Taqueria Cuernavaca

Tucked in the back of a tiny bodega is this gem of a Mexican restaurant. You come here for the food. That’s it. No atmosphere. Service is OK. The food rocks.
$ 8.99 for the chile relleno plate is a steal. Enchiladas Supremos was big enough for two people.

Don’t believe the hype.
We ordered approximately a dozen items across the board and there was nothing worth writing about.
Food is average, service is bad.
No tamales on Friday, Saturday or Sunday.
They only had half of the meats advertised.
Overall disappointing.

Mexican mini-​marts are the diamonds in the rough of Atlantan cuisine. They look imposing with Spanish littered across the windows and flashy telephone rate specials to call to Mexico. I’ve discovered that my favorite Mexican food comes from these unassuming joints where women have been doing the same things for years and so what if it doesn’t look like it’s the most sanitary place around?
The first couple of times I went, I got some awesome tortas al pastor for like 7.99. I’ve had the tacos and the shrimp al diabla. All good, but the seafood can be expensive. The last time I went, I asked what I needed to make chile de arbol sauce at home, and I was loaded up with tomatillos and chiles. The cost for this massive haul? $ 1.43.

Taqueria Cuernavaca was unexpected for sure. Craving some tacos or authentic mexican food, I found this place through the Unilocal app. There are a whole bunch of authentic eats off Roswell Rd, but this one ranks high for some odd reason, even given the fact that it’s inside one of those supermarkets that look like a gas station stop.
I’m almost ashamed that I tried to order in Spanish. It’s been years since I’ve used it to attempt to order food. I ordered one taco of each available and one other plate that I can’t remember. Ordering to-​go is probably not the right thing to do here. You really are better off just eating there, so if I ever go back, I’ll remember to just spend some time to enjoy it there.
The tacos were decent. I couldn’t figure out which was the lengua (tongue) or which one was carne asada, but they were all good. That last dish we ordered was good and spicy. I really wish I could remember what it was called and hell, it’s been weeks so I’ve even forgotten what was in it. I think it was chicken, but it was definitely packed full of flavor and recommended to us the by the waitress/​cashier there.
Being Asian, I felt out of place walking in. Even the supermarket clerk looked at me funny, but I wouldn’t mind going back to get something. They even serve horchata there which I’m sure would have been absolutely refreshing after a spicy bite.

If you find this treasure, you’ve reached the end of the rainbow. Gold, you have found GOLD! If you blink, you will drive right by it, but turning around is worth it. I grew up eating authentic Mexican food, and this is it. The asada picadita will blow your mind. Salsas are amazing, the green is HOT. take the time to find this place, you will not be disappointed. Mmmmm!

This is quite the unique, hole in the wall place but well worth the visit. I went to have dinner with Panida S. & Greg S. here a couple of days ago and the three of us walked away fully satisfied!
Their homemade salsa is one of the best that I’ve ever had. Their chips could’ve been more fresh but we weren’t complaining since the salsa was THAT good. You won’t even know this place existed because it is hidden in the back of a grocery store located off of Roswell Rd.
The key is to remember to look for the Quick Shop Mart #2 off of Roswell Rd. and walk straight to the back of the grocery store. You’ll see the seating area. It’s a super casual joint so don’t expect anything too fancy. You’re definitely coming here for the food not the atmosphere.
Their ceviche rocks! Super fresh and the portion size is plenty for 1 and good enough for 2. I ordered their pork chops order that came with refried beans and spanish rice. Loved the fact that they piled on the grilled onions and the pork meat itself was pretty darn good. It’s not thick mean but it was seasoned well. Not too salty. If you’re looking for authentic Mexican food, this is a pretty great place to visit and you won’t break the bank.
Prices are reasonable and service is pretty solid. Note: If you ask for water, they will charge you by the bottle. They don’t offer standard fountain drinks here. Looking forward to my next visit soon, in the near future!

Pinatas in front, tacos in the back! That’s the kind of party I want to be involved in!
Taqueria Cuernavaca is located inside «Quick Shop Food Mart #2″ on Roswell Road. It’s next door to a lighting store, with a large sign, so look for that! No, unfortunately I don’t remember the name of the lighting store. I suck.
When you walk into the place, it looks like a liquor store/​mini grocery store. The store attendant is behind some bullet proof box, pinatas hanging from the ceiling (I need to have the orange donkey piñata, FYI), household products, candies, misc can foods, etc. Keep on walking back… BAM, TACOS!!!
Carne Asada Taco: Generous portion of meat on 2 CORN tortillas, with cilantro & onions. Perfect street taco! Limes served on the side.
Carne Asada Picadita: Kind of like a tostada, but the shell is not crunchy. It’s a corn maze, a little sweet, NOT mushy, but perfect vessel to enjoy the goodies on top! Refried beans, carne asada, onions & cilantro served on the side with a lime wedge. SO GOOD! Similar to a sope!
Seafood (Cerviche) Tostada: They are really generous on the goods here! We ordered this as an appetizer, and I seriously almost didn’t need the additional 2 items above! It was sooooooo GOOD! Fresh, limey, spicy goodness, served on a crunchy tortilla!!! Please see pic!
Service was good, other than the language issue. She answered us as though she knew what we were asking, but when the food came out, it told a different story. No rice, beans only…“Oh, I guess I’m getting rice.» «Can we get 1 Cerviche Tostada?» 3 tostadas came out. LOL! She was really nice though!
Oh! «Do you have anything spicier than Valentina?» 2 bowls of hot sauces came out! 1 green, 1 red! Holy hotness!!! Yes, please, can I have another! Looking forward to coming back to this awesome hole in the wall!!! I LOVE TACOS! :)

NOTE — The intro for this review is long winded so you may want to skip to the middle:
This place reminds me a lot of a the now-​defunct Plaza Linares (
) Plaza Linares was in Alpharetta just off Highway 9 where Hwy 9 runs into McFarland Pkwy. The cool thing about Plaza Linares was that it was a Mexican Grocery Store, Internet Café and Taqueria all rolled into one. The place was located /​hidden behind a gas station. The first time I went to eat at Plaza Linares I remember seeing Mexican itinerant workers playing basketball outside, back behind the store, and hearing the ball bounce off the metal building.
The taqueria part was small with only a few small tables in the back of the store. Food was served from a window; it seemed like the the food was being cooked /​prepared in a side room /​shack connected to the main building by a window. In the window you could see what looked like somebody’s Mexican grandmother cooking and chopping meats /​vegetables while her granddaughters helped out. The food was authentic Mexican, very good, and almost dirt cheap. Plaza Linares had a salsa bar.
When I left my shitty former employer up in Alpharetta, I was glad to be rid of everything connected with it — including the commute. But I was sad to leave some things behind like a few former cool co-​workers and especially Plaza Linares.
I heard Plaza Linares got bought out and then got promptly shut down so as to make way for some other type of business. I was bummed to know that I would never get to eat at a taqueria like that one (in the back of a Mexican Grocery). I was wrong, Thank You God!
Now I have Taqueria Cuernavaca and, even better, I don’t have to drive all the way up GA 400 to the far upper /​outer reaches of Alpharetta,
Read Daniel B’s review of this place. His review is very thorough /​very good and heavily influenced my first visit. Also read Stephie Z’s review. Based on what Daniel wrote, I decided to order one Tostada de Tinga ($ 2.99 each) and one Cecina taco ($ 1.79). I also ordered a Pastor taco, a small order of rice and beans, and a horchata.
Unlike most authentic taquerias, they throw in a lot of gratis (free) items like chips with perfect red sauce that is laced with minced fresh onions and muddled cilantro. When your food comes to the table they also give you a smoky chipotle salsa, a green salsa, and a plate of limes, radishes, and cucumbers.
Portions are large here and you do also get a lot of the aforementioned extras /​freebies. With tax and tip I paid just under 14 bucks. That may sound a little high but not when you consider all of the good authentic Mexican food you are getting for the money. I probably ordered too much food (perhaps more than I needed to order); I was stuffed afterwards. I really think this place deserves 4.5 stars; however, I will dispense with 4 for now.

Jennifer Zyman mentioned this place on a list of good Atlanta tamales so I had to drop everything and head over. I love tamales. Check Daniel Bs pic on the storefront so that you know what this place looks like. Otherwise know that it’s a couple of blocks from the Kroger on Roswell Rd and is next door to a lamp shop. The inside is quite bizarre. It looks more like a gas station sans gas pumps, but once you head to the back and go around the deli case you will see a small area of tables. You might also hear spanish music blaring from the small tvs hanging on the wall. The women working know more English than I know Spanish so don’t get to worried if you don’t sprechen sie Deutsch errrrr hablo Español.
I had to order a chicken tamale with green sauce since that was the purpose for my visit, but I also decided to get a bowl of chicken soup. I think it’s about $ 6 for a bowl. For some reason I wasn’t expecting either portion to be as big as they were. The bigger the better right? The tamale was pretty large. I could have just eaten it and been fine. It was quite tasty. A really good spicy chicken mixed inside all that dense masa. I still had the bowl of soup to contend with too. Check out the pic. It’s basically a big bowl o’ chicken broth with 2 bone-​in pieces of chicken, 2 halves of a potato, one corn on the cob, and large chunks of carrot. Fresh tortillas, spanish rice, and the traditional cilantro/​jalapeño/​onion trifecta all came on the side. Perfect for beefing up your bowl to pure deliciousness.
BTW it’s not cash only, the waitress will give you a receipt so you can pay the front register guy if need be. To be honest maybe it was cash only and the waitress felt bad for me. Either way I managed to pay with a card, though next time I’ll have cash just because it seems easier.
*Chips and salsa are delivered while you wait. Both are worth the calories.

So far, I can’t find anything wrong with this place. I started searching for a decent, authentic Mexican place near my new place since leaving Smyrna (and Tacos La Villa! *sad face*).
I’m HOOKED if only for the tamales only. After being in Atlanta for over 17 years, I’ve finally found a place with awesome tamales — moist masa, enough filling and great flavor. I usually get the chicken ones which have a spicy verde sauce mixed in. They may have heeded some of the previous comments about them being served with queso on top — I’ve yet to experience that. They are still in the husks.
They usually have a daily special as well — just ask. They are always $ 6.99. The one I’ve had was chicken with a verde sauce over it and pinto beans and rice. Simple yet the type of food that silences the table and everyone just eats. Speaking of — I could live on their pinto beans and rice alone.
I’ve also tried their tacos and recently had a quesadilla. Instead of a flour tortilla that most quesadillas are made with, they used flattened and grilled masa. MASA y’all! I wasn’t sure how I’d feel about it but I ended up loving it. Definitely more filling but that just meant good leftovers later.
The place is absolutely hidden. I would never know it existed had I not done a search. Most of the patrons are Mexican and I usually get a kick out of them being semi-​surprised to see «outsiders» find their spot. Hi, yes, we’ve found you. I usually bring a coworker who also loves authentic Mexican food. I’ve had one guy turn around in his chair to ask me if I like Mexican/​spicy food. He seemed thrilled to have us in there (mind you, he was just another patron) and enjoying the same food with them. Good foods transcends all boundaries, amigo.
They usually have a couple of servers now, service is not too bad but they are all nice — just busy. And with everything being made to order, I’m willing to wait. I’m hesitant on clicking «post» with this one. I don’t need you, ya momma and neighbors adding to the wait and availability of those darn tamales. I already have to battle Stephanie M. for them. But I need them to last.

Kudos to Stephanie M. for getting the FTR (First to Review) for this hidden taqueria. How anyone would know to look inside this non-​descript Mexican supermarket for a restaurant is beyond me.
Taqueria Cuernavaca is located inside «Quick Shop Food Mart #2» (storefront sign sub-​heading: «Supermercado Y Carniceria») on Roswell Road inside the perimeter (ITP). If traveling south on Roswell Road, the food mart is on your right before the light with the Kroger shopping center. It’s on the same side of the road as Kroger. The business can be difficult to find if you don’t know what to look for. Here’s a storefront picture:
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Quick Shop Food Mart #2 is pretty like like a gas station convenience store without the gas station. Walk past the counter and aisles of products and you’ll find a big open space with lots of table seating. In the very back is a kitchen, a small counter for the cash register, and a refrigerated meat display, much like you’d find at a deli. The display is filled with all sorts of cuts of beef and pork. This is their carniceria.
I stopped by for a Wednesday lunch just before noon and my friends and I were one of only two tables seated. The place was dead. By the time we left, just before 1pm, the place was busy. Besides us, the clientele was 100% Mexican workers.
For a dinky taqueria tucked away in a convenience store, I was surprised at its menu. It looked like a full service Mexican restaurant menu offering the following items: chilaquiles, fajitas, sincronizadas, chicken wings, huevos, flautas, ensaladas, nachos, tostadas, carne asada, mojarra, camarones, coctels de camaron, caldo de res, enchiladas, tamales, burritos, tacos, tortas, picaditas, quesadillas, huaraches, chuletas, chiles rellenos, and then some.
The portion sizes here are huge. I saw someone order one order of fajitas ($ 12.99-$ 13.99) and the serving size was ginormous. I’ve never seen a single serving of fajitas so big. I should’ve taken a picture. The fajitas are probably the most expensive thing on the menu. Most other entrees are under $ 10.00 each, unless it’s one of the seafood entrees, which are around $ 12.00 each.
A good thing about the menu is it’s colorful, filled with pictures, and there are many English translations — very helpful if you’re not familiar with a lot of authentic Mexican foods.
I ordered two Tostadas de Tinga ($ 2.99 each) and a Cecina taco ($ 1.79). All tacos are $ 1.79 each and they offer the following meats: asada, cecina, pastor, lengua, caveza, chorizo, chivo, res, barbacoa, pollo, suadero, and carnitas. There are a few meats on the taco menu that are hard to find elsewhere in Atlanta, even at other authentic taquerias. I also tried a Tamale de Maiz.
Tostadas de Tinga are spicy shredded chicken tostadas. Ingredients on my Tostadas de Tinga included shredded lettuce, beans, spicy marinated shredded chicken, cheese (fresco or cotija — I couldn’t tell), and a creamy white sauce on top of a hard circular corn tortilla. I ordered two because I thought they would be small. I was wrong. They’re pretty big (for a $ 2.99 item) and bigger than what is portrayed on the picture in the menu. The tostadas were freshly made and packed with plenty of meat. Tasty and a good value.
Like the tostadas, my Cecina taco was packed with plenty of meat. In this case, cured beef (cecina). This was a traditional Mexican taco, so all it had inside was the meat and chopped cilantro and onion. There was so much meat in this taco that I had to add sauce to it to make it more juicy. Too much meat is not a bad thing, but it didn’t help that cecina is a tougher meat. The ingredients were wrapped inside two corn tortillas and packed inside foil. The taco was accompanied with fresh cut lime wedges, cucumber, and radishes. I really liked the freshness of all the ingredients.
Speaking of fresh ingredients, I went back into the kitchen because I needed to go to the restroom. There’s only one restroom for this place and it’s inside the kitchen. I noticed two cooks in the back chopping up fresh vegetables like onions, so I already had a sense that our food would be fresh.
I really liked the Tamale de Maiz (2 for $ 2.00). I like tamales, but I’m not a big fan of opening up the leaves and eating them the traditional way. It’s cumbersome. The tamales here are «de-​leafed,» so all you have on the plate are mounds of yummy masa (corn-​based dough) topped with a creamy white sauce. I could have done without the sauce and just ate the masa. It was dense, but had a smooth and appetizing consistency. The tamales were sweet, almost like a dessert. I recommend this dish.
There was only one server and two cooks, so the food took a long time to come out. We waited 15 minutes for our dishes to come out, maybe more. The staff was friendly and spoke English.
They have a TV here that is tuned to a Mexican TV news channel.
Cash only.

Taqueria Cuernavaca is a small restaurant inside of a Mexican grocery store. The grocery store is inside of a small strip mall. You have to look for the store that says, «Quick Stop Food Mart #2» and underneath, it says, «Supermercado Y Carniceria.»
I went in for lunch. The service seemed slow. The employees there spoke little English. So if you come here, make sure to speak Spanish. I had to bust out my 3 months worth of Spanish to make them a bit more comfortable in communicating with us.
They have a ton of stuff on the menu, and they all look authentic. They have entrees, tacos, quesadillas, soups, tamales, and many others. This place is one of the few places, that I know of in Atlanta, where you can get a dish with mole sauce. So I got that. I got the Enchilada de Mole.
The Enchilada de Mole tasted okay. It came with raw white onions which provided a nice contrast to the sweet mole sauce. Other than that, it seemed like your everyday enchilada.
I tried their tamales. They have 2 variations, tamale de maiz or tamale stuffed with chicken, steak or cheese. They didn’t have the ones with meat, so we just got the tamale de maiz, which is pure corn tamale that comes topped with creama and queso. I liked it. The tamale was soft, moist, and had a good sweet, corn flavor. But I didn’t like the queso on it. It gave a weird, bitter contrast to the sweet corn and the crema. I advise just geting the tamale with crema or just by itself, unless you like queso.
When you order water, you get it in a bottle, just like they do in Mexico. It looks like they just get it form the grocery store. They do have beverages you can order in the restaurant like Pineapple juice, Horchata, Jamaica, and others.
The service, like I mentioned before, seemed super slow. They took a long time to cook the food and bring it out. Was it because they hand make everything? I hope so.
This place looks very authentic. We were the only gringos there. I liked the authenticity of it, the food tasted okay, but the service was slow. So this place gets 3 stars for me.

Ownership has changed as well as the name. The new owner was smart enough to keep the kitchen staff Thank God, they are still making some of the best damn Tamales in Atlanta.

I liked it. We got everything to go. They packed it up perfectly. Not expensive. Food was very good. Worker bees were very glad to see us there. They were very helpful. Green sauce was HOT. Did not get to take the menu home so don’t know what we ordered. Everything seemed very fresh. Give it a try. Not nearly as sketchy as it seems. The cashier actually said «thank you for comming». When was the last time you heard that!