a premier culinary experience on 183 and Burnett.
I can’t believe that I considered this a typical Mexican restaurant. This restaurant has provided a premier luxury EXPERIENCE which I would recommend to all Austinites. They prepared delectable sea food and steaks in addition to authentic Mexican food. The service was impeccable. Thank you Don Lupe for such an amazing experience!
Please note that this is only one of the numerous experiences this restaurant offers. They offer fresh made salsa, fresh made guacamole and tons of custom made experiences (cuisine) that are just waiting for you to request. GRACIAS POR UNA EXPERIENCA FABULOUSA! High praises to Casa Chapala.

I really want to give Casa Chapala 5 stars. It is our favorite Mexican restaurant in Austin. First the good: The food is outstanding traditional Mexican. Margarita’s are great, and the selection of tequilas is mind-​boggling. There is usually a Mariachi band playing to liven up the experience. On my first visit, the owner, Lupe, came out and served us a flight of tequilas for tasting. We had a great time. 5-​stars for that visit and several more after that.
But, the last two times I have been there, the service has been very slow. We just returned from eating there tonight and I felt I should write something up in hopes that they improve the service, because we really love this restaurant and want to give constructive feedback. The food was a little slow to arrive, but they were busy and we had plenty of good chips and salsa to eat. That did not bother me. But the problem came when we ordered soppapias for dessert. After waiting well over 30 minutes, I finally got up and asked the manager. About 10 minutes later, a bus boy delivered them. Our waiter had been standing at the register for the past 20 minutes, and looked like he was entered receipts or adding up his tips or something. He finally brought our bill, soppapias included, with no explanation or apology for the slow service. I always leave a solid 20% tip, but this was the first time I left a $ 0 tip. I just did not feel a tip was deserved in this case.
I will go back though, and hope that service improves next time.

My husband and I dined here last Friday evening, arriving around 5:30/6:00. We were seated immediately. The place began to fill soon after our arrival.
We were promptly waiting on by hospitable wait staff, and our food was served quickly — and hot! I had a cheese enchilada and cheese chile relleno; my husband had the pork burrito. We both agreed that the food was outstanding — some of our favorite in Austin!
The owner, Luis, greeted us, asked if we were pleased with our meal, and was a genuine delight!
We were just talking about going back again this evening, but waiting until a little later so that we could listen to the mariachi band that will start at 7pm (8pm on Saturdays).
I would recommend Casa Chalapa to anyone looking for great food at a great price in a great atmosphere!

Loved everything about this place. Ellie gave us great service. Our food was so delicious! They made our salsa table side as soon as we sat down. The menu has plenty to choose from… can’t wait to go back and try it all!

I came here with one other on the 5^th or May (Cinco de Mayo) and only had about a 15 minute wait. The restaurant was busy but took care of us pretty quickly. Our waitress was very friendly and fast!
Live music started after we arrived. Great!
The salsa they prepared at our table side was tasty and not too hot. Bar was backed up and it took a while for drinks to arrive but they were great when we got then. The food came out hot and pretty fast. Only reservation was the wait for drinks from the bar. We were still waiting for ours second to arrive when our check was dropped off. Being cinco de mayo I can give them a break and this wouldn’t stop me from coming back.

very good food mole enchiladas are amazing .
beef and chicken fajitas are also good.

This was my first time coming here. It had four stars and lots of reviews. I decided to check it out since I was in the area. There were many people inside enjoying their happy hour and food… PLUS!
Salsa: I was amazed to see the guy come by our table and ask for our spice level of salsa. I went with medium. Then he goes to start making our salsa. Another Unilocaler added a video of this being done (kudos to that user) I was fumbling around to get my phone and it was so quick I just snapped the end of him making the salsa. The taste was not what I hoped for. The salsa had the spice level, but to me it was not robust with flavor. It was watery.
Food: I ordered the cochinita de pibil. It is a traditional dish from the Yucatán Península (Mexico). I have had this in Mexico so decided to give it a shot! The waitress let me know that people who come here typically order: molcajete, some seafood dish with shrimp & fish and the tacos al carbon. I decided I would take a risk so I went with the cochinita de pibil. It was ok definitely not like the dish I had in Mexico. The sauce was a tad sweet. I tasted my coworker’s beef fajita and it tasted really good! There were signs that the tortillas were homemade. I watched the lady pull the tortillas out of a bag and warm them up. Maybe they are made beforehand??? I am used to tortillas needing to be flattened then put on the comal. jajaja
Service: We stood at the front for 3minutes until somebody greeted us and sat us down. The waitress was amazing! Friendly and helpful with the menu.
I will definitely check them out again.

Now that I’ve found this place, I come for lunch fairly often. I love the options on the lunch buffet and I always have great service. The servers help each other out to make sure their guests are well taken care of AND its always with a smile.

Great customer service the food was so good they cook my fish dish perfectly The queso dip that you get for free when you check in was not that great but they do a homemade table side salsa that was wonderful.

2 things I love:
Margaritas and Side table food prep.
This place has both in spades.
Great atmosphere on the weekends, and a very friendly staff.
I will be back many times for sure.

Best margaritas in town! The food is also great, and they even have an area that you can reserve for group events.

I didn’t taste the food but the cowboy margarita was awesome.

I finally had an excuse to step inside here.
It’s not really authentic Mexican food – the hamburger on the menu is obvious. But it is not yuppie food either thank goodness. You can wear t-​shirt and jeans here and feel comfy. Servers and staff were friendly. The food was filling and cooked properly.
The only bad part is that if you DO have an event, the servers take forever to come out with your check.

The chicken enchildas were delicious. My margarita was made nice and strong. Compliments to the bartender. I enjoyed the live mariachi band.

Pros:
Mariachi Band is cool.
Food is good when served hot.
Cons:
Slow service all around. It takes 15 – 20 minutes to get drinks. Food comes out separately resulting in the the food being cold. Drinks are weak unless you get top shelf whic is over priced. Staff will attempt to charge you as non Happy Hour drinks and does not know the menu enough to know the drinks.
Over all very disappointed with the experience.

Yummy margarita, deserves 1 start. Waiting 45 minutes for it and then another 20 to ask what we’d like to eat, worth zero stars. We left and Went across the street to Big Daddy’s and had an amazing burger though.

The service was wonderful! They ground the salsa next to our table and the gentleman new what he was doing. The favors reminded us of when we were in the Yucatan. The bad side is my husbands food was semi cold and not hot manly be warm at best, I found a hair (I’ve worked in a rest. setting it happens) and my daughter seemed to get sick after ward. The one flauta I managed to eat was wonderful, the queso was fab, and again the waiter was great. We will visit again!

It’s pretty good food, some of my favorite fajitas in town. The drink specials are good too. I’ve never had rude service, though it was a bit slow the last time I was there. The mariachi music is a nice touch, but they’re a bit too loud and can be heard throughout the restaurant, which can make it hard to talk.
Try the beef fajitas.

Hands-​down some of the best chicken fajitas I’ve had since living here in Texas. They come out all sizzling and delicious full of peppers and onions got a good balance between the chicken in the veggies. fresh sides.
The Mexican Martini here is to die for it is absolutely delicious!.. it is on point… some places don’t get it right but this place definitely gets it right.
This place is on the radar because I will come to it often.

Nice atmosphere. Great waitresses.
Great salsa at your table. Very good lunch buffet. The owner usually comes by asking a good experience. Quite a selection of tequila.

First things first: the coupon that’s on Unilocal is only available at certain times. Check it out before you try to use it.
Been here twice and both experiences have been meh. Today though, was a big fail. Waitress seemed annoyed we were there (about 2p or so.)
Ordered queso and food. Queso comes out with food. Lady laughs it off. Food tastes alright, however they mess up the order on both our dishes. Supposed to be Piccadillo filling in burrito, they put some type of pulled pork. Had no flavor. Burrito was supposed to come with cheese, however none was present. Pretty hard to mess up a burrito, so good job on that I guess.
I like the idea of this place, however the service has been sub-​par both trips. Food is decent, when they get the order right.
I would not recommend queso flameado, it’s super watery (greasy too.) Eh. I don’t get all the great reviews of this place. Seemed like they had some specials and stuff but the server definitely was not interested enough in us to let us know what they were. Seemed like just any other Mexican place in Austin, just less-​flavorful food.
Guy at the front gave our kid a balloon though, he was happy about that!

Service was horrible. Food order was wrong and ill timed. Food was… ok
Ordered the queso flameado which came out with our meal. Not exactly my idea of an appetizer when it comes out with the rest of the food. Waitress thought it was funny — probably the only time she smiled at us. It was super greasy (I literally scooped out 3 spoons of grease before we dug in). It was also never set on fire like the Unilocal pictures show. Fail?
I ordered Piccadillo in my taco. It was soaked and sitting in a pool of grease. Definitely didn’t look like Piccadillo (more like plain ground beef). The rice was good though…
My husband also ordered Piccadillo, but in his burrito. Looked nothing like the meat I got. His was shredded something or other. I think it was from a different animal all together. When we brought this to the waitresses’s attention, she tried to convince us that the 2 different meats we had received were the same meat and were both in fact Piccadillo. Nice try. Even the itemized receipt said she rang in my taco with plain ground beef. Still not sure what meat husband got but def not Piccadillo.
It also would have been nice if we all had silverware. We only had 2 sets at the table. Since she never came to check on us, my son and I just shared one of the forks.
It’s easy to look over simple mistakes when someone acknowledges them or apologizes or offers to fix the things that went wrong (or any combination of those things). Instead our server acted as if we were the biggest inconvenience of the day from the minute we answered the «how spicy do you want your salsa» question with «not too spicy».
Lame. This wasn’t my first visit, but will likely be our last.

Date of service: Feb 5, 2015
Meal: Dinner, eat in
All Ratings out of 10:
Quality of food: 9
Food to Spend Value: 8
Quality of Service: 7
Overall Rating: 8
When going to Texas, Mexican food is a must. I was visiting Texas for the first time in a while and heard about Casa Chapala, which occupies the space that used to house a Black Eyed Pea restaurant. Given the reviews I had to check it out.
The meal started pretty fantastically with our waitress asking us how we wanted our salsa and then making it tableside. I have had tableside guacamole on many occasions, but I have personally not been to a restaurant that does this for salsa, and boy am I am fan. Not only was the salsa super fresh tasting, but we could get it to the spice level we wanted. The flavor was simply fabulous, and it amounted to one of the best chips and salsa experiences at a Mexican restaurant I have ever had. We decided to order their queso as well, and it was quite flavorful and the perfect consistency, garnished with some pico and guacamole.
For my main entrée I decided to have the Tacos al Carbon plate. The tacos came with a healthy serving of steak, pico, cheese, lime, and either corn or flour tortillas (I chose corn). On the side was lettuce and guacamole along with beans and rice. The tacos were fabulous, bursting with flavor, and the beans and rice were also quite tasty. The leftover salsa from the chips also was really nice to have on the tacos. My friend had the fish tacos, and they also looked amazing. Overall I was very satisfied with my dinner.
For dessert I love flan, and I tend to measure a Mexican place by how good their flan is. Sum it up to say that on both presentation and flavor it was spot on. It had a nice creamy flavor and perfect texture, and it was a really nice way to wrap up the meal.
Our waitress Dulce was fabulous, and she was very attentive throughout dinner. The food was all fresh and well prepared, and the prices were reasonable, though definitely following the trend of the «slightly more expensive» Mexican restaurant. The portions were a good size though, so no complaints. Casa Chapala comes highly recommended if you are looking for a good place to get your Mexican fix.

This place is great!
Firstly, any place with complimentary chips and salsa is awesome… BUT dat salsa doe! When the server brings it to the table, they ask if you would like the spice level mild, medium, or hot. Then they add the magic to it right in front of you, and it always tastes fresh.
Casa Chapala has great margaritas! Some times people wonder. how can you mess up a margarita? TRUST ME, its possible, but they have the right sweet/​sour/​tequila ratio.
The food is tasty and they have a great selection to choose from. Chicken, fish, veggie, pork– what ever you fancy– they have it. I usually get the enchiladas or Chile Relleno. All the servers are quick and very sweet.
Lastly, we went on a Friday night and they had mariachis! I love mariachis!

I stopped in for lunch today. They have a buffet/​taco bar with several kinds of enchiladas and other fare. It was all delicious and a very good price. I like the atmosphere at Burnet and 183. It’s friendly and relaxing.
Herminio was my waiter. He was attentive and helpful with great service. Give him a raise!
All together, it was a very nice experience.

We ordered lunch to go here on Tuesday. The first big disappointment was that I was told it should be ready in 10 minutes so I showed up in 15 & then waited almost 30 minutes. I finally get my food and the lady tells me to be careful because they didn’t have any lids and every item has been cellophane wrapped??? Thank God I’m only going two blocks. The food flavor itself was pretty good but they went sparingly with the shrimp in the shrimp tacos. The worst part was that the tortillas were horribly soggy & since it only took me 5 minutes to get to my office I have to assume that they became soggy in the 30 minutes I was standing in the front waiting. The chips were also greasy and had the flavor of old grease. I did have the buffet here one time that was better but they should’ve made that to go meal right before sending it out.

Amazing place. And I am an Mexican food snob. They make the salsa and guac right in front of you to your exact liking. The queso was very good, a little on the runy side, but none the less it was great. The fajitas were amazing as well as the bacharro beans. We sat outside and got great service, even us being the only ones outside. I had the ultimate margarita and overall it was really good. For 11 $ it couldve been a little stronger, but it was still delicious. I will definitely be back to this place

Omg, the chipotle margarita here… I’d come back just for that. It was a recommendation from our server when I mentioned that I loved spicy drinks (rather than overly sweet ones), and it was amazing. Seriously, maybe I should go back tomorrow… mmmmm.
I love how they make your salsa at the table, and you can determine how spicy/​mild you want it. (I want my sinuses to start running, pretty much.)
My enchiladas bandera was delicious, and just the right size. I wasn’t so stuffed that I was sick when I left, and I also wasn’t hungry for anything else. We had excellent service, tasty food, and ohhhh, that margarita. If I could just drink *that* margarita forever, I’d be a happy girl.

We love this place! The service is outstanding, and the food is delicious! The atmosphere is very fun and inviting. The prices are great, too! Great weekend specials and definitely family friendly. My children love to take selfies wearing the sombreros! They also give the little ones balloons. Great place!

Stopped by yesterday with a few ladies from my work for a Sangria or two. Waiter was courteous and timely with our orders. This time I tired their Mucho Burrito w/​the shredded chicken per the suggestion of one of my friends there. Was very filling! My only critique of the food would be that the chicken wasn’t evenly distributed through the burrito. Some bites were straight chicken and others just beans rice and salsa.
So the food is still pretty decent, but what I’m really here to mention is the visit from Lupe. He came to our table to personally check on things and to inform us that the lunch buffet was recently expanded. Love that he takes a personal interest in his customer’s experience. He knows what word of mouth can do…
Thank you again Lupe! Still trying to make it over for Sunday Brunch though. You still offering 20% off?