Pancho & Lefty’s

Original review: Inoffensive, inauthentic Tex-​Mex made with with a lot more canned or out-​sourced ingredients than fresh.
Pancho & Lefty’s is a reasonably popular place (not sure why), but could be so much better with professionally trained servers, basic restaurant management processes in place, and more emphasis on fresh ingredients.
Service was incredibly slow and inattentive — obviously not trained. It took over 20 minutes to get chips, and salsa came later than that. We had 2 menus and 2 sets of cutlery for 3 people, and never got a third menu.
When our drink orders were taken, my beer was poured promptly, then sat on the bar until the head on it had dissolved and the beer had warmed up a bit. Oh well — it was wet and eventually arrived. We didn’t want to push any service issues since we are aware that P&L’s is a traditional hangout for the group we were with.
We ordered our food maybe 20 more minutes later, and then and waited almost 40 more minutes for our food.
Regulars told us that the owner was cooking as fast as he could, but the kitchen was confused because they were working from a big pile of white paper tickets that were not in order, and no one had no idea where any of the dishes went, or even which dishes went to the same table.
So – everything came out for part of our large party at the same time, and servers walked around asking what each person ordered.
My husband ordered the carne asada, as had my older daughter. If she was not going to get a plate, I would have taken his and given it to her. I had had several «I’m hungry mama» texts already, but fortunately they had a plate for her and for my youngest child on one of the three large grays if so of that came out — and for me too! HOORAY!
Once the food arrived it tasted good — although my brisket tacos weren’t Tex-​Mex. They were cubes of barbecued brisket that had been sourced from somewhere else, not smoked on site. I was frankly surprised, since I expected Mexican stewed and shredded brisket — that’s what a Tex-​Mex brisket taco is. Not sure what a cubed barbecued brisket taco is – some kind of Texas fusion cuisine, I guess.
The carne asada was cooked on a flat top in the restaurant kitchen, was well seasoned and tasted good. It came with a scoop of creamy guacamole and some pico de gallo that I think was sourced from a vendor, not made in back.
We had read a previous review that the chicken quesadillas here are made with canned chicken (YUCK), so we went for the cheese quesadilla for the kids. Both kids liked them very much.
So overall 2 stars from us. We believe that 1 star for service and 3 stars for food is fair, because the food was good (and of average quality), even if it wasn’t Tex-​Mex.
We may be back, but only to visit friends. The food is not so craveable that its taste outweighs the hassle of trying to get it served to you. Plus I think if we had not had Unilocal to warn and guide us, we could have made terrible ordering choices.

The place overall was okay. The food was good, the band was terrible, the service was very slow.

Not sure went so many bad reviews. Simple and satisfying Tex-​Mex. Cheese enchiladas, guacamole, and salsa are delicious. The staff was friendly and helpful. Definitely will return.

We ordered chicken quesadillas for my son from the kids’ menu. What kind of Mexican place uses canned chicken in quesadillas???

I can not imagine that this place will last much longer. The service is so terrible!!! Not worth the food that is just okay, nothing special. We had to wait 15 minutes for a table because for some reason they wanted us to sit at a particular table, there was plenty of seating! We actually had to wait for the people to leave their table. Oh and then it was just terrible from that point on, the teenage girl seemed way way not all there. She did not smile not one time and seemed to hate to refill chips and drinks. Save your money and go someplace else. I imagine anywhere would be better then this place! Oh and one more thing, the person who wrote the review saying that they charge for things you didn’t order, that’s so true! We had two things on our ticket that we didn’t order. Shady place!

Can I give this place no stars? One word. Disgusting. The place is disgusting, the food is disgusting, and the service is disgusting. We were in our way to Dos Chavos but decided to give this place a try. WHAT A HUGE MISTAKE!!! We walked in and were never greeted. Finally a sweaty guy told us to sit wherever. We sat in a gross outdated booth. At that time we looked at each other and asked if anyone wanted to leave. We decided to see what happened. We finally got someone’s attention about 10 minutes later. We ordered food about 10 minutes after that, when we finally got drinks. Our food came out and was nasty in every way. They gave us our ticket and charged us for things we never got and then complained about having to correctly charge us. We will NEVER go there again. If you want Mexican food in that area, go to Dos Charros or Dos Chavos.

All I can say is wtf did I just experience? Never greeted. Sat for 15 min before we left with out being acknowledged. Employees were all over the place and when food was rolling by bus on a push cart that sealed the deal with never coming back.