On The Border Mexican Grill & Cantina

What a waste. Went for dinner on a Friday and even though we went early service was still crappy. We sat for ten minutes and still didn’t have a waiter. The table behind us was sat and their waiter came right over, got their drink and appetizer order, had said drinks and app delivered to them, and we still didn’t have a thing. I had to get up and go ask another waiter if he could find out who had our table. Once they played paper, rock, scissors on who got to wait on us we finally were able to place a drink order.
My mom’s swirl frozen margarita was neither frozen nor swirled. My table side shaken margarita might as well have been orange and lime juice. These things are suppose to have tequila right?
The queso was so runny when you dipped your chip you couldn’t get anything to stick.
My enchilada dinner was so bland and dry, both in the meats inside and the sauces on the outside, that I ended up leaving half. What’s the point of eating if it doesn’t taste? My mom said her triple sauce burrito was just as bland and crappy.
Total waste of $ 45. Rosa’s Café would have been better and cheaper.

Really good service. Very friendly. Ordered $ 2.00 taco special. Ordered both with beef, one soft and one hard shell. Definitely liked the hard shell better. Refried beans were good. I didn’t care for the rice. Always tastes like boxed rice to me. Food served very quickly as well. All in all, very good visit.

Had dinner with daughter and the Fajitas were great, I especially liked the Cactus (Prickly Pear) Margarita. We had excellent service.

Always had good service here. Used to come by more often when we lived closer, but still like coming here when we are in the neighborhood. 99% of the time we sit at the bar and almost always have great service. Sometimes it’s super busy and the service might get a little slow but that’s life. The food is very consistent and they serve good drinks. There are many TVs in the bar area and there is always a game or multiple games playing. Great place to hang out and relax.

Water was spilled on my husband within minutes of sitting at the table. Waiter was apologetic as well as the evening supervisor. He offered free drinks. We ordered some sangria and mixed drinks. Then, We were charged for entire meal. No discount was offered at all. We politely left and were frustrated. Our waiter was apologetic the entire meal, but we tipped little since we were charged entire amount and left with little desire to return. Could have been better if they were considerate.

We have been regulars here for the 7 years that we have lived in McKinney. Ever since the remodel, this place has gone downhill as far as consistency & service. Tonight we walked out! We walked in around 6:00 table for 3 me husband & 2 yr old. There was no one at the hostess table & we stood there a bit before anyone acknowledged us. We were then seated & place our drink order. 2 margaritas frozen & a strawberry kids lemonade. The waitress comes back with water & lemonade. We ask for queso dip & plates. (We shouldn’t have to ask for plates) Let me check on your drinks. Queso is brought out. We eat ALL our chips & queso & the 2 yr old has finished her drink. A different waiter brings our food out! We ask where is our waitresses & explain we NEVER received our drinks. They come out of a machine! It takes 2 seconds yet all this time & still nothing. Hubby says forget it, cancel the food bring us our check for dip & lemonade. The manager on duty, is sent over trying to smooth things over. (She was dressed in a white sloppy looking white shirt that needed to be ironed & did not look professional at all.) We tell her cancel our food bec we never received our drinks. Oh well the waitress had a big spill she had to clean up. No, we were watching the bar. The drinks were never poured. We left the Custer/​121 location & drove to 121/​Preston location. We were immediately seated by the hostess. The service was great there, the manager was dressed professionally, she checked on us twice herself while there. Also, why can you not get happy hour specials unless you sit at the bar. So since I have my 2 year old with me & have to sit at a booth, I have to pay more? That makes no sense!

Wow, has this place gone down hill! I came in on a Monday at 12:30. Which to me is the height of lunch rush. Monday’s are probably not the busiest, but at that hour it was busy with about 50 people in the restaurant. There was not a hostess working. Now, she could have been a no show or they have gone away with them as company I do’t know. Now, this should have been a sign… «Don’t eat here»! I ignored this sign because I had a gift card and we were heading to the movies after lunch. Nothing else around there stuck out to me as a replacement. We waited and waited and waited until a dusty haired tall waiter came over and seated the large group that had gathered around the vacant hostess stand.
At this moment, I was thinking where is the front of the house manager? Why aren’t they here seating guests. Maybe On The Border did away with Managers also! This is such a strange business plan OTB has adopted. We had a super sweet waitress. She was very green and befuddled over taking our order. I ordered an unsweetened iced tea and there was no sweetener on the table. I asked and she said she would bring me some. (They also took away sweeteners at the table?) The sweetener did not show up until after my second refill. Consequently that refill also had coffee in it as well. That was such a hot mess and it was only my beverage. I ordered the chicken tinga tacos and the lime flavor was so overpowering and sour it was awful.
Now, here was the catch. I never saw a front of the house manger the whole time this sinking ship was going down. I saw a back of the house manager delivering drinks. I made this conclusion because he had a chef outfit on. There was not a chip delivery person or a bus boy. The servers had to seat customers, deliver chips, and bus tables. That is the worst business plan for a restaurant EVER! Also, I was sitting close to the ghost town of a hostess station and I could hear every table grumble on their way out of how bad it was. It was so bad I thought I was on candid camera.

Bring back brunch. Bring back brunch. Bring back brunch!
amazing food, service can vary…
I really don’t know why OTB got rid of their brunch, best breakfast tacos I have ever had.

I am a regular at «on the border». I always order the stacked nachos, BTW never a disappointment.
But this 121 location in McKinney is a joke! The past 4 times I had to wait to be seated at slow times of the day. After being seated it takes forever to place a drink order. The staff is friendly, but very scarce. This must be a scheduling problem, coming from management.
I love On the Border, but from now on. the Allen location has my business.

The place was good; I guess it kinda make you feel like you’re on the border. I had a fajita plate which came in a sizzling grilling pan, freshly made flour tortillas, and lots of veggies! I quickly indulged and forgot to take a pic ! They also serve free chips & salsa!
FOOD: ⁵⁄₅
SERVICE: ⁴⁄₅
AMBIANCE: ⁴⁄₅

Oh man, I was suspicious of eating at a restaurant on a strip mall and I was right to be, I’m surprised this place is still in business! My dad and I came here for some nice Mexican food and ended up waiting 45 minutes for literally THE WORST Mexican food I’ve ever had. My fish tacos looked like they took a microwaved tilapia, cut it up and put it in a panini press in an old tortilla… oy vey. The wait staff was nice but overall you can tell this place is on its way out.

There is something not right about this place but I can’t put my finger on it. Or may be I can, while the female manager was sitting and chit chatting at the bar with a guy, waiters were running around and instead of being able to serve the customers, they were sweeping under the booths. BTW, do you know that there is no such thing as a busboys anymore. Our waitress was nice and did the best she could

Today was my second visit to this restaurant since it was remodeled. Both times the service has been so bad that I have wanted to leave half way eating my meal. I walked in today and saw numerous tables not cleaned and looked like Hurricane Katrina hit. Food was left all over the floor. I was seated right away and a guy was going around giving hot sauce and chips on a tray to everyone. I sat there 17 minutes until a waiter with a pony tail asked how long I had been sitting there. He took my drink and food order. I noticed that the waiters, hostesses and manager was cleaning the tables while bringing out food orders. The manager went around the large group tables getting their tabs paid, asking about the service and serving food. I was highly annoyed about how long it took for my food to come out, mouth was burning from the salsa with my tea empty. I had to ask another waiter for more salsa. My fajitas arrived and looked scarce. The food was barely warm and when I was out of napkins, salsa and tea I finally left the rest of food untouched. I will never come back. Even the waiter admitted to me that this restaurant was poorly ran. I told him how is it that there is not even one bus boy to clean tables?

This chain just CONSISTENTLY has BAD service, food and sodas!!! And we’re not even picky making substitutions on our food etc to cause issues with the waiters. We have been to OTB in Louisville, Indianapolis and now this location. The one thing I can count on is getting lousy service, no matter which location! We have had OK food sometimes but the wait staff has just been bad ALL THE TIME. Several times, we have had waiters who roll their eyes and one was even just plain hostile/​confrontational when we asked for refills. Sometimes, their drinks taste weird, like they mixed diet with regular coke syrups. But that’s coming out of the lemonade pipe. Yuck. Do people really have no tastebuds? I see a lot of this restaurant opening up… surprises me.
Back to lousy service. Seriously? If one hates to do a good job in service, they really need to get another job instead of causing paying customers heartburn and aggravation. Needless to say, this pretty much speaks volume as to the type of company it is and how they probably mistreat their employees as well.
I actually have consistently BETTER service at Cici’s pizza than OTB. Even their busperson smiles at us and helps clear our plates away (before they convert to the 1 plate/​change paper concept.)
I wish OTB away. I wish them ALL away.

We have eaten at this McKinney location for years and have been very satisfied with the service. However today, we were thoroughly disgusted. We arrived at 3:15p and were seated close by the front door. It took ten minutes for the first waiter to take our drink and appetizer order for our family. This waiter told us that another waiter would be by to take our lunch order. Several more minutes went by before this waiter came to our table. My children and I had received our drinks, but my husband had not received his beer and we were still waiting for our appetizer. After our appetizer and his beer finally arrived, we ordered. We waited an additional 30 minutes for our lunch to arrive. During this interim period, the original waiter plus two additional waiters came to our table to see if there was anything they could do for us. We told the fourth waiter that if our food was not ready, we were going to settle our tab and leave. Our food did arrive. So did my husband’s second beer and my refill on my iced tea. Unfortunately my older son’s steak was burnt. I understand that he likes his meat well-​done, but there is no need to burn it. The rest of the food was fine.
Just before we got our food, a couple sat down next to us. Just after we got our food, they were already receiving food. People who were seated after us were already leaving. I don’t know what happened to our order and why it took a total of four waiters to help us today. As a former waitress, I know that working in a restaurant is not easy, but the place was not terribly busy. It just seemed like there was a lack of communication and some laziness with some of the staff. The place needed a good sweep and the patio was cluttered with abandoned glasses and tea containers. Since it was such a beautiful day, there was no reason for the patio to look so messy and there is never a reason for the inside of the restaurant to have wrappers and spills all over the floor. My husband put on the top of the receipt WORST SERVICE EVER and underlined it multiple times. Yes, he still left a nice tip, but it wasn’t earned today. We will now be eating at another location.

Today was my mothers birthday dinner, and I hoped that this would be a alright place to go because she didn’t want to go to far. Yet the disappointing service and food made it not worth remembering. I got the make your own combo and I got a chicken taco and chicken enchilada. Wile my mother got a chicken fajita with a salad. This was not at all what I was hoping for and this was no where close to my expectations of a place to go eat and have a good time. The waiter talked to us constantly not understanding that we just wanted to be alone.
Over all not a place I want to go again. The little bowl of queso was $ 5… Could not believe it…

They make great margaritas here.
It’s the local OTB and our go to for Chicken Tortilla soup. It doesn’t get any better than OTB’s.

Gotta love those Avocado Fries! Always enjoy my food, and usually have good service too.
Except, the last time my fiancé and I dined there. We sat on the patio and the server that helped us was (hmm hmm, please excuse my bluntness) a prick. Not to us specifically, just his overall attitude. If I had met him on a first date I would’ve been less surprised by his pompous, I’m too «hot» (um, sorry, he wasn’t even that good looking) and «I have much better things I could be doing» rude tude. But he was supposed to be our server! He did finally smile and «act» like our server, when he dropped off our check. It was a day late and too many of his would be dollars short by then though. My biggest regret? Damn guy never told us his name, I forgot to ask him AND forgot to look on the receipt! Otherwise I’d blast him more specifically.
Okay. I’m breathing more regularly again now. Thanks for letting me rant.
BTW I’m not letting this bias my rating too much (this time) because the percentage of times we’ve had good service at this restaurant is still high.

Not a favorite of mine. Went here twice… probably won’t ever go to another On The Border again. The last time we went, it seemed like our waiter was high. Or maybe drunk. I’m not sure how though since their drinks are so watered down and not very good. It was just awkward… and the food isn’t even that great to overlook it and come back.

I’m not going to rant and rave about the food here, it was good, IT SHOULD BE. It’s a chain, but at least they are good at what they do. On The Border makes quick trendy Mexican food and it’s yummy.
I’ve ordered takeout from these guys too, I’ve not had any issues with my order and the food is still yummy.
The staff is ALWAYS friendly, the food is consistent. I don’t have any complaints.
OK, OK, you want a complaints? Negative sells right? Heres one…
The chips and salsa are so good that when I go here I get full before my meal comes… LOL
I’m not going to give a chain anything more than 3 stars, so they score for me the highest a chain can score. Good food, good place.