Rancho La Lena

In short, the WORST service I’ve ever encountered eating out, and below average food. This is a long review, but worth reading!
My mom and I came here on a Saturday afternoon. We had a coupon from the Entertainment book, that’s the only reason why we chose this place to start with. The entire restaurat is outdoors on a patio, so we stood at the entrance and waited to be approached by someone who worked there. After standing there for several minutes, we were FINALLY approached by the waitress/​owner. Already, this isn’t a good sign.
My mom ordered enchiladas and I ordered carne asada tacos. That is, we ordered our food after waiting about 10 – 15 minutes for the freakin waitress/​owner to stop by our table. We even had to ask for chips & salsa! We waited for our table, we waited for chips & salsa, we waited for her to acknowledge us and take our order, and we’re not even done waiting yet!
The salsa was not very good and that is usually an indication of the food the restaurant serves. We finally get our food and I had to laugh at the look on my moms face when she took a bite. She said that the enchilada sauce is the worst enchilada sauce she’s ever had. My carne asada tacos were good, so I didn’t even want to taste my mom’s sauce. My mom and I agree that the rice & beans are the worst rice & beans that we’ve ever eaten. The rice was old and flavorless and the beans were even worse than the rice. The waitress NEVER stopped by our table to see how our food was.
My mom and I finished our meals (didn’t even want to finish everything) and waited for the waitress to bring our bill. We waited and waited. Then we waited some more. No joke, about 15 minutes after she had walked around and ignored us, I stood up and waved my hand to get her attention. I would never do that any other time because it’s rude, but the waitress was horrible and obviously needed me to flag her down.
While waiting for her to bring me the bill, a group of people sat themselves at a neighboring table. They waited and waited. I preceded to tell them about my experience of that establishment thus far, and they left. That was my community service for the day. All they wanted was margaritas and the waitress NEVER stopped by their table.
I didn’t want to leave a tip, but my mom just couldn’t do that, so she left her a $ 1.00. One dollar too much in my opinion. Bad salsa + horrible rice & beans + bad enchiladas sauce + the worst service EVER = a 1 star rating.

Me and my family, my brother and his family brought our mom here for her birthday. The atmosphere was quaint, the food was good and diverse and the staff was very accomodating. We had the Sunday Brunch Buffet. They offered some traditional favorites and some interesting new dishes like Cactus Salad, which I recommend. There was something for everyone. I wanted to find a place that was slightly off the beaten path, non-​touristy, non-​crowded and reasonably priced and I found it. I was not disappointed. We will definitely be going back.

We ended up stumbling on this place completely by accident, on our way to another food establishment in Old Town that we had originally planned to eat at (I believe it had the word «Coyote» in its name). As we were driving past it, it was so packed that we decided we did not want to have to wait for a long time, and deal with loud, drunken crowds. So, as we were leaving Old Town we came across Rancho La Lena. The food was very good. The salsa was outstanding. My boyfriend ordered the chile relleno, which he really liked, and I ordered the camarones a la diabla, which was quite good. I would definitely recommend coming here if you are looking for good Mexican food in a non-​touristy, loud or trendy atmosphere in Old Town.

I tried this place out since my wife and I had tickets to a show in Old Town and wanted to try someplace new to us (we also can’t pass up the chance to use an Entertainment coupon). I was wary because of the negative reviews of the service but went for it anyway.
When we showed up we were immediately greeted and asked if we wanted to sit inside or outside. We were then quickly met by our server who took our drink orders and laid out some chips. Everybody was quite friendly.
The menu seemed rather limited, though it did have a variant of fajitas that were cooked in a stone pot. It was quite tasty and a nice change from the usual Mexican fare. My wife ordered fajitas and enjoyed them.
Quite honestly, my experience was good enough so that I would be more likely to have a dinner here than at one of the tourist meccas in Old Town that make you wait 45 minutes before being seated. Not that this place was outstanding, but it was a nice meal on a pleasant patio, without having to stand outside the restaurant for a half hour before being crammed into a hectic dining room.

I went to Rancho La Lena this past weekend with 3 other adults. It was a Sunday, so they had their brunch going, but it was just after noon, so it wasn’t overly crowded. I recognize that there are unforeseen events that, as a customer, I would not know about, but the serving staff were incredibly slow. It took ~30 minutes to get our order placed. Once the food arrived there were a couple of mistakes with the order (corn instead of flour tortillas, the wrong drink, etc.), but the food itself was fairly tasty so that’s why I would rate them 3 out of 5.
I hope it was an off day for the staff and the food remains good.

We ate there on a Saturday night at 7:30. Should have been prime time, but the place was mostly empty.
The wait staff was friendly and efficient. The food was OK. The tortillas are made fresh and were pretty good. My wife ordered the steak special and it was awesome. My son really enjoyed his quesadilla. I ordered the spicy shrimp (Camarones a la Diabla). It was not great. I felt the sauce was too sweet. I only got about 6 shrimps … for $ 15.99.
The bottomline is that the food is definitely passable, but I would come back again because of the peace and quiet unlike the tourist purgatory a couple of blocks away.

This place has pretty good food. There is plenty of outside seating and the servers are really, really nice. My coworkers and I love the albondiga soup. Problem is they always run out! We have to eat lunch at 1:30 PM. and twice this week they ran out. One server told us that because of the economy there are not that many people in Old Town so they are not preparing as much food every day. That kinda sucks cause we ended up missing out twice this week. We tried the shrimp soup and the fish soup and they were both very good too. The salsa they give you with the chips is really, really good. I think this is pretty safe bet for Mexican food in Old Town and beats many of the more touristy places. It’s a little hidden from the main street but it is worth finding it compared to other places.

I had a surprisingly good dinner here this past weekend. I normally avoid Mexican food in Old Town like the plague b/​c of the tourist situation down there, but I had family staying at a hotel nearby who were tired and wanted a quick dinner. The soup was delicious that was served with the larger dinners, and all of our meals were authentic and quite good. Maybe we just hit it on a good night, but everyone enjoyed their meal. The staff and cooks also were very friendly and the establishment was family friendly as well. They also had a sign board advertising their combo meals as 2 – 1 on M-​F happy hour (I believe 4 – 7), which would be quite a steal if they are as good as they were this weekend.

I stopped by this place without ever having heard of it. It was Sunday brunch for 14.95, and I was VERY pleased with everything. The omelets were made to order with fresh ingredients all laid out for your view, and even the tortillas were cooked to order. I had a sampling of several of the tortilla fillings, and enjoyed all of them, especially the chicken mole. Unfortunately, I am allergic to peanuts, and had a mild reaction to that – not all places used to use peanuts in their mole sauce, but I guess it’s the rule rather than the exception now. I don’t know how they are for dinner, but I was absolutely delighted by the brunch! And they had GREAT coffee!

I hate to give a starving restaurant 2 stars but it was not good. We were the only table in the restaurant. The spanish rice was crunchy in spots. The chips were greasy and ceviche was made with boiled shrimp. The Carnitas Michoacan was overcooked although the sides were fresh.
The outstanding dish of the evening was a rustic chicken soup with garbanzo beans and a side of spicy chipotle sauce.
In the end, the soup says La Lena might be very good on other nights but on our visit we, plus the cook and waitress wished they were home.
Mike

so. no one else was in there, but the food was great! I had the garlic shrimp — and there was something different (in a good way) about their beans and rice. Shrimp was moist, nicely spiced, as were the salsas. If you’re not a huge fan of overly sugared horchata, try theirs — nice & mild counterpart to the entrees.
Definitely not as touristy as some other options. Apparently it was so popular in TJ that this version migrated north to SD for our eating enjoyment.