Tapioca Express

Always love coming here before or after class for a refreshing drink! Plus the employees are wonderful!

Love coming here! The staff are always very friendly and the drinks refreshing. Mikey always remembers my order and recognizes all the regular customers that come in! He always makes my drink the best!

Best tapex location I’ve been to yet. I’ve been to quite a couple of spots scattered around San Diego but this location in San Marcos gave the best experience a customer could ask for. Walking in, I got greeted with such welcoming faces. The guy currently working at the time (I’ve believe his name was Mikey) gave off a pleasant customer service! With great attitude and recommendations of drinks that crave my thirst. Astounding staff at this Tapex! Will come back.

Great and quick service from this TapEx! Staff always has awesome recommendations for new things to try and if you want something made a certain way, they make it to your expectations and more. Mikey, one of the employees, is always a great help when I visit so ask for his help the next time you go!

Each time I have been to this location the service has been fast and friendly. The drinks have been made well, and the selection is better than other local boba places. I will definitely keep coming back.

This is my new favorite location. I ordered a honey dew slush and the popcorn chicken combo. The honey dew was great! And is made with real fruit which is a huge plus, trying to stay on that healthy tip. I guess having the popcorn chicken weighs that healthy part back down to just being normal, not healthy. But I told the cashier/​server/​cook (he was the only one there) that I like my chicken extra crispy and he did just that! The chicken was perfect, rice was good, and something unique about this location is they served it with green beans. Mikey was the one who helped me with achieving such a tasty meal and drink. His customer service skills were truly amazing, considering the fact that he was the only person working at the time with other people coming in to order. This visit to the San Marcos location has made a lasting impression and I will be frequenting it more often than the others. I’ll also bring my friends and help this small business grow since it is still quite new. Thank you Tapex for providing such great service to the community.

I have been coming to this location ever since it opened. I’ve seen it blossom into a thriving communal space. I had the best experience earlier this week while going in for my weekly Thai tea. I was having a really crappy day but it was turned around by the great customer service there. There was a handsome young man named Mikey who helped me that day, he was very personable. Customer service? Check. Great Boba? Check. Consistency? Check. Thanks Tapex!

This place is great! Nice décor, relaxing atmosphere and awesome staff. If you ever stop by ask for Mikey. He is extremely helpful and delivers quality food and drinks!

This place is great. Serves me what I wanted, and didn’t take long. My server Selena was patient with me while I looked at the board and didn’t give me any attitude. I’m going to come go back, and who knows maybe in the future, I’ll want to work there.

One of the greatest boba places in San Marcos and conveniently located across campus. Everyone there is very nice and excellent customer service. I place my order with Selena (cashier) and she made a very good recommendation when I didn’t know what I wanted and made me the best drink ever. I will definitely come back again in the near future thank you tapioca (:

I come here because there are no boba places around in San Marcos (and probably within a 10 mile vicinity) with the exception of that random boba place across the street from SMHS. Your standard Tapex drinks with your standard tapex food, nothing memorable, but definitely satisfies the fix and is much better than driving to Mira Mesa or Convoy for boba.
PROS
— Standard Tapex Fare executed well.
— I know this is by CSUSM, but do kids even go to that school? This place is almost always empty and I rarely see any students’ foot traffic.
CONS
— the hours drive me mad. They close at 10 when every other boba place I know closes *at LEAST* at 11. They also have «off school» hours where I think they close at 9?

Cant go wrong with boba!
Love that they gave you a discount for checking in on Unilocal.I got the blended coconut ‘slushy’ with Boba. Definitely drank the entire thing!
Gave it 4 stars because the menu is a little difficult to read and it was slightly overpriced

I had a passion fruit green tea with boba not too long ago & was less than impressed. The tea was sour & some of the boba was undercooked & hard, while others were mushy. My first time at this new location & it was kind of a let down. I’ll probably give it one more chance before sticking to Bubble Tea!

Come here if you want to chew your drink and eat mushy boba.
I’ve been here about two times and had really bad experiences at both. First time, I ordered a matcha snow with boba. A regular was a little over $ 5. The girl making my drink was pretty friendly but took forever. I was the only one in the store and about 20 minutes later, I got my drink. The boba was good but the drink was way to creamy and tasted like water down matcha. I decided to give the place another chance and came during the evening when it was a little busier (still, I was the only one ordering). I ordered the same drink and the young girl at the counter lacked basic customer service skills but whatever. While I was waiting for my drink, the girls behind the counter were shouting and laughing with other customers rather than making my drink. When I got my drink, it was bland like before, there were huge ice chunks, and the boba was extremely mushy and disgusting. Probably the worst boba place I’ve been to.

Located by The Quad, north of the CSUSM campus, this place is okay.
I ordered the Taro Snow Bubble with Boba. It was really creamy compared to other places that I’ve tried. I wish they would put more boba with one order. It really wasn’t enough for the whole drink and it was pretty expensive for a regular sized drink.
I still highly prefer Boba Bar & Desserts inside Zion Supermarket, but for North County, this place is meh. Alright.

I’ve lived in North County for 3 years now and you better believe that when I randomly Unilocaled «boba» in «San Marcos,» my heart almost exploded when «Tapioca Express» appeared on the results list. YES! A boba place just down the street and I no longer have to schedule my boba trips around errands near Mira Mesa or Clairemont!!!
I really looked forward to visiting this newfound location, but it was difficult to find because 1.) GPS gave me funky directions and 2.) the familiar TapEx sign is obstructed by trees — so it’s pretty hard to locate while driving down Barham. It’s not really on Barham. You’ve got to turn on Campus Way, away from the school.
So I went in and ordered my drinks: large iced milk tea with boba and egg pudding and a regular hot chai vanilla with boba. First, I approve of the milk tea flavor and boba consistency (at least the batch served this evening) — soft and perfect to the core. And that’s about all that was good from today’s visit.
My name was called, as my order was ready, and I stood there in disbelief because my LARGE milk tea was served 2 inches below the rim of the plastic cup! And that’s with ice already in it! I mean, #really?! Did you not notice the drink level as you proudly served it? I questioned the nice girl who served it to me and she apologized, took my cup, ripped the plastic film off the top and just ADDED ICE! I just laughed because I could not believe how she remedied the problem. Granted, they got busy right after I ordered, but still… I was really hoping for a better solution.
There goes my dreams and aspirations of becoming a frequent buyer. TapEx, I TapOUT.

Meh it’s ok. I was so excited at first that there was a TapEx closer to my house than the Oceanside location, or even Convoy. Been there twice (both at night) and can’t say I have fallen in love.
They have great service every time I am there, however that is in the late hours when practically no one else is around, so yeah… Quick, have loads of information when asked about what is in what, and things they recommend, as well as cleanliness of the store.
Usually get the popcorn chicken or fried calamari in Convoy location so decided once I would order the same up here. Not very good. The calamari were rubbery and the popcorn chicken was mostly breading or came out a little soggy. Meh. I guess I have to stick with the drinks. Have since ordered the thai tea snow bubble drink with baby boba (because they were out of regular ones) and the grass jelly frosti milk. The thai tea snow bubble was good and a bit on the sweeter side than I’m used to when going to other boba places, and the grass jelly frosti milk was interesting. It was like a shaved ice with custard, grass jelly (duh, but they have different flavors of their frosti milk drink), as well as syrups. I had to wait until my drink melted a little to enjoy the flavors because otherwise it would just taste like shaved ice with condensed milk.
If I really wanted to go to a TapEx I would just go to the Convoy location. Even the Oceanside location has gone downhill since their grand opening (with regards to food). I would only go here if I was really craving their drinks, or in the area. There’s Bubble Tea not too far away from here so that’s another place to consider if you don’t want to travel down to San Diego.

The food here isn’t the same as other tap ex’s I’ve been to. The crispy chicken here seems like it’s more crumbs than anything else. I also wanted to try the calamari rings but it was way different that what I expected it to be. The picture on the wall was not even close to what was given. There was like 8 pieces of calamari rings that looked more like onion rings. It wasn’t that good and what I remember it to taste like.
The workers were in the back room and the place wasn’t busy. It didn’t make sense why no one was in the front of the place. It seemed like it was closed. Not really the same experience as other places.

My husband had no idea that there was a Tap Ex in north county. He always went to the one in Clairemont and Eastlake when he was there. When we found out there was one in San Marcos, he HAD to go. We had a hard time looking for it even though we used our Google navi. We eventually realized it was located in the building with The Quad apartments. There is a small parking lot. We went when the students were on winter break, so it wasn’t. busy at all.
I got an almond snow bubble and it was good. My husband likes to get spicy chicken. He liked it the first time we went. The second time around, he wasn’t too happy because he felt like he got a lot of crumbs. They have other food there including lumpia and fries.

It’s so nice that North County is being populated more with GOOD authentic Boba places and it has long been overdue! The only place before use to be Bubble Tea and I had to settle for that if I was craving Boba THAT badly! Now thanks to Tap Ex, I can get my boba fix and not have to settle!
I always opt to get the Black Milk Tea with Boba. It’s a classic, but there’s a reason why classics are still around because they’re good! I also tried the Passionfruit Snow Bubble with Rainbow Jelly. That was reallyyyyy good! Like you could taste the tropical fruitiness of the Passionfruit and was perfectly sweet!
This location is different and I’m still deciding if it’s a good different or bad different. It’s located next to CSUSM and while it’s still winter break, there was virtually no one in there, I’m sure that when school is in session that place is packed! Also the parking is really small and the stores on the bottom level with the CSUSM dorms being on top. I like the concept of it, but the parking situation is not my favorite. I think it should be over by the Starbucks and grocery store shopping center instead.