Don Pablo’s Restaurant

Be careful when your server asks you if you would like sour cream or guacamole with your meal like it’s an option not an add on. it will cost extra. oh here’s the real funny thing: it comes with some meals but they still charge you $.50 or $ 1.99??? Depends on what meal you get, apparently. Makes no sense and it wasn’t explained at all.

Worst Mexican food ever!
This food is in no way authentic nor is it fresh. You can get a better quality version by purchasing an Ortega taco kit and making the food at home.
Their chips are greasy and stale. The salsa tastes like it came from a jar.
Will never return.

My first time at Don Pablos– I came with a friend at her suggestion, as she was craving Mexican.
We walked in, and got seated immediately. We were met by a smiling waitress whose name I cannot remember. She quickly got us drinks and chips and received our orders. I went for the fish tacos (with only fish and tortilla… I love Mexican but hate taco fillings. go figure!), while my friend got an enchilada combo. Two baskets of chips later, our food arrived via a runner with our waitress taking the order at the next table. As the runner placed the food on the stand, I noticed the tacos had cheese – not a huge deal, I could just scrape it off. As soon as the runner set my plate down, our waitress excused herself from the other table and said «no, no, no, only meat» and demanded that the runner take it back before getting back to her other table.
One of the managers swooped by to apologize and offer an explanation, but I had the plain fish tacos out in front of me only minutes later.
The tacos were great (go for grilled over fried)– lots of flavor. The rice was normal spanish rice.
I also got the empanadas for dessert because I was starving– for the price, they were fairly small, but very good.
Overall, the food tasted very good and I loved our waitress. A bit pricey, but nothing too outrageous. Based on other reviews, this place seems to be hit or miss… I’m glad we got a hit!

Ok… love, love, love this place. Every Tuesday is unlimited tacos. The real treat is a server named Shawn… best service ever! I usually get all the soup and salad… it is very delicious. We travel many miles for the food and the festival atmosphere hosted by Shawn. You must, must, go visit. Oh, he is there every Tuesday.

I’m not sure everything we were served was food. The staff was very nice, but the food was literally the worst «Mexican», «Tex-​mex» (or whatever it was trying to be) I’ve ever had. Now, I’m from New Mexico, so I’m aware I’m snobbish when it comes to the food genre… But this stuff was horrible even in comparison to something like Taco Bell dollar menu. Some was bad, like the «salsa» that was literally like chef boy R-​D tomato paste, but other items like the sopapillas were actually unedible.

Worst dining experience of my life. The last 2 times I have eaten there the service was absolutely terrible. The food is average at best and not worth the time or money. My drinking glass was so dirty I refuse to believe it was washed. I’ll never eat there again

Service has gotten really slow. Food in the past has been good, but not worth waiting an hour after we were seated. Not sure if I will come back.

The service is great, but the food just isn’t worth the price or time. It’s rare for me to think the food I make at home is better (or God help us, the fast food version is better) but that’s the case. Their ground beef isn’t seasoned at all, it’s very very bland and there’s no other seasonings in the food. The salsa is quite bad, it’s like a thicker version of chunked tomatoes without any seasoning. I’ve had better Mexican food at Applebee’s and Taco Bell :(. Also, it’s almost always cold when it gets to you even though it’s fast service. Normally I’d give the restaurant 2 stars for the great service, but since this is a chain restaurant I added another star since most customers will know what they’re coming for.

Food was fine. It’s Don Pablo’s, so if you like a fairly basic Mexican menu, you should enjoy the food. The staff, however, was outstanding! I rarely write reviews for chain restaurants, but the host and server we had went out of their way to help us and I would go back there for that reason alone!

Use to live in City while my children were very small but never had been to this particular Don Pablo’s. But it seems we came on the correct day and time… Tuesday at 5:20pm. It was Taco Tuesday, which means «UNLIMITED BEEF & CHICKEN TACOS»! We also arrived just before the rush started to take place as well. Good seating and quick ordering! The tacos can be ordered «soft shell» or «hard shell» and served with refried beans and Spanish rice! They start you with 3 tacos, then you can order 2 more at a time, over and over again! The Beef and Chicken for the Tacos are perfectly cooked and seasoned to my taste… with a bit of a spicy bite! Flour tortillas are also made fresh at their tortillas stand and Can’t beat the price…$ 7.99. Only down thing was that the attitude of the manager (whom went around to everyone table but ours to ask how things were going) couldn’t match the service of our waitress (Terra)! Thanks for great service Terra!

Good food — not excellent
Hot salsa — fair
Their Hot totillas is WOW
cleanliness — fair
the floor is very dirty with chips all over the floor
we have been there multiple times and its always the same
can surely be slightly cleaner
If the sitting area is dirty — how would the kitchen be?

I am incredibly disappointed in my visit to Don Pablo’s today. Not a single item we ordered for lunch was actually edible.
My salad and my companion’s burrito bowl were both incredibly bland. His burrito bowl came to the table with a total of two tiny pieces of chicken in it. When we complained he was given a small bowl with about 4 more tiny pieces along with a not so nice tasting sauce that was also on the chicken in my salad.
The queso was almost so cold by the time it arrived at the table, that it was too solid to dip chips in. Basically the only thing we consumed from our almost $ 30 lunch was the chips, many of which were chewy.
The most disappointing part of the whole thing was that when the manager came to the table, she was full of excuses. It was not good. As a business owner I couldn’t believe how she kind of blew the incident off, when we quite literally returned two whole plates of food. She did comp the cheese, but really it was an unacceptable response to my complaints.
I understand that Don Pablo’s isn’t actually authentic Mexican food and as such won’t have the flavors right, but nothing about the experience was good.

Exactly the same as any other Don Pablos, which isn’t necessary a bad thing.

Not a terrible choice for «Mexican» food. Unfortunately most times I go to this restaurant, they seem understaffed. A decent wait for food, and at times a decent wait to get a seat-​which appalls me considering how large this place is. Tonight the waiting area was full, however there were lots of available tables. It just seems like the servers don’t have enough time to keep up.
Fajitas are a crowd pleaser from Don Pablo’s. Their chips and salsa keep flowing, and their queso blanco is worth a dip. Margaritas pass the test here, and I can’t order without having corn cake as a side.

Food was good! Burritos were big and the steak quesadillas are legit… kids meal chicken was as hard as a rock… not sure how u burn chkn nuggets… but the add on queso in the kids meal for 59cents was awesome

If I could give this place a ‘zero’ rating, I would. We were there for a weekday dinner. The wait was 30 minutes though there were a number of empty tables. We were finally seated. Our waiter didn’t show up for another half hour. Milo, who was the host, came by and apologized for the wait because they were short staffed. He brought waters for our party of four. Another 20 mins later, we still hadn’t seen our waiter. We went to the front and told Milo to take our order. He did. A 45 minute wait later, our food came. The order was wrong. I’d asked for a chicken chimichanga but got a beef burrito. Tried to find the waiter but he was nowhere to be found. The food was way below average.
Two hours later, our waiter showed up and asked if we needed anything. We asked for water refills and ketchup for the fries. They never came. At one point, I asked my under aged daughter to go up to the bar and get ketchup. No results. No one seemed fazed at seeing a kid seated at the bar.
We finally left, disgusted. We wasted the food, not worth packing it up.
Milo was the only one who seemed friendly. I’ll never be back. Spent some four hours there for crappy food. Should have left a long time ago.
I didn’t leave a tip.

Suckered in by neon lights!
I am a moth when it comes to a restaurant covered in neon lights. So, against fellow Unilocaler recommendations that this place is meh, I followed the neon lights.
It’s all atmosphere here … and not much else. The waitress recommended her favorite dish, the «stuffed enchilada». I was not a big fan. I couldn’t tell if the enchilada was covered with melted cheese or runny sauce; regardless, I cared not for the flavor.
I didn’t know that this is a national chain restaurant, and, I must say — I wasn’t disappointed in my disappointment of the food at this place. But the neon lights are cool.

My experience today embodies why ‘Casual Dining’ is dying in America. Nice facilities, decent service, and cheap awful food.
Today, instead of experiencing the promised Tex-​Mex — I got a heaping portion of cheap corporate food, made at a factory somewhere and assembled on site.
The speedy lunch provided a taco, a tamale, and two sides.
The taco: nice soft tortilla, maybe the highlight of my meal. However I took all of the meat off it because rather than any sort of normal ground beef, I was presented with a strange finely textured meat like product reminiscent of Taco Bell beef filling. Covered in cheap cheese.
Fiesta vegetables– heated frozen veggies, but eatable. And the only portion of the meal that was not smothered in cheese.
Refrained beans– obviously canned or reconstituted. Way too salty, and covered in cheese.
Tamale– the worst part of my meal– inside of the tamale was pork– it had the texture of beef jerky, and was incredibly salty. It may have been ok on it’s own, but the tamale was smothered in a scary meat sauce that had the smell and taste of dog food, or cheap hormel canned chili.
No wonder consumer are opting for places like Chipotle where the service is willing given up for quality food. Or locally run places where the atmosphere may not be theme-​park like, but the food is actually made in premise, tastes like food, and is fresh.

Don Pablo’s pretty much lived up to my expectations: average Americanized Mexican food.
I was most impressed by their gluten free menu (which admittedly was the reason why I chose to come here). They had a variety of options and were even super willing to let me modify things further. The waitress talked us into trying the queso, and man, I’m glad she did! My dad and I were scraping the bowl clean.
The actual food was nothing special. I was hungry when I got there, and I left full. I’ve had better, and I’ve had worse. But for West Lafayette, IN (and trying to find something gluten free) Don Pablo’s isn’t a bad choice.

I haven’t been to a DP’s since moving from Texas, where they were fairly ubiquitous, so while passing through Lafayette in need of a meal we decided to stop here out of nostalgia, and since we were pretty sure we knew what we were in for.
Service was a little weird. The hostess stood bent over her table plan map as though plotting a battle campaign. The people in front of us were standing there while she employed what seemed to be great strategy. She came back to deal with us, asking, «Is a table okay?» We said okay, though a booth would have been preferable, assuming there were no booths… but then she led us back and there were several open. Huh?
Then there was the case of the missing waiter. We sat and waited… and waited… for someone to address us. Finally the waitress at the next table asked if we’d been helped. We said no, and she said she’d go and find who’d been assigned to us. A few minutes later a guy came out and rather casually said that he’d just gotten there and they’d assigned us to him. Okay…
We started with an order of the queso blanco dip, which was excellent, but ran out of chips halfway through… and our waiter vanished. I looked around and saw every other server in the area but no sign of our man. I finally flagged the kind young woman who’d helped us before and asked if we could get more chips because we didn’t know what had happened to our server. She was as nice and accommodating as can be.
Our meals were fair: I had the fajita trio, with chicken, beef and shrimp. The beef was a bit overcooked but the other meats were done correctly. Don Pablo’s tortillas are tasty and fresh (they have a «station» where you can watch them being made), though they only gave me three for all that meat… again, more waiter-​flagging. Sigh.
Also, I treated my dad to the meal, and the waiter not only gave the bill directly to my father initially but then gave the receipt and credit card BACK to him once he’d charged it! Not only was this presumptuous anachronistic behavior to begin with, but in the second place, pay attention! The blasted card has my (female) name on it.
As far as ambiance, the place is loud and large, one big warehouse-​y room, and there was almost no lighting on a dark wintry afternoon? Some gaudy neon and a fun fountain add accents.
Overall, this is a decent TexMex chain restaurant — better than On The Border, not as good as Uncle Julio’s. While I would eat here again, I’d hope that the service gets it together next time.