El Mariachi

This restaurant is located in a strip mall next to several other Mexican places including a bread store and butcher shop so it’s probably a great area to check out if you’re looking for some unique Mexican options. The restaurant is laid out with tables for those wanting to eat in but also has a register/​bar area in the back where you can easily order take-​out. Ordering was a little difficult since it wasn’t immediately clear if I was supposed to order food at the register in the back or wait for a waitress at a table. I ended up ordering at the register (which I later found out is where to order take-​out) and the lunch special that I wanted is apparently only available during week days (which wasn’t clearly stated). But I managed to finally order some tacos and grab a seat.
There are 3 sauces brought out with the preliminary tortilla chips. A couple of them were pretty spicy which was perfect considering I love spicy salsa! They had great flavor as well but if you don’t like as much heat, I’d stick with the green sauce with tasted like a poblano pepper, guacamole sauce. Also delicious! The tortilla chips seemed really fresh.
I ended up trying two kinds of classic tacos which came with lettuce, tomatoes, cheese, and sour cream. If you’re interested in a more authentic taco, I suggest the regular tacos which come with a generous helping of onions and cilantro. I ate one taco with pastor and the other with carnitas. The pastor taco was super delicious! Definitely the best pastor taco I’ve ever had. It had such a great flavor, I didn’t even want to add any hot sauce to it (which is pretty unusual for me). The carnita taco was good too though not as good as the pastor so I did add some hot sauce to that one. I recommend the habanero sauce if you can take the heat.
Now that I know the protocol for ordering, I will definitely go back to this restaurant when I get another craving for tacos. They will very likely all be pastor tacos!

First, I guess I should start my review by saying I’m Mexican. I really do the know the real deal, my cooking and my family’s cooking is real authentic Mexican food. and unfortunately this place wasn’t it.
The food was very mediocre at best. The chips and salsa were just okay (tasted jarred, and not freshly made). Their soup was very bland and not flavorful, and the Tacos weren’t far off. It’s such a hassle making Chiles Rellenos from scratch at home, so finding them on the menu always gets my hopes up. Unfortunately… they weren’t all that great either. I’m sad to say I won’t be returning (I do highly recommend the Mexican Grocery next door, as well as the Bakery!) If you want good authentic Mexican food, I’d recommend looking up restaurants on Preston Hwy, and/​or Clarksville right over the border. This place isn’t it.

Food is so so, lousy service. We sat for 45 minutes in an uncrowded restaurant before the waitress even offered us a drink. Then she abandoned us– we had to get up from our table to go ask for water, a plate, a drink, etc.

Great service, like the dipping sauces and chips they provide– taste fresh. I come here for the crunchy tacos at lunch, never with a complaint. Like the other reviews soft tacos arnt as good but do the tick. I will be back.

I think your rating for this place will depend a lot on what you order. Examples, the crunchy tacos and the taco especial are way above average with carnitas or pollo. Really good. The classic tacos, not as good. Chile relleno absolutely worth the 2.99. Dos equus 16 oz beer, a buck 75! Chips highly variable, sometimes greasy, sometimes just right. Salsas, interesting. Regular pico de gallo style just average. Two unique and hot salsas, one a creamy green color, the other a thick ground pumpkin colored pepper affair. Really high quality if you like hot. I’m a fan and this will be my once a week, under $ 20 for two, mex food fix place.

Reviews led me here but I will not be back. A friend even said he had been here several times and it was legit. Chips were just Ok, dipping sauces were below avg, guac was ok queso way below avg. Chimichanga was not even fried, tacos were bland. I think it may have been good a few years ago but definitely not now. On the bright side they had super cheap beer $ 1 drafts.

This place has the worst service ever and the worst tacos I ever had. You could go to Taco Bell and have better tacos. My family and I had all together 3 quesadillas, 2 tacos and 4 sodas the bill was 27.00. This place is ridiculous we were not given straws nor utensils we had to raise our hands about 10 times to get the waitress attention. All the tables where filthy but no dine in customers only bar customers. The bar patrons kept swearing and where so drunk I couldn’t believe the bartender (our waitress) kept giving them beer… There was one good thing about this place, they give u three salsas for the cold chips they provide and the very dark salsa is the bomb!!! Smokey and not too hot. But that’s it! Wish there was some good food to accompany the salsa. I don’t recommend quesadillas or tacos or taking your kids. Only go here if u have an hour to spare because that’s how long its gonna take for u to get any food from here.

We ordered our food to-​go and by the time I got home the food was a little cooled down. Even with the food cooled down it was still great. I had a caritas burrito and my wife chose the carne asada torta. After I was done with my burrito I had a taste of the torta and both were very good.
I can’t give a complete review of the place now since we ordered out. But the food was good enough for us to want to come back and eat in the dinning area.
Although I didn’t eat at the restaurant I had to wait while my food was prepared. The dinning area is a little small but the ambiance of the place is cozy and makes up for the size.

How did it take me this long to find this place ?!!
I was complaining that I was missing our previous go-​to down home Mexican joint within easy work lunch distance and remembered driving by this restaurant (and bakery and carniceria and supermercado in the same strip plaza) so we checked it out today.
Yum. Exactly what I was looking for. I had the 3 regular tacos lunch and my two coworkers had a chicken torta. The tacos had nice thick corn tortillas, very juicy chicken, a generous helping of cilantro and onions and a side of sliced radishes and pickled onions. The tongue taco had a great flavor bu the tongue was a bit chewy and not melt in your mouth like some. Good but not as good as the shredded chicken.
The chips and salsa were tops. The chips are the corn tortillas from yesterday fried in house and were thick and crunchy and almost no salt on them. The salsa was 3 kinds actually, a very spicy green sauce, a hot red sauce and a medium-​smokey red sauce.
The tortas were HUGE! Chicken breast, a thick slice of a white cheese, and the usual avocado, beans, lettuce, pepper etc on it. Both coworkers said it was one of the best they’ve had. The menu had several types of tortas, some of which had ingredients more like the chivitos in Uruguay. Those are next on my list since I overate on a few of those in Montevideo for sure.
Service was friendly and efficient. Most table occupied at lunch time but not a packed house either and we arrived on the early side for lunch.
I still need to try the carne asada and a few specialties before rendering a final judgment but I am very happy with what I’ve seen so far.
EDIT:
I can actually give this an update only a few days after my first meal here. We came back on Thursday after eating here on a Monday. That alone is a good sign.
I had regular tacos again but tried the asada instead of tongue. Good, a little on the salty side but with a nice grilled beef flavor and not too greasy. Coworkers tried combo plates with enchiladas and classic tacos– enchiladas were voted as very good, classic tacos were only okay but mainly because they expected the regular tacos with onions and cilantro on corn tortillas and didn’t realize they would be getting a more «american» style with flour tortillas and lettuce and tomato. The large quesadilla got good reviews as did the chile rellano.

Best tacos I have found in Louisville. A big part of that is the tortillas, which are made right next door in their tortilla factory. All of the ingredients are fresh. My favorite tacos are the lengua and tripas. Plenty of seating and good service too. It is clean as well. Been there many times and looking forward to going back.

I hate to give a 1 out 5 but I was really disappointed of this restaurant. I had high hopes before we went there for lunch yesterday because of all the reviews I’ve read here.
They were very understaffed therefore service was very poor. It gets super packed during lunch time and there are only two servers on the floor. I went there with a group of 7 and our food were not served at the same time. Who knows how many people they have in the kitchen cooking? Due to this, some started eating already because they did not want their food to get cold. The rest who are still waiting did not get their food until after 15 minutes or so. Another comment about the food is that some of them are cold inside, which I am a 100% sure that they are not supposed to be served cold. I don’t blame our server since I know that two people can’t handle that big of a crowd, but it was so difficult to ask for anything. We could not get a drink refill until after we all ate.
Here comes the worst part. I ordered their combination #1 which includes a taco, an enchilada, and a choice between Mexican rice and beans. I almost died with the first bite of my enchilada! A piece of toothpick stabbed my filling and straight to the gums! QUE HORROR!!! I dissected the evil enchilada and found another one inside, on the the other end of it. Nobody warned me that they put toothpicks IN the enchilada. What an absolute nightmare! Now I am dealing with a cracked filling and my dentist won’t be back until Monday. :’(
The prices are really cheap and their servings are super huge, but it’s not worth the poor service and definitely not worth getting stabbed by foreign objects in your mouth.

Best tacos in the city! They make their own tortillas in the «factory» next door. Three delicious salsas come to the table upon sitting (careful, the verde is HOT). Staff is nice, several beers on tap but the tacos! Seriously, the tacos in this place are incredible!

Fantastic Mexican! They have perfect tortillas — not too thick, not too thin, with enough flavor to know they’re there, but not enough to overpower the taco innards.
There are multiple styles of tacos (I prefer the one with grilled onions), but they all come with about 10 different types of delicious meats. They’re never dried out or hard, and all the styles come with plenty of fresh lime to zest them up.
My favorite part is the ceviche! Two orders make a HUGE meal of shrimp and fish ceviche with tomatoes, onions, and fresh avocado. It’s not the best ceviche I’ve ever had, but it is authentic. It reminds me of the roadside stands I would frequent in Costa Rica.
Okay, my favorite part is actually the Micheladas! Just a little tomato juice, plenty of lime and salt. If you’ve never had a Bloody Mary made with Mexican beer, I highly suggest you try one. I was skeptical at first, but now I’m in love with them.
I suggest skipping dessert and hitting the bakery next door. The pastries make a great addition to your morning routine.
Oh, and four meals worth of food will run you about 25 bucks, meaning it’s cheaper than fast food. My husband and I go so often now, they’ll probably know us by name soon.

We wanted to like this so badly. Usually when you find an ethnic restaurant near ethnic stores you are guaranteed a hit. This was not.
I had enchiladas and I don’t know if the sauce was old or what, but they were nearly inedible. My husband ordered chicken mole and had to doctor it all up with sugar to make it palatable.
The kids had items off the kids menu. The cheeseburger went down fine, but the mozzarella sticks barely got eaten.
We did like the salsa, but the chips were not great.
The girl working the cash register was pleasant. I would like to give it another try (and maybe get the tacos) but I don’t think I could convince anyone in my family to go back.

Capital D delicious! And quite affordable.
I am told their tacos are more «authentic», but I was raised on Americanized Mexican food so I can’t judge that… but everything tasted WONderful.

In this otherwise middle-​of-​nowhere strip mall you’ll find five sequential signs highlighting a small and glorious Mexican empire owned by a family from the state of Guanajuato. I suspect there are quite a few local Mexican imports that consider this corner of Louisville to be the Company Store, and it’s a little slice of heaven for me too. El Mariachi is the anchor piece of the oasis, and it serves a full menu of delicious.
For me, the highlight is authentic tacos. You can get «regular» which are your basic traditional street tacos and «classic» which are served with lettuce, tomato, sour cream, and queso fresco on flour tortillas. The carnitas, pastor, asada, pollo, etc. wouldn’t be noteworthy anywhere south of the border, but the quality is truly better than I expected. The tamales are quite good too, and the chips and salsa are house-​made (the salsa verde has a nice kick). Beyond that, they have everything from posole and menudo to chile rellenos and huevos con chorizo. But honestly, I’m not sure how often I’ll make it past ordering tacos.
If you do make it out here, don’t neglect looking in the other storefronts on either side. The supermarket has a nice looking meat counter and they sell the fresh chips and cheese, along with other Mexican staples. The panaderia and tortilleria are even more beautiful, highlighted by the corn tortilla factory and tres leches cakes.

This is easily the best Mexican food you can get in the city. They’ve bought the two storefronts on either side and put in a taqueira and tortilleria.
Chips are handmade (yum!). And the salsa verde is crack for your taste buds.
They’ve also recently updated the menu. Choriqueso tacos? Yes! Not to mention some of the less mainstream faire like menudo (tripe) and lengua (beef tongue). Eat it. It tastes like the best roast beef you’ve ever had.

Coming from the West Coast I was sorely disappointed with the Mexican food that Louisville offered. Soy based ground beef burritos smothered in that awful chihuahua cheese seems to be the norm. El Mariachi is different. It is difficult for me to move away from the chili rellenos, sopes or the burritos but I have had the Albondigas (delicious), Fajitas (great) and the the carne asada (tough). If we cannot make it out to La Rosita in New Albany, and now downtown, this is our go-​to place.

We (four adults and a preschooler) had a hankering for Mexican, but didn’t feel like going out. We took a chance on take-​out from El Mariachi. After having tried El Nopal a couple of times, we were ready to try something else. El Mariachi exceeded all expectations and my search for excellent Mexican food in Louisville has quickly come to a close. El Mariachi is fantastic. Between us, we ordered a couple varieties of tacos, enchiladas, chile pablano, El Mariachi cheese dip, among some other dishes. We were not disappointed. I especially enjoyed the tacos, which were reminiscent of tacos I had in Monterrey and unlike typical Americanized tacos. El Mariachi tastes fresh and authentic. It is apparent that they are passionate about their business and take food very seriously. Considering the quality, the prices are extremely reasonable. We will definitely be back soon.

I hesitate to add this place on Unilocal because i have a feeling that this place will go from a place where you can walk in and immediately get seated to somewhere that will require you to wait before you can indulge in their delicious food. But hey, a good restaurant deserves to be successful and shared!
This is a mexican restaurant located in between a store that makes fresh tortillas (which they use) and a mexican grocery store. The bottom line… their tacos are amazing! They have a great variety that is sure to please anyone. I’ve been to the restaurant multiple times and I have still have yet to make it beyond the tacos so i can’t even comment on the rest of the menu. Others i’ve been with also rave about their tortas, burritos, and enchiladas.
The prices are affordable, food is great, interior is nice and clean, service is friendly, and they have ice cold beer on tap. What more could you ask for… right?