Mexico Cafe Delano

Only reason for a 4 vs. 5 is the chips are not homemade. 82 year old mom still works the kitchen to help out. Great place is Delano district. Owner used to run El Mexico. Tacos are the bomb and live the salsa.

The first red flag was when the waiter set down the half filled basket of chips that looked like they were dumped out of a plastic bag.
The waiter was perfectly friendly, but didn’t know much about the menu or what was in stuff. The food came rather quickly, but it didn’t taste very fresh. My pork was extremely fatty and my friends burritos were soggy.
Very disappointing. Will not even be returning for a second try.

Great atmosphere. You can feel the Delano history around you. The staff is as friendly as any I’ve ever encountered. The menu is wonderful, but don’t cheat yourself by leaving without having a taco! Best taco in my life!

Not Mexican. If expecting Tex-​Mex, then maybe ok. Service was good, owners are very kind, but please, stop microwaving!

Mexico Café is one of my favorite Delano eateries. The owners are incredibly nice and always helpful. I’ve had a few different dishes, but the fried flour ground beef taco with a side of beans is my go to. I think they could stand to be a little more heavy handed with the seasoning, but I like it so much more than the countless chains in Wichita.

Allow me to play the devil’s advocate here, and start by saying that Mexico Café is firmly entrenched in Tex-​Mex — not Mexican — cooking. There’s a different standard down there, and comparing them to the many Mexican restaurants I tried in San Antonio, Mexico Café hold up well in some places. In others, not so much.
The freshly-​fried taco was novel. Flour tortilla or not, it reminded me of a puffy taco without much of the puff, though it made up for it in the ground beef, which was seasoned. I know that sounds like something pretty insignificant, but you would be surprised how many Mexican places I ate in South Texas where even seasoning the ground beef was an accomplishment.
I will say that I could hear the microwave door opening and closing four times while my meal was being prepared. Sometimes, that’s not so bad, like my bowl of chili verde, which despite not being verde in any sense of the word, was a pretty successful — if not loose — bowl of chili with some significant pork chunks included along with tomato and spices. Certainly is better than the Sysco chili you might find at burger restaurants, for instance, and really was the only part of the meal in which I had no real issues.
I know another slam of the microwave door was for my cheese enchilada. Let’s forget for a moment that Mexico Café advertises sales of their enchiladas by the half dozen, and let’s further forget that the proper constructing of an enchilada involves baking it in an oven — microwaving the vast amount of cheese that was included on my plate did indeed melt it, but it also separated it, leaving a good bit of grease on my plate, and the edges of my enchilada sauce even started to harden. Tex-​Mex or not, this is by all accounts a poor and lazy reconstruction of a dish.
Things improved slightly with my tamale, which was so large as to require two corn husks, and while the pork inside was quite dry, the pork chili with which it was served (the true chili verde, it would seem), wasn’t bad at all, and I think Mexico Café’s strong suits were towards the long, slow, stewed dishes… which also lend themselves well to being reheated in the microwave.
The Tostitos and salsa were poor.
I think it you came to Mexico Café looking for Tex-​Mex, your expectations won’t be too disappointed. If you’re looking for actual Mexican food, however, you better get the hell out of Delano.

These are some of the nicest people on earth! Mary the owner and her daughter Ruth are priceless. But, their food needs a lot of help. Then again so does every Mexican food place in Wichita. I like this place so much I’m going to ask them to please kick the food up a notch so they don’t go out of business. So, go by eat and tell them I sent you. It may help me get us some decent Mexican food in town. The one food exception was the beef taco. They lightly fry a flour tortilla then fill with beef lettuce and tomato. Just like I used to make back home in Texas!

While driving around in Delano looking for a place to chow my co pilot spantaniously picked out mexico café «let’s try something new“she added. We were in for a real treat let me tell ya. Let’s start with the chips and salsa, the chips were a knockoff brand of tostitos that were tasteless and semi stale. Salsa! holy hell the salsa was terrible it tasted like marinara sauce (mozzarella sticks would’ve been great with the so called Mexican salsa). The chips and salsa indicated a red flag for me shouldve fled the scene. Now the food !! We both had the ranchero plate, it was nothing special beans, rice and literally 3 pieces of meat smoothered in a high sodium packed chile verde sauce. The place is a nice welcoming environment, good service but needs a serious menu over haul.

Really gross «Mexican» food. My enchilada tasted exactly like a chili dog from Sonic, no joke. It’s not even close to what good Mexican should taste like. The salsa was ok but it did taste similar to jarred salsa. The taco was in a fried flour shell, which was strange. The rice and beans were good, but that is pretty hard to mess up, so no kudos there. Will never go back.

The 4 stars are for the tacos. Everything else would probably get three stars. I always enjoy my meal here (usually overeat), but the service is always a bit funny/​slow/​awkward. Prices are also very reasonable. Good lunch spot though it can be busy and if you’re looking for a quick place this might not be it.

I really really wish I could give this place a good review. I like the location in Delano surrounded by all the little shops. The waitstaff, one of which I think was the owner were so extremely nice. I enjoyed the pleasantness of the people much more than the food. I ordered a Monterrey special, which was extremely bland, my boyfriend said the same of his all meat burrito. I think his was better than mine, I really didn’t care for my meal. The queso is gas station quality nacho cheese. Hands down worse queso I’ve ever consumed. Like I said, QT nacho cheese… a BOWL of it. Nothing we ordered was any good, down to the salsa which was very similar to the cheap Ortega taco sauce with maybe a can of tomatoes mixed in, and they only serve soda from cans.
It’s unfortunate with such nice people, and great location that I have to say I’ll never be going back here unless they completely overhaul their menu. Your 85 year old grandma might love this place, I on the other hand hate HATE bland food.
What a shame.