Arribas Mexican Restaurant

Casual sit down place. Margarita was okay. All other food we have was amazing. I got the costa azul (shrimp wrapped with bacon). The albondigas soup was good as well. Price is reasonable and the service is great!

The food was good and the prices fair. Waitress was very friendly. They had a 2 person band on patio… not the best music but it was fun. My dogs enjoyed lounging on the patio with us!

Went on a Saturday night, got seated right away, very good and friendly service, drinks right away, food came promptly, live music was wonderful, bill came right on time and taken care of in a very timely manner. Definitely 5 stars. I’ll be back for sure. Oh! Don’t forget to ask for their other salsas/​sauces. They have a delicious habanero sauce you can’t miss! Food is definitely worth coming back for on top of all the other great qualities!

Under new management and worth another try if you were burned befor. Food was great and service was top notch. Will be coming back soon

We have been going to Arriba’s for years. We have had good and not so good experiences with service and such. We went last night for dinner and learned it’s under new management but they still have the same good cook. The food was excellent as usual. It seemed more pricey than the old Arribas but the portions are great. Definitely not a place for tight pockets. The waitress was not the best but her personality made up for it because she was so friendly and funny.
The dining room could use a little more something .I guess it’s not that important but we were sort of looking around at it saying we would have made it more warm and authentic looking… more ambiance for sure. But with most place up there being small it’s not that big of deal. people just want good food and good service. We will definitely be back. Oh and try their Chile Rellano .it’s sooo good.

Awesome new gem in Idyllwild by the owners of CJ Fast fresh food. Similar recipes but different menu. The chili colorado is so savory flavorful and the steak a la mexicana has the right amount of spice. My wife loves the chili rellenos, and chicken enchiladas. Best margaritas (mango, strawberry, peach, and traditional) on the hill with a happy hour price of 3.99. Ask for it with a tajin rim instead of salt… it is outstanding!

Went camping with a couple friends and we were all craving Mexican food. Into the town we go!
Right across from that Ranger Station is this place, and we were starving like crazy, so we were ready to eat.
Upon arrival the prices were pretty high, which put me off, but once the plates came out holy crap.
Huge portions, and we were stuffed after. Even after a poor grumbly stomach from hiking we were barely able to finish our plates, so the prices were pretty justified.
The food was good, although it came out a bit slow. Maybe it was because we were hungry. Good service as well, stop by if you’re in town.

I give this place only a TWO. because the owner/​manager Cheryl needs to learn about customer service. Our family of five were camping in Idyllwild and had planned to have a night away from the grill. I purchased on
Just a few days prior a $ 25 voucher. We presented to the end of the table our voucher at the beginning of our meal. We learn our waitress was Cheryl the owner manager.
Beverages were served, unfortunately my top shelf Cadillac Margarita has a dead gnat floating in it… After 5 minutes of fishing it out I showed Cheryl. Sorry she said!
What should she have said and corrected? Dinner was served. All looked very good and plentiful. Just shy the tortilla’s for the fajita’s… Then corrected. Came the bill and we put the voucher in with the bill to adjust. Cheryl rushed back staying she would not accept the voucher. It all turned into a load shouting match about not accepting it. And I would need to call
to try and get my money back. Rather than create this scene. What should she have said. and corrected? I left determined never to return to a place that doesn’t understand customer service. My daughter had a slight better reception. After explaining to Cheryl that she needs to deal with
and end the unhappy customers and sour reviews… As in building a new business. Satisfaction, Good Reviews, and Returning Guests are the key… Cheryl did end up offering a Managers discount to soften the blow of the voucher. However Cheryl… Think about the long term of your business and keep them returning as the meals served are worth a much greater review.

OK, this place just changed ownership so maybe they time to work out the kinks, but they better act quickly to change things to avoid disaster. The food while tasty, was barely warm, the wrong order, very slow service on all levels and not worth the price. Other than that it was perfectly… horrible! Even the beer was served improperly. On the positive side the salsa and chips were good.

I had the asada/​cheese quesadilla! It was really tasty! A perfect little lunch! Our server was equally as nice!!! Sat on the patio and enjoyed the fresh air!

A nice clean place with very friendly staff and excellent service. I had the $ 1.49 tacos and they were great. Also had fresh crisp tortilla chips and tasty salsa. Definitely planning to return.

Love the tacos!!! best tacos around! We come here every time we’re in town. Salsa is average, but the service is great.

Pride of ownership shows in the NEW Arribas, as well as their first lunch café next door, CJ FRESH. Please know, that reviews written before the last month or so were about the PREVIOUS version of Arribas, which indeed, had a varied to awful reputation. C & J are doing a great job of letting you know, this is NOT that previous version. I agree with another reviewer, perhaps a NEW name would be better. They’re not going to ‘lose’ any loyal patrons from before. I’m sure there must be a lot of County ‘red tape’ to wade through to make a legal name change.
Now, they are known for their very friendly and welcoming vibe. All the staff too! Their biggest plus over the very popular other Mexican place in town, La Casita, is that Arribas serves REAL Margaritas– not just wine ones. We are BIG fans of Roberto’s La Casita, and we are confident, based on our great satisfaction with the CJ Fresh, that we will have to juggle both places when we go out for Mexican.
We love their margaritas, and had very nice Carne Asada, sliced and Fajitas. Excellent! I will have to say though, we DO find La Casita has better beans & rice, as they seemed a bit dried out, and not as flavorful. I will recommend that C&J find one or two items that are unique to their restaurant. Such as, Roberto at la Casita has his very popular green pepper sauce, on request, to go with the chips. I would love an option from traditional refried beans. Perhaps Black beans or lime/​cilantro refried beans?
We see that Arribas is now doing the Taco Night, same nights as La Casita. Perhaps doing different nights might be better, to start, as La Casita has a pretty regular crowd for their nights. We did see the ad in the local paper announcing the Taco Night, but there was no pricing. Also, the ad said ‘Locals Specials’ but no detail on that, or if it was implied, THAT was ‘Taco Night’, so the ad was a bit confusing.
All in all– DO go to Arribas. This is REAL, TRADITIONAL Mexican cooking! These are the hardest working owners on the hill.

We were there over memorial weekend and we’re not aware of the previous Unilocal.We found none of the issues mentioned. I do believe that the waitress’s were probably new. They were very attentive. The chips were not fresh but that would be the only negative thing I could say. The machaca was really good, according to my husband. I had the veggie fajitas which were very yummy. My daughter wasn’t greatly impressed with her shrimp tacos.

We settled on this establishment after getting a
certificate and reading decent reviews pre-​February. I wish I had logged back in just before we came and read updated reviews and we would have stayed away because the other two negative reviews are spot on.
Positives:
1. The salsa is decent.
2. The chicken that didn’t have bones in it was okay.
Negatives:
1. My husband’s pork enchiladas nearly caused a cardiac episode from the extreme amount of sodium. I tried a bite and the meat tasted it came from a can tossed in salt. Terrible.
2. The abondigas soup also tasted like it was from a can. It actually needed some salt so we crushed up tortilla strips and added them to help.
3. My favorite… the great tortilla debate of 2015. I ordered flour. I got corn. I asked for flour. The waitress insisted they were flour. I asked if she was sure and she said she checked with the chef and he said he was pretty sure they were flour. I tried a bite to make sure I wasn’t hallucinating… yep, corn. I asked another waitress and she said they looked like corn. She sent back our waitress and she again insisted they were flour. I offered her a bite. She finally took them to change them out. I finished my dinner without ever getting my mythical flour tortillas.
4. Beans = bad. Rice = okay flavor but old.
5. If you have a
certificate, make sure to print it out or they won’t redeem it even though the instructions were on my phone. She said they would honor it so I clicked redeem and then found out they only took $ 4 off, not the $ 15. Rather than start another debate, we paid and left. She said to print it and bring it next time. Next time… not ever.
If you still feel brave and like a challenge, please follow this advice: stick to bottled beer and chips and salsa.
The staff is nice but they don’t have it together… I hope they fix it or I don’t think this place is long to stay open.

We came in with a big group. The service was good, but the food came out over the course of about 20 minutes. I had the carnitas, which was good. The rice and beans that came with it were average.
The only issue I had was that after that meal, a bunch of us from the group spent lots of time in the bathroom. While nobody was sick in the traditional sense, we definitely were experiencing some ill effects of the food. My guess is that there are things on the menu that they don’t sell a lot of and as a result are not very fresh.
Overall, I’d stick to the more basic and popular Mexican food items here.

I went here with my SO, DD, DS, and friends with their small children. The hostess saw us but was too busy with her phone and wandering around that we were seated by who we think was the owner’s daughter or relative.
The restaurant is a little run down, but it (and the bathroom) was clean. It was cute when we saw a young girl cleaning down a table (better than the waitresses). The waitress took our drink and food orders and she was off. She brought us two ice teas and two margaritas, the latter being rather weak, and she never came back to check on our drinks or to ask us how we were doing.
We thought we would be in and out, but we were not. We waited a long time for our food — a kids meal, a dinner sampler, and two lunch plates — about 45 minutes, BUT I can say that it was all very good. We liked it and it certainly made up for the slow, impersonal, and out of touch service. Because we were with four children under 3.5, we scarfed down our food to get out of there before one of them completely lost it. The wait totally overshot our normal toddler behavior window, so we couldnt’ enjoy the meal (oh well, it happens).
It seems that the owner and his family seem to genuinely care about their restaurant, but their waitresses were just not good. Not friendly at all. Replace the front house staff and things can perform much better. The food quality was its saving grace, but the restaurant could use new furniture, fresh décor, and better wait staff.

After hiking Marion Mountain Trail to San Jacinto Peak in one day, we were tired and hungry. This was the 1^st place we spotted so we decided to eat here. It was a Sunday night at 8 pm. It wasn’t busy. We were seated right away and service was good.
We ordered:
— I think mine was called the Special Plate or something like that which included pork enchiladas with green sauce, beans && rice, and meatball and veggie soup.
— Chicken Enchilada plate with rice && beans and soup as well
Chips tasted a lil stale, but the salsa was good.
The portions were huge, almost like a burrito. They were decently tasty but since we were so tired and out of it we took two bites and asked for to go boxes. Not too authentic, but for being on the mountain still the food wasn’t terrible.

After a 2 day backpacking trip to the San Jacinto Peak, my friends and I stopped here to fulfill our overdue craving of Mexican food! We’d been starving since we had just hiked about 8 miles that day.
We came here around 4pm on Labor Day and were surprised that there were actually a lot of people here. We were quickly seated upon entering and they immediately started us off with unlimited chips and salsa. The chips were okay but the salsa was really good!
Since they served breakfast all day, the Mexican Scramble caught my eye. It took a really long time for all the food to come out after we ordered but we had the chips & salsa to satisfy us for the time being. I found that the food was overpriced for the okay food (I think it was $ 9+). The scramble wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t anything amazing that I couldn’t have made at home.
We also ordered margaritas but I felt like it kinda tasted like something that came out of a margarita mix and ended up tasting too sweet.
Overall, I really loved the service here but the food didn’t cut it.
TL;DR:
Food: ²⁄₅
Service: ⁴⁄₅
Price: $$

We stopped here for a hot second (or 30 minutes) for margaritas, sodas, and nachos before we got on the road to head back home after a long weekend of camping. I remember this place from my childhood, but luckily I was too young to remember much because that means I don’t know how far this place has fallen.
On the plus side, the sodas were huge, the salsa was good, and the margaritas, while they tasted like they came from a mix, were decent in taste and in strength.
Unfortunately the negatives stacked up pretty fast. The nachos needed about 500% more chips for the amount of toppings, no exaggeration. The service was on the slow side and while it wasn’t at all unfriendly, it wasn’t at all friendly either. Oh, and holy mother of God the chicken in the nachos was disgusting. The chunks tasted fine, but why were they surrounded by a gelatinous goopy mess? It looked like clear snot. I know it wasn’t, because no single group of people could produce that much in time to put on a plate, but wow was it unappetizing. It reminded me of the videos of people taste testing chicken in a can. Don’t google that, you will be grossed out and will lose your appetite.
Anyway, the place made me sad. I guess that’s what I get for suggesting Mexican food in the mountains.