Cactus Charly

Slightly expensive, but worth it. Chimichangas are amazing.
If you’re eating in the restaurant, they don’t give much sour cream and do charge for more. Found out the hard way.

Came here on a Sunday and it was not to busy. It’s on the small side and not on the main street in the village where all the restaurants are located. Loved the wall art, especially the sombrero. Went well with the vibe of the place.
It’s a long menu which always makes me nervous. I ordered the fish tacos. The priciest thing on the menu after the Carne al Carbon. I was expecting the fish to be fried but it wasn’t. It appeared to have been stewed. The fish was delicious if you ignored the chunk of garlic (or not if you are a garlic fan) but it made for a very soggy taco. My daughter got fries (it was a LOT) because that’s all any 4 year old will eat. My bill was very reasonable. Overall, I don’t have any complaints. I will most likely return but will not be getting the fish taco.
Service was great, which is another reason to return.

Cactus Charly Fajitas are excellent. Portion for 2, also have their chicken soup. It really hits the spot in a cold day.

Solid Mexican take out or BYOB. Food is consistently good. Much better than when it first opened. Safe choice.

Typical East Coast Mexican. An invitation to indigestion. Big gloppy plates of cheese and refried beans. We’ve seen this before. Move along.

All these great reviews so we were looking forward to some good mexican food. Wow, not here. It was so lacking flavor and pushy service. The food reminded me of eating a frozen mexican dinner as a child.

My date and I went there last Friday night she found a hair on it and didn’t want to make a big scene. We brought it up to the server and he was furious with us. We felt offended and he never apologized. The food is sub standard, I’ve had much better.

Decent mexican food. Quick, courteous service. Reasonable prices. Plenty of on street parking. Nothing spectacular but nothing particularly bad either.

Cactus Charlie’s is a BYOB Mexican restaurant in downtown Maplewood. Usually when I travel to Maplewood we go straight to Arturo’s or Lorena’s but we decided to give Charlie’s a try. I’m not a huge Mexican food fan but sometimes I get a craving for it. That being said we went last night at 7pm and were able to get a table right away. It’s pretty small inside but it’s festive. With large painted murals on the wall and sombrero hat lights it definitely sets the fun atmosphere. Service was attentive when we first sat but after our meal, it fell off a bit as we waited a while to get the bill. Complementary chips and salsa were brought to the table. The chips were average, I usually compare them to the chips and salsa at Jose Tejas but none ever come close. Kids meals are pretty cheap at under $ 5 which is nice. The menu is pretty extensive and gives you options of many popular dishes from tacos and burritos to fajitas and ceviche. There were some seafood options available too but I opted to go with something more traditional. We started off with the nachos con carne which were fantastic. Hands down the best nachos I’ve ever had. I just wish I could say the same for my main course. I ordered the chicken enchiladas in mole sauce. The mole sauce had a sweet taste to it which overpowered the rest of the meal. A tad less mole sauce probably would have sufficed. The refried beans that accompanied the meal were also very good. They were creamy and flavorful. The shredded chicken inside the enchiladas was a little bland and chewy. After being blown away by the nachos I had set the bar a little too high for my expectations. Although, for my first visit I was satisfied enough that I’d give Cactus Charlie’s another try in the future. That is of course if I can keep myself from being pulled in by Arturo’s when visiting Maplewood!

Awesome food and fun, casual atmosphere. I ordered the three beef tacos with rice & beans and two Diet Cokes. My bill car out to $ 17 and change. The food was very hot and fresh. The salsa was hot and delicious. Highly recommend this place for families up to four. There are maybe 12 tables and by the time I left dinner it was at capacity. The staff was also very friendly.

One word! The food is So gooooood!!! I would never say such thing on my second review of the same place.
As always you have to try it to believe it. #happyeating.

Was there Sunday. Had a soup and the pork enchilada special. They were both very good. I was served quickly. It was relative quiet when I got there, but did get louder when two more families got there. Will probably go there again.

Great tex-​max food. Love chilli rellenos, tacos and quesadilla. Service is great. Great spot for a weekday dinner.

In the Maplewood/​Millburn/​Summit area there are a lot of great spots to eat but surprisingly there aren’t many Mexican places. Normally we go to Tinga but have never been too impressed so we wanted to give this place a shot, boy did we make a nice choice.
The nachos were super cheesy which is just what I like. All the fajita plates look awesome and the smell is insanely addicting. I always just get regular tacos when I get Mexican for the true experience and they were some of the better tacos I have had. My girlfriend got a burrito and the presentation was nice with one half of it covered in salsa and the other half covered in sour cream.
This place is BYOB and they can turn your wine into sangria. Yes that sounds awesome but I don’t suggest it. We gave them the bottle and they went to the back with it and returned with the transformed sangria. The sangria was good but a little sweet and not very strong. At the end of the night our waiter asked if we wanted the left over wine from our bottles back, it turned out they barely used half the bottle in the sangria! Don’t get the sangria, you won’t get the experience of a real BYOB because you leave with no buzz besides a sugar high. Who goes to a byo restaraunt and only has one glass of wine?
This disappointment didn’t last for long though because the churros we got for dessert were fantastic. They were fresh and warm from the oven and came with a delicious chocolate sauce. As you can see, despite the sangria debacle I still gave this place 4 stars, that’s how good the food was. Not to mention it’s got that Mexican feel inside with the décor and setup

Solid Mexican food. Restaurant can be a bit stuffy inside. Service is great!
Never was upset with the food quality.
I’ve had multiple apps. and entrees from Cactus Charley and have always enjoyed them all.
Must try: Nachos
Check it out!

My boyfriend and I were feeling under the weather and we needed homemade soup that contained nutrients. This soup had shredded chicken, vegetables, rice, etc which was absolutely perfect and flavorful. It came with limes on the side (which I loved).
We bought 2 yummy soups at $ 6 each, 2 cans of ginger ale at $ 2.50 each and it came with a nice size of free homemade chips & salsa to go which was filling and delicious!
The staff was very friendly and fast! I’ll definitely be back to get more soup and to try other things.

Pretty busy place on Sat downtown Maplewood. We enjoyed the food, ceviche was very good, burrito very fresh with a very nice team texture to the flour shell, kids had chimichangas which they liked a lot. Service was good also. Over good taste and in the end they even brought ice cream on the house for us moving to make some space. Really enjoyed it good job

The first thing you may notice is the décor of the eating area. Nicely done! The walls are adorned with Mexicanish looking columns and flourishes with various political and historical murals done in a Hispanic style (they strongly resemble some murals I’ve seen in Peruvian and Mexican restaurants.) The restaurant is very nicely done!
It turns out that the restaurant is family run. Our waiter was the son of the owner, and he took pride in both the restaurant, the fact that his father did the décor for the restaurant (building the columns) and the busboy’s cousin did the murals. The family is from Mexico, but I didn’t ask where.
When we arrived, the two choice tables by the windows looked like there had been a party there. The tables were filthy and littered with the remains of a feast. We were shocked at how long it took the staff to clean the tables. He had already served us drinks, let us peruse the menu, and had taken our orders before he started to clean the tables. It was a little disconcerting, and too bad, because I would’ve liked to have sat there. Thankfully, the tables were serviced before we started to eat.
The menu is quite expansive, which is cool. I was expecting to Tex-​Mex, but it really did look Mexican, since it includes things like mole sauce, ceviche, huachinango, and chayote. It’s a fun menu, and there are lots of choices.
The store features sodas from Mexico, which is pretty cool. One of my favorite things about going to Latin America is getting their cokes, which are made from can sugar rather than corn syrup, and are still served in awesome glass bottles, old-​school.
The food was good, but I have to confess, it’s cooked for an American palette. The American palette, for the most part, shuns strong flavors. We saw the same thing in the other Maplewood restaurant we went to, Wild Ginger (Thai). Here’s a breakdown of what we had:
Salsa: B+
Delicious, but needed more flavor. The ingredients were obviously chosen carefully since they were both fresh and ripe. But I would’ve liked it more oniony. More garlicky. Some chilli heat. As it stands, the salsa was delicious (B+ for me is slightly above average, with B being average). Maybe Cactus Charlie would consider serving two types of salsa: normal and picante for us heat lovers?
Nacho Ground Beef: B+
Above average, and delicious. A few comments, though.
First, the ground beef should’ve been more spicy and flavored more strongly. More chili powder and garlic would’ve been nice. I’ve found that the juice that pickled nacho rings come in is a TERRIFIC way of seasoning ground beef. It adds a sour/​salty/​hotness to the beef. I think it was toned down for a New Jersey palette.
My second comment was that, I hate to say this, maybe less cheese would’ve been good. Don’t get me wrong. I would die for cheese. But if you look at my picture, the nachos were under a blanket of cheese. It was delicious, but when you do this, and cook it, every last tortilla chip becomes soggy. Now, this could be both a curse and a blessing. On one hand, it’s great if you take the crispy chips from your basket and use them to scoop up the soggy chips/​cheese/​meat from the nachos. I really enjoy doing that. On the other hand, you end up eating too many chips this way. You wanna get fat? Cause that’s how you get fat.
Third comment would be the nachos would’ve been better if guacamole and salsa were put on top. Oddly, both were missing (I ended up dumping our table salsa on the nachos.)
Chicken Tacos: B+
The tacos were delicious, and it was fun to eat tacos in a hard shell again. For some reason, hard shell tacos are a dying breed these days. Color me unauthentic, but I love ‘em. The tacos themselves were tex-​mex, not Mexican. Mexican tacos are minimalistic. Small. These were big Tex-​Mex style tacos. Not that it’s bad or anything. Just an observation.
Second observation is that the sauce and chicken, while PHENOMENALLY good, could’ve been seasoned more. Like the ground beef in my nachos, they lacked any kind of heat or savoriness. The chicken was very soft and flavorful, but it didn’t really sing to me. It wasn’t dynamic the way Mexican stewed chicken often is. Again, I wonder if that’s because the food has been dialed to a typical New Jerseyian palate.

This was OK. Got delivery and it was pretty fast. It is gut-​filing standard Mexican fare.

I’ve previously had their food before and decided to try it again last night. My girlfriend and I ordered for delivery. Delivery time wasn’t bad — but the food itself was just let down after let down.
Her Quesadilla was just sub-​par cheese squeezed into a soft shell — cheese tacos wouldve been a more accurate term. My tongue tacos were just chunks of flavorless meat dropped onto small tortilla shells. The beans looked like the kind they serve in jail. The queso fundido wasn’t too bad.