Juanita’s Restaurant

Unfortunately, the business is run by a whore and two drunk brothers. What kind of service, entertainment and food do you expect from that.
Yes, they are thieves. They overcharge people and don’t pay their employees well. Their waitresses are not paid at all and simply work for tips. Other staff work for beer –what losers. They barrow money in small or large sums and fail to repay.
It’s sad that they run their business this way but name it after their dead mother. You would expect a business with integrity.

This Place has a great vibe… a great ambience. They cater to local artist who fill the wall with gracious and beautiful art… Try the Sangria, their house salsa, enchiladas, and chicken avocado soup… superb!

Up and coming Juanitas looks to be the successor to the throne of Highland Park cool music venue.
Well decorated, cheap drinks and good food served by friendly laid back staff. Excellent toastadas and $ 3 Negro Modelos. Large outdoor patio that is warm even in the chilly winter LA night.
The sound gets a bit ringy because the ceiling is 30+ feet high. The booker is bringing the Highland Park heavies in and they are all having great shows. (Seasons loves the place, and I love Seasons).
Juanitas is where its at. 90 042 pride.

Luv this place. The atmosphere is great. Been there Saturday nights and there is always a live band and DJ playing all of your favorite hits (top 20, 80’s, spanish rock, salsa etc.). Drinks are not too expensive. I have not tried the food but the friends I was with say that their dishes were delicious. Sometimes they will have a cover charge if there’s a special event but it does depend on the band. Halloween night was awesome it was packed and lots of fun and there was no cover charge. Nice place to enjoy a drink and good music.

I would like to say THANK YOU to the person who also feels insulted by the homophobic comment that one of the reviewers made regarding Juanita’s previous management as the former «la casa blue». I decided to be the bigger person and not start a «yelp» fight but Guess what… fuck being the bigger person! Her comments were not just personal attacks on the owner who she has an obvious war with; fair enough. But on the gay community as a whole. As if Juanita’s merely being associated with a gay owner would suggest that frequenting the establishment would get her son ass-​raped in the restroom. I would like to give people the benefit of the doubt and hope that she was emotional-​crazy-​hormonal when she made that comment, but probably not. Hey, I guess it’s her «personal choice» to not associate with those kind of people, and I guess we know how she stands on prop 8.

Pretty fun place for a Sunday afternoon lunch!
There is a female mariachi trio that plays here at 12:00 pm noon. They play just as good as they look. Pretty women that can sing and play their hearts out. I’m a sucker for that!
The décor inside feels like I’m actually south of the border. Lots of wood, high ceilings, and obscure colors spruce up the venue.
I had the green, chicken enchiladas. I thought they were excellent. Not overbearing with the cheese, and not swimming in the sauce. Strips of the enchilada were long, lean, and perfectly bite sized when you cut it up.
Looks like what this place is know for is their Chicken Avocado Soup. It’s good. A little strange to have fresh avacados floating around in the soup, but nonetheless, very tasty. The broth is an excellent mixture of chicken and lemon. Must Try.
On the otherhand, my girlfriend ordered the carne asada plate and that was pretty weak. Over cooked and dry. Looks like it was leftover carne that they reheated from the day before. We should have sent it back, but she was hungry and scarfed it down.
*** big plus on the fresh salsa verde and salsa rojo. HOT! Just the way i like it

Alright if you read my previous post the food and service is really bad, but… when the waiter said we have Mariachi «Trio Ellas» it’s a 3 Female Mariachi group, show time is Sundays at 12:30, I said I would be back to check it out.
So we arrived at about 12:25 with only 4 other people in the place! I assumed by then the Mariachi’s would be there getting ready to perform but did not see them so I asked the waitress and she said they would/​should start at 12:30, I said OK then we looked over the menu.
I’ll try the breakfast this time since I did not like the burrito, Ill have the Chilaquiles con Carne Asada, as we wait for the food… Where’s the Mariachi’s? so at about 12:45 they come through the door… OK, I get it, their on MEXICAN TIME! or what Americans call HAWAIIAN TIME.(NO WORRIES)…
They set up and began to play soon after our food arrived at 1:00…35 Minuted for Chilaquiles when their is only a couple of people in here ARE YOU KIDDING ME…
The 3 Lady Mariachi’s were pretty good but AGAIN the food SUCKS…
WOW these LAZY ASSES made chilaquiles with tortilla chips so they were CRUNCHY and I don’t know what the HELL the sauce was but it was just nasty!, the Asada was FULL of FAT and not well seasoned, the only thing edible was the Beans HOW SAD!
The few customers who did arrive were mainly Drinking Beer and seemed to get better service… Just as I thought the first time here this place is geared more to the «CLUB SCENE»…so if you JUST want to DRINK and listen to some music maybe this place is for you.
But…if you want good food… STAY AWAY FROM THIS PLACE… I’VE NOW WARNED YOU TWICE… even though I love Mariachi’s…I’ll never be back… Two times here and BAD, BAD FOOD gotta take you down to one star!
They need to drop the «RESTAURANT» and change their name to «Juanita’s Cantina»…Liquor in the front Poker in the rear! cuz the food ain’t working!

Fantastic, low-​key place that hosts shows, is in my hood and is open late. Went here with my roommate on a Thursday night. He chatted up Juanita’s sound man (defector from the decaying Mr. T’s Bowl) and found out that Juanita’s was booking much fewer bands, lately.
If so, that’s a shame. There was only a handful of customers there that night. It’s a great, down-​to-​earth place with a sweet back patio for outdoor seating. From said back patio you can eavesdrop on residential neighbors strumming guitar chords and singing off-​key. I ordered a burrito; it was ok.
On quiet nights, it’s good for late-​night conversations, i.e., for bitching sessions, for playing catch-​up, for crying into your quesadilla over how you can’t get over your ex, etc.

I should’ve read the reviews before coming here to figure out that it’s a lot better at night. I came here with my mom for lunch because she was craving some carnitas, and this place was EMPTY. Good for us that our drinks and food came out quickly, but we looked a little foolish eating in this empty place. Nevertheless, the food was great. My mom had the carnitas plate with the usual rice and beans and I had 2 carne asada tacos, a la carte. There was way too much onion and cilantro, but I did what I had to do and removed some of it and poured a lot of the avocado chili in. It’s SO good. I’m pretty sure I’ll be back, maybe catch a show.

This place has a great fuse of entertainment and food. The food is good, however my favorites of this place are the customer service, bar and coffee. This place has pretty much everything you are looking for with out the horrible tackiness of crappy appetizer menus of a regular bar that has shows. You can actually sit down have a meal, have a good conversation with the owner, get a cocktail and by the end of the night chill out and have some coffee. The energy is amazing and the food is good as well.

Very good food, if you went there before and were disappointed or were struck by an overwhelming bewilderment as to what genre place this was trying to be, try it again. Rumors of mistreatment because of perceived heterosexuality are now a thing of the past. This place had an extreme identity crisis before but now seems to be settled into a good Mexican place in a beautiful setting. It was trying to be a gay wine bar-(who knew wine could be gay?)eclectic coffee house-​restaurant-​night club and God only knows what the f**k else but now has been in therapy and all the strange voices in it’s head have quieted down. Obfuscation is now minimised and with it must go trepidation of this place!

It seems Juanita’s has settled nicely into this neat, blue building on this peculiar scalene triangle of a corner. I had popped in here before when it was Highland Perk café, and though I loved the name, it was too much like Starbucks.
Well, I’ve been to a few shows at Juanita’s now, and I have to say, as a venue, I really like it. It’s got lots of open space, making it easy for people to see the band from all over the floor. Big bottles of Fat Tire are only $ 4.
The two things that I really, really dig about Juanita’s are:
1. The patio! Their outside patio is shaded and pretty and the perfect place to sit and have breakfast or hide out when you’re not into the band that’s playing. One night I was there, it was chilly outside and they set up a fire in a firepit out there. It was heaven.
2. The food. Juanita’s is family owned and they’re serving up their grandmother’s recipes. They don’t use lard, for those who are wondering, though lard is not a dealbreaker for me. Everything I’ve ever had there, from the simple carne asada tacos to the chips and salsa to the torta de pastor that was as big as a baby, were delicious, full of fresh-​tasting ingredients, and very obviously made with love.
The Must-​Order dish here, though, is the chicken and avocado soup. It comes in a big bowl full of chunks of chicken (no bones), salty, savory broth, melted jack cheese, and hunks of fresh avocado. Fill that bad boy up with some shredded tortillas, chopped up onion and cilantro, squeezes of lime, and perhaps a dollop of their salsa verde and POOF there goes that cold you’ve been fighting.
Service is a little slow, so don’t come here if you’re in a big hurry.

I am giving this place a 5 star review for 3 reasons:
1. It is a great place to see a show. We saw Andrew Jackson Jihad and Mike Park’s new project a short while back here after they got cancelled at the knitting factory in LA and it was so great. I mean, AJJ is always great but you can literally stand anywhere, great sound and the stage is dead center of open space. It was ten bucks but the shows there normally are like 0 – 5 dollars. I loved the show and its a great little venue. The mix of people is fun too from scene kids to old mexican punkers.
2. They have $ 3 Tecate Lights which i’m sure upset the dozens and dozens of scene kids missing their beloved PBR tall boys… but come on you can drink tecate light and still feel like weight watchers isnt mad at you, even though you drink 5 of them which is totally a no-​no.
and 3. These were some of the cleanest bar bathrooms i’ve seen in a looooong time. Like, years… srsly.
As far as the food goes, to be completely and totally honest with you, I had so many bud lights in my truck that I didnt even see the food there, didnt even know there was food there and wasnt even thinking about food there. Also, I read that theres a patio, and now I totally have to go back because I am a big sucker for patios that you can eat and drink on (It’s like walking around on the street with a beer for me, truthfully, i love it.).
People are complaining about parking… but I drive a fairly big truck and had absolutely no trouble with the tons of parking in the residential neighborhood across the street… and its free, and even dark enough to enjoy some delicious drinkability in your car!

This place is my favorite place to eat Mexican food in NELA and I’m a local. I’ve been going to Juanita’s since I moved to California in ’86 and every time I go somewhere else I always miss something at Juanita’s. The menu is fairly basic traditional Mexican. I had the Chile Colorado last Friday and it was the best I’ve had in ages. I was there just today for their Mariachi Sunday and it was one of those afternoons where you wouldn’t want to live anywhere else than L.A. The group was fantastic «Las Ellas», a female trio playing traditional Mexican romantic music, my Enchiladas de Pollo with Mole sauce was off the chain and the atmosphere was very comfortable and familiar.
I also like this place because they are good members of the community, hiring local workers and sponsoring local events. They are very family oriented and casual and it’s common to see children running around playing together and large tables of families who I’ve been seeing since my father brought me here on Sundays.
I’ve only heard about the events they host in the evening since I just moved back to LA recently and have mostly been to the Eagle Rock Blvd. location, but what I hear is that they’re a blast. I’m so glad to be living in LA again, and this place is part of the reason. Juanita’s is a shining example of what’s great about this city and the NELA community.
Oh, and to those who complained about parking – you can park at the automotive place across the street and I heard today that they’re going to start offering free taxis for locals who spend over a certain amount and cheap valet parking.

This is one of my newest favorites.
I’m going to have to split my review into categories.
As as promoter — David (the owner) and the Juanita’s staff works very hard to make bands feel comfortable. I’ve never seen a staff so overjoyed to have local music being played. I’ve booked two shows here so far and both been pretty legendary. Both shows had touring bands who went out of their way to tell me how impressed they were with Juanita’s.
David has told me that the food here is their forte but he loves having live music in Highland Park. He is an old school Mr. T’s patron and likes the idea of giving back to the community.
As a clubgoer — Something about the way Juanita’s is set up is perfect. The sound isn’t always great but what is great is that you can get a good view at almost any angle. If you don’t feel like being up front, you don’t have to. You can hang back at the bar and enjoy a beer and still have a good view of the stage. Also, the back smoking patio is huge with a nice outdoor firepit keeping you toasty.
Finally, the food.
David and the rest of the staff has always asked me to come back to try the food. I always felt bad that I was always so busy with a show or putting posters and flyers up around the neighborhood that I couldn’t try it.
Everyone has told me good things. The bassist for my band had the torta and liked it so much that he came back the next day for another one and he lives in Los Feliz!
This last friday, I made sure to come to Juanita’s so I could try the food. Oh Man Oh Man. How have I been denying myself for so long?
I tried the famous chicken and avocado soup which featured huge chunks of chicken and a robust tasting broth. I also ordered a carnitas burrito but I had to take it home. I expected the soup to come in a cup not a bowl so there was no way I could eat the burrito after that. The burrito made a perfect breakfast the next day.
My girlfriend had a pastor torta and a carne asada taco. Usually, she eats half her meals and takes the rest home. This time she polished the whole thing off. I expected her to lick her plate or even take the plate home and lick it later. The torta looked like it was on an Italian Roll and was huge.
Later, I telling David how much I loved his food and he told me that most the recipes came from his grandmother, Juanita (hence the name). He also told me that they don’t use lard in their cooking. They stick to peanut oil and olive oil. He wanted to make the healthiest Mexican food he could because, «How can you keep customers if they die of heart disease»
Go here.
Eat hearty.
Rock out.
Leave a 4 – 5 star review.
This place deserves a «people love us on Unilocal» sticker like no other.
Seriously. Wanna fight about it?

I’m going to fight back the moronic hordes giving this place bad reviews — Juanita’s is pretty damn great. I saw a punk show tonight, and everything ran smooth… the staff, servers, and security were all very nice, very smart, and just plain good at their jobs. Prices were affordable. I ordered the chicken and avocado soup and it was amazing. It’s a nice addition to Highland Park, I hope it thrives.

I love this place. The owners are super nice and I had a blast last night because La Santa Cecilia Played there. WOW!!! TThere was not even room to dance and yet we were all united as one dancing body and everyone was shakin it!
This place has yummy food in the early evening and really PUMPS in the evening depending on the band who is playing.
WARNING: Don’t park at Carrows or you’ll get your car towed as their empty parking lot is carefully guarded by tacky towing company jerks.

I don’t venture into Highland Park too much. Not because I don’t want to but no one seems to have anything going on there. This past Sunday, however, some friends of mine were playing a gig here and I was pleasantly surprised.
The food was pretty good — chips, salsa, refried beans, rice, vegetables and ground beef concotion (I always forget what this is called) were on the appetizer buffet menu that the band set up. Others ordered from the menu, which looked great and the portions were huge.
The staff was super-​friendly and some took their jobs very seriously. The guy who made my piña colada and decaf cappucino took some time but was meticulous in making the drinks perfect. And perfect they were.
Parking is a bit difficult but there is additional parking next door.

This place is pretty good. It took a while for anyone to take our order and the food took a while also, even though the place was veritably empty while we were there.
Some of what I ate was really good, while other aspects were average. The chili colorado was great, whereas the sopes were below average and the flauta was like a big taquito.
The server was friendly enough the owner was walking around and seemed like an okay guy, despite the whole drama listed below.
It could have been a couple of dollars cheaper, but the garnishes were nice and the presentation of the food was good.

I’m a bit late at documenting my taco excursion to Jaunita’s Restaurant last Friday.
After a long day of helping my sister-​in-​law to be run wedding errands, we stopped at Juanita’s. I’d eaten here before (about 4 years ago and remembered it being good enough to go back)
I had ordered two asada and one pastor. The asasda wasn’t bad, the meat didn’t quite pass my gristle test, but was flavorful and not too greasy. The pastor on the other hand was heavenly. The meat was smokey and savory.
My sister in-​law to be had the asada torta, which was HUGE. She had a little bit of a hard time with it because the meat wasn’t cut down into pieces that were small enough to chew so she found it to be difficult to eat as a sandwich.
This is also the first time I took a picture of my food to post on Unilocal!
The place is clean and simple, nothing fancy here. Oh but be warned the salsa verde they give you with the chips has a kick.
Not bad if your cruising through eagle rock and want a taco.