San Carlos Grill

Food was so awful! Ordered a Bean Burrito, and it was disgusting. I found a hair in the rice. I told waitress, and she apologized, and was not charged for entrée. Would never go back!

We decided even though we had had awful experiences here twice before, it had been years and we would give it another go! Mistake!!! The waiter is not good at multi tasking and makes mistakes even after you are very specific… Makes decisions for you! The chips were fried in really old and obviously dirty oil so they tasted awful, my boyfriends food was maybe a 6 out of 10 and mine was sent back! We had to ask for water refills… Ect ect! I would find some where else!!!

Awful margaritas with mix and little tequila. Awful tilapia. Incredibly slow service and mix ups in billing. Will not go again.

My wife & I ate both loved this place. She liked her enchilada & I loved my Albondiga soup. The chips & salsa are awesome. I recommended this place to everyone. The place is clean, refills are prompt, food is fresh, WiFi, silverware is clean, chairs are comfortable.

This open airy restaurant is at the end of the shopping plaza near the Oro Valley movie theater. Two or three times after watching a film I have walked over for lunch at San Carlos Grill with my movie watching buddy. The first two times I had lunch here, the service was quite lacking, and I’ve either had no silverware or something was amiss. This week our server was great and I am encouraged to want to dine here more because of how attentive the server was. The menu is basic Mexican food with rice n beans. In reviewing other Unilocal reviews I would agree the food is as generic and boring as it gets. I like eating great food and if not for my movie companion’s desire to eat within walking distance of the movie theater, I wouldn’t otherwise dine here. With Harvest moon closed for lunch at this time of year, I image San Carlos Grill is getting quite a lot more business.
Just 5 minutes down Oracle Road you can have El Charro Café which is a few bucks more and a much better menu selection and much higher quality.

This place went downhill. The chips were served cold with so-​so salsa. The service is not fast. Main dishes were equal in taste to a TV dinner. We were fans but not anymore.

From the cold costo chips and thin watery tomato salsa served under the patio’s mister turned up high on a cool summer night our meal at the San Carlos Grill went downhill from there… We gave ourselves permission not to finish and left regretting we had not known better from reading previous reviews.

Our server was friendly…
We ordered ceviche to start, I was very turned off by how soup like it looked. Gave it a shot and dipped my chip in and the shrimp looked like it had been put in pink food coloring (never seen this before) the flavor was good but very hard to force my self to eat bright pink shrimp. The Spanish rice and charro beans were the best part of my meal. The alcohol menu was very basic and nothing i would ever order from.

I really want to like this place. It has a great atmosphere and good location and one of my friends enjoys dining there so I’ve been there twice now. We went in the evenings and I noticed they seat people right up until closing time, which I appreciate, to me that says they are serious about wanting business. The service is mostly okay. Sometimes it takes considerable effort to get the server’s attention.
The main problem is the food. The salsa looks like it’s just blended tomato paste and doesn’t taste a whole lot better, and the chips are always a bit on the stale side. I ordered a chimichanga and it came to the table burned on one end. Not a little crispy, it was actually burned black. That should never have left the kitchen. The refried beans are liquidy and tasteless despite the teeny sprinkling of cheese on top.
On the second visit I ordered enchiladas which came to the table not hot or even warm, they were a little cool. Made me wonder where they came from. Also, the vegetarian at our table, who identified herself as such, asked what the charro beans were and the server didn’t mention that the dish isn’t vegetarian.
The food in general tastes over-​salted. It just seems like someone in the back is careless and not putting much effort into their dishes. Come on, San Carlos Grill, you can do better.

We have always enjoyed this establishment… until, 11÷14÷13. We recommended this restaurant for it’s wonderful scratch menu and very friendly staff. Yes, it took a little bit longer to get served, but it was always worth the wait, especially because of the friendly staff.
NOW FORGET IT. We met a couple of friends Thursday for a drink and appetizers and wow… what a change. Unfriendly staff, a horrible burnt Cheese Crisp w/​ugly chunks of uncooked green chile and little cheese. I did not complain because we did not want our newly acquainted people to be uncomfortable. We called to see if the business had changed hands and were told that it was under new management. And the attitude was like it or leave. WE CHOOSE TO LEAVE IT!

I will say the service was the best thing we experienced, even though it was before 11am on a Saturday. The food was ok, but nothing exciting. The breakfast burrito was the only tasty thing. The food portions are definitely on the smaller size – they try to trick you in this area by giving you shallow plates where the food is spread out; for example, I had a Mexican omelet and it was long and flat, and it was more egg than filling, while the refried beans were one bean width deep and covered a huge portion of the plate. Food lacked much flavor, but the décor and service we had was pretty good.

Stopped going here once they changed their happy hour. The food is grossly overpriced, particularly considering the portion sizes. Best spend your money elsewhere, I am frankly surprised it’s still open.

They lost our loyalty forever!!!
My wife and I were «Regulars» there since they opened! Everyone knows us there and we never complained once. UNTIL, I ordered the shrimp fajitas for $ 15 tonight. These shrimps were not much bigger than bay shrimp and there where 10 of them on the plate. I’m not kidding. I’m not that big an eater and I was still hungry afterwards. The waitress told Curtis (the new manager) of my request for a few extra shrimp being that they were so small. He sent her back to tell me that if I wanted more shrimp, it would be another $ 4. $ 19 for a decent sized dish of fajitas? I think NOT! Keep in mind, we are «Regulars» and live in town year-​round. You think they would do something to show they cared. We will NOT be going back to San Carlos ever again. The food isn’t good enough to deal with poor customer service. By the way, I wanted to give Curtis a chance to make things better, so I asked our server to send him over to our table. He didn’t! The best he could do, was to apologize that he wasn’t allowed to do anything when it comes to shrimp dishes. He added that he realizes that I frequented the restaurant with my wife and family often. Sounds like the owner must not care too much about word of mouth advertising by locals such as ourselves.
Thank goodness for Blue Banana Frozen Yogurt (next door). I was able to eat desert there and leave Oro Valley Market place full after all. (No thanks to San Carlos)

Yuck!
Sorry I hardly ever give one star reviews but this place is not worth going to.
Food was disgusting salsa was like marinara, the chilaquiles were the most disgusting thing I had ever had. The green sauce was so not okay.
Our server commented on how old I look (btw I am 27) and how my friend looked immature. Great job server
The alcohol was no bueno
Shrimp was overly peppered and gross.
Everything was bad so no this is just not the place. We will not visit again.
My suggestion to the owner one have servers who actually know the dishes and can recommend. Also make sure your servers don’t tell you about what they dislike and how they don’t eat there.
2. Make a cocktail that doesn’t just taste like syrup
3. It’s Tucson and Oro Valley so make sure if you are going to do Mexican to do it well.
If you guys want good Mexican this is not the place.

The service wasn’t so great. The place was empty, except another couple who were finishing their meal and left. This was around 2pm. The staff spent most of their time behind the bar area watching TV. The food was nothing to rave about, The prices of the meals do not equal the quality and the service you would expect in this area. Bland Mexican food. Bland service. Overpriced. No Bueno.

Went last night. Good service, all staff was working as a team. Waitstaff friendly and fast. Food, not so good. Fair entrees, I think the soups here are the best bet. Pretty expensive for basic Mexican. Might be back if in a pinch.

In a city like Tucson, with some of the best Mexican food to speak of outside of Mexico, there is NO EXCUSE for the sort of generic, bland and overpriced food this place is hocking. Even if it is technically in Oro Valley (that’s still not an excuse).
We visited around 6pm on a weekday. There were a few tables inside with folks and one or two people braving the humidity outside on the patio. So far as we could tell, there was one waitress, three bussers and a greeter who was no where to be found when we walked in. She eventually showed up and seated us at one of the only clean tables (many of them had old dishes still on them or hadn’t been wiped clean).
We ordered chicken mole, a chicken burrito and two sodas. Our total was somewhere around $ 35. Unacceptable.
They offered one ‘flavor’ of salsa with their chips and I found it too hot for comfort.
The mole was boiled chicken with some sauce dribbled over it. The ‘chef’ should be ashamed of himself. Deplorable.
The chicken burrito was alright, if not slightly smaller than what is typically found at sit-​down Mexican joints in town. The condiments included were laughable. Usually, you get a mountain of beans, rice, lettuce and tomato (mostly because it’s easy and cheap to fill a plate with these things), but here you got scraps. A little of this, a smidge of that. As if iceberg lettuce is expensive.
We were constantly waiting for refills on our soda and the single waitress they had working was so over-​tasked, she could hardly keep up with everyone, despite there being plenty of other bodies around the dining room. What was everyone else doing? I have no idea.
Overall, this is a very poor establishment. It has the cheap, ‘fake’ sort of feeling you expect in cities that don’t know what good Mexican food can be. The food is on-​par with what I would expect to find in an airport. Which is to say: bad and terribly overpriced.

I really wanted to like this place, but I didn’t. I’m hoping that maybe they just have some kinks they need to work out. Here are the kinks I found. First, we ordered two 2 taco plates and it cost us over $ 30.00. Second, the order was wrong on one of our dishes, and third, I wasn’t comfortable with the service. We were being helped by three different servers and then they were questioning us on what was going on.
I hope they can work it out because Oro Valley needs more restaurants.

It’s ok. Service is poor. The owners have their kids/​relatives waiting tables. I’ve been there several times on busy nights with people waiting to be seated & owner (wife) is taking up a table with a friend. We need a Mexican restaurant in OroValley but unless they become business savvy it will close. Food is just ok.

Ate lunch with about 75% of the tables full and what seemed to be adequate staff of servers however we had to flag the hostess over to get refills on drinks and their over-​cooked chips. I find this is a common problem at Mexican restaurants. They want to serve spicy food but not supply enough liquids to wash them down.
We ordered a chicken burro which contained only chicken inside the flour shell, no other ingredients, so it tasted dry and bland. We also found the salsa lacking in any flavor, only hot spices. I will not eat here again. The table next to us did not get their order taken for 15 mins and when they brought the food they had to ask for utensils and just look at their food while they waited. I could not figure out why this place was so crowded but maybe it is because its new and people are unaware and still checking them out.