Tippy’s Taco House

I am biased because I have grown up going here. I know the food may not be up to Gordon Ramsey’s standards but screw him. I love the beans, the rice everythang. Yes I just spelled everything incorrectly. My favorite thing on the menu is the california burrito dinner. I am in love with this meal. The rice is perfectly cooked. The hot sauce they offer is perfect! I love the large tortilla chips they offer. Their queso is amazing and you can get it dinner or ½ pint size. The birch beer is delicious. I just love the lady who works there. She has been there for years. I love the ambiance and the laid back, cheesy décor. If you get food to go, it is super fast. Overall, if you want fast, cheap mexican american food or tacos this is the place. If you want fresh, food truck Mexican than go to DC or to a food truck near you!

I have never been so greatly disappointed in an establishment ever. That being said, Tippy’s food leaves much to be desired the chips they claim are «fresh made» are most definitely NOT shamefully store bought and not even good chips at that. The «queso» was bland and plastic tasting. The employees were sitting around on their cell phones and when we asked for water we were given a tiny Styrofoam cup with tap water. Needless to say, Tippy’s is run down with bad customer service and even worse food.

Not the Tippys that I remember. Taco Bell would have been better. Place could use a cleaning. And better ingredients. And a better cook. Chips and salsa were not bad. I know others who are die hard Tippy fans. Its been a while since I was in Fairfax, but had good memories of good mexican food. I should have stuck to the memory because my recent experience left much to be desired.

Arrived at Tippy’s Taco on a Sunday night at 8:20pm. The woman behind the counter greeted us with a mad face and explained that it was late and we only had 45 minutes to order and eat. We placed our order in five minutes and the food took 15 minutes to come out. The woman (who refused to give us her name) brought out the food and again remind us of the time. We told the woman she forgot a taco and began to argue with us about not forgetting and that our order was complete. Needless to say she brought us our taco. After ten minutes of us eating she began to vacuum right next to our table kicking up the dust and dirt. We are loyal customers and it is with great disappointment that we will not be returning due to the customer service received.

First, if you like canned refried beans, Rosarita brand, and you like jarred salsa, store-​bought chips, shells and tortillas, bagged cheese, dirty-​water soda, and all other frat-​house type culinary delights, this place is for you.
If you are looking for actual beans cooked and mashed, real flavored taco meat, fresh salsa with identifiable ingredients, run like the chupacabra is behind you!
My husband and I walked after trying this abomination. The ONLY high point was the guac. The service was annoyed, hurried, bothered, bored, and otherwise unhappy. I don’t know why they are so angry. Does hauling and opening canned food and jars of funky salsa wear you out? Imagine if they did some actual food prep with actual food from the Earth.
Such a shame that a restaurant owner would find this acceptable. Shame on Tippys for calling itself a taco house. It is a house of SHAME! Shame on anyone that supports this place when delicious food trucks abound.

Ok we admit, we’ve passed this place by for years. Finally double dog dared each other to eat here and were pleasantly suprised. It was clean, friendly and fast service. Yes, cheap and no, not authentic, but still yummy and satisfying. We’ll definitely go back. It’s not a fancy night on the town type of place, but it has a ton of character. Also it’s fun and a bit of 70’s flashback type décor.

Tippys is delicious! It’s obviously not authentic and it’s a hole in the wall but if you’re looking for some cheap basic tacos then it’s perfect! Their chili/​rice and guacamole tacos are really good.

I’ve heard about this place many times from my uncle who spent a lot of time in NoVA when I was a kid. I saw a $ 20 for $ 10 deal on Amazon Local and figured I’d give it a try. With all the taco joints around here, I figured it would be good to try yet another.
Well, my girl and I walked in and it was eerily quiet. The décor might have been updated in the early 80’s. There was a REAL Rock-​Ola jukebox, which would have been cool had it actually given me two plays for my quarter. The sound quality (or lack thereof) took Iron Butterfly’s In-​A-​Gadda-​Da-​Vida and made it pretty awful. I thought vinyl was supposed to sound better…
Anyway. The food.
Dear lord.
I mean, it’s cheap. I get that. Fine. We struggled to come up with enough items to equal $ 20. we got the quesadilla with jalapenos. Strike one — pickled jalapenos. Strike two and three — American cheese. WTF?
It only got worse when I realized they put American cheese on the burritos and tacos as well. The tostadas that came on the side were stale. The ONLY redeeming part of the meal was the guacamole which was amazing compared to everything else, but not really anything special compared to other local spots.
I don’t usually say this, but this place is really not good. I don’t recommend going here unless you want to experience the low end of tacodom. It’s like every now and then I’ll drink a Bud/​Coors/​other macro crap to remind me how good craft beer really is — but that’s mostly because I’m trying to be polite because it’s all someone has to offer.
I’d go to Taco Bell over Tippy’s any day. People comparing this place to boxes of taco mix you make at home are insulting Old El Paso, Ortega, and Chi-Chi’s. Home made tacos are bomb as hell compared to this.

Honestly their tacos taste like they came out of a box hahah like the ones you can easily make from buying a couple boxed Mexican items from Safeway. If you’re really hungry and want something super freaking cheap sure go here. But their tacos suck and so does their salsa it also tastes out of a tostitos can which I kind of enjoy homemade not canned salsa haha

It’s definitely not an authentic Mexican style restaurant. It’s more like what I suspect rural North American «Mexican Food» probably was up until the late 1970’s, as it would have been described in a Betty Crocker Cookbook from 1954. It tastes like a really fresh and well prepared Old El Paso taco dinner in a box, with crispy wet iceberg lettuce, sauce from a jar, meat cooked in a «taco» seasoning packet, and an acceptable store brand cheese.
That’s basically it, if you grew up in the suburbs of the 70’s or 80’s, this food will remind you a lot of what you might have had at home on taco night. I get the impression this place has been around at least 30 years, and it’s definitely popular with the good ol’ boys blue collar crowd. They’re not trying to be pretentious, and it wasn’t pricey, so all in all a decent experience.

This is not the best taco joint but with $ 0.99 taco Saturdays, what is there to complain about!!! For less than $ 20, 2 people can gorge on tacos until they pass out. There aren’t that many places like this anymore! My advice is to skip the nachos and enchiladas and stick with the tacos. Your tummy will thank you for it.

Inedible. I ordered a chicken quesadilla and I took one bite and threw it away. It had American cheese and frozen chicken slices. No flavor. Something like what you would get in an elementary school cafeteria. I also ordered guacamole. Also inedible. Tasted like bland mush. To sum up, the food was so bad that I refused to eat it. If I could give it negative stars, I would.

Disappointing if you’re hoping for authentic Mexican food. The taco shells looked to be straight from a box just as the chips did. The salsa, I’m fairly certain was something like Pace Picante. There may be people that want that sort of thing, but I hope for and value genuine authenticity.

Forget Chipotle and all those other places; Tippy’s is the go-​to place in the area for Mexican food! It’s a hole in the wall but that’s what makes in near and dear to my heart. Everything here is great, but my fav is Tippy’s Wrap, which is a burrito with queso and sautéed onions amongst other things (but the queso stood out to me the most)! SO GOOD. The perfect comfort food.

Tried this place for the first time. Not sure how I missed it for so long.
We got some soft tacos, chalupas, and a Tippy’s Wrap. I thought it was pretty good. I can see myself going back and trying one of their burritos.

The best way to describe Tippy’s is, it’s a mom and pop Taco Bell with an amazing (and spicy) hot sauce. Don’t come here expecting authentic tacos or a culinary masterpiece. (Go to a food truck or Taco Bamba, if that’s what you’re looking for)
As a native to Fairfax, coming here is like a trip down memory lane. It was one of my after-​school go to spots as a teenager with friends when we had no money but a large appetite.
I get nostalgic feels every time I come here with the décor that looks like I’ve traveled back in time to the 80s or early 90s. Upon arrival, you order at the counter and the food is brought to you within a few minutes.
Typically when I come here, I only get the tacos because everything else is sub par. If you want a burrito or a quesadilla, go to Chipotle and the many other Tex-​mex fast food joints available in the area. As for the tacos, they are Americanized, using seasoned ground beef with lettuce, tomato chunks, and shredded cheese. Similar to what you would make out of a box at home. But what really keeps me coming back here after all these years is the home made hot salsa/​sauce. It comes in a little clear saucer that is re-​used but if you like your food very spicy then this place is at least worth a try.
The prices are dirt cheap. On weekends expect to pay only 99 cents for a hard shell taco and they also have an option for all you can eat hard tacos with a soft drink for 13.50.
My last piece of advice is this place sometimes leaves my stomach unsettled but that could quite possibly be due to the excessive amounts of hot sauce that I use.

Umm… Three Words… excuse my French… but OH H@LL NO! My stomach still hurts! I want my $ 23 bucks back dangit! To give a clue about how terrible this place was, here are a few direct quotes from my Kindergartener:
«Mommy, this is gross. You should go tell that lady (the waitress) how yucky this is»
«Mommy, can we go to Chipotle right now? This is the most disgusting quesadilla EVER.»
They don’t know how to make a quesadilla”
«We are NEVER coming back here again! Yuck!»
I wish I was making this up. First, it was clearly our first time here… because we walked in and sat down. The lady at the counter let us sit there for five minutes twiddling her thumbs and didn’t say a thing about the need for us to order at the counter. I ordered the chicken fajitas, a cheese quesadilla for my little one and a salsa and queso trio. It was all down hill from there…
1) I heard a microwave go off… Huh?! What are you possibly microwaving back there? Mexican is so easy to make you can’t possibly be nuking our stuff because we are litterally the only order you have.
2) Quesadilla — was made with these weird chunks of tomato and america cheese slices… even though I asked for cheese only. So she took it back and I heard that darn microwave again… exactly 60 seconds later, my baby was served a cheese «product» quesadilla that was growing harder by the second. He took one look and said, I am not eating that lol.
3) «Chicken» fajitas — my chicken was the chicken slices in those instant chicken bags you can find at Safeway or somewhere. The seasoning blend was an Italian blend instead of Mexican which immediately threw me off. To top it off, the meat slices were fatty cuts. Eww. I was served a few shreds of iceberg lettuce, about 8 little dices of tomatoes and some sweaty cheddar cheese shreds. It was horrible. I made one fajita just so I could say I tried it and after two bites, my tummy started rumbling. EWW just EWW
3) Salsa trio — seriously, HOW does one mess up salsa!!! Why is it runny? Why can’t I see any real veggie chunks in it? The guac was just as bad as there were no visible vegetables or even salt in it.
Literally, the only palatable thing on our table was the queso dip which was Tositos brand… we ate a few chips and left.
Needless to say, we enjoyed our Chipotle bowl and quesadilla that much more that night.
I wish I had asked for a refund but oh well… lesson learned!
NEVER AGAIN!

This little taco joint is a hidden gem. I went on a Sunday and was excited to see that they have $ 1 tacos on the weekends! The hard shell «meat» taco was awesome and you can’t beat $ 1. I bought two and then came back for 2 more. The meat was seasoned well and the hot sauce that they have on the table (in a little jar) added a delicious kick! I kept spooning more on. Unfortunately I tried a chicken taco and was not impressed. It was bland and even the hot sauce didn’t help.
This place isn’t fancy at all. It’s very casual and no frills (kind of a hole in the wall). But I will definitely be back for $ 1 tacos. The service was good and quick. The lady at the counter was polite and she brought the tacos to the table when they were ready. If you’re in Merrifield you should try this place!

I have mourned the absence of Taco Bell since it was demolished in Merrifield. In college, I was told that the small Taco Bell franchise at the corner of Gallows and Lee Highway was the highest grossing TB in Virginia.
Today I was in the mood for tacos, so I ventured to Tippy’s. I really had high hopes, but I am left mediocre taste in my mouth (but a full stomach).
I had 4 tacos for $ 5. Two bean, two ground beef. Overall taste and quality… eh. It’s pretty much the same as you buy one of the home taco kits from the supermarket. Actually no, you would season the meat more at home.
Walking into the restaurant is like stepping back into 80’s. The décor is dated and there is about as much ambience as a garage sale.
I don’t plan to go back to Tippy’s until they decide to serve better food.

Tippy’s Tacos is pretty freaking disgusting. The queso is filled with greasy ground beef. The grease was pooled on the top of the queso. It was disgusting and made me feel very sick. The beef tacos were also saturated in disgusting grease. The atmosphere is very hole in the wall. The prices are cheap but the quality warrants the prices. The food didn’t have much seasoning or flavor, as other reviewers have also mentioned. I will not be back.