Francisco’s De Noche

Really like this place — not your ordinary run in the mill Mexican food. Be warned that this is only a Mexican restaurant at night. During the day, it’s an eggs and bacon breakfast kind of place. Great outdoor seating, delicious (cheap specials!) food.
I’ll be back…

Charming atmosphere with outdoor seating. 3 stars only because the michoacan enchiladas really were pretty good, but everything else was really quite bland– we sampled the majority of the menu, with a notable exception being the burritos. Ingredient quality was also a little questionable and tortillas did not taste very fresh. Food taste and quality just not even close to living up to all the hype here.

My favorite breakfast spot by day, and a beloved Mexican restaurant by night. Francisco’s offers up something a little different from Sonoran Mexican food we all know and love.
Franciscos does michoacan style, which I would describe as Mexican soul food. The rice and beans are much like what I’ve had in Tucson, and are delicious. The meats on the tacos and other dishes are very moist and a stew-​like in consistency. I’ll say that this style of Mexican food is definitely more watery than what I’ve had before, but it’s so juicy and flavorful that it can be easily forgiven.
I usually order a combo plate with cheese enchiladas and chicken rolled tacos. Very filling and satisfying, and the thick blanket of crumbly cheese and the side of spicy jalapeños were greatly appreciated. The corn tortillas are thick, made in-​house, and are more substantial than the usually super thin, dry ones at other restaurants.
Much like the style of Frank’s, Francisco’s by Noche only gives the friendliest, speediest service. I highly recommend this place (open from 5−10pm) and they even have BYOB! I love this local, family-​run business, and I hope they have many years of success ahead of them!

I luv this place. No frills just good food and good service excellent!!! I always go there with friends to have the daily special luv the hash browns. My dh had hamburger an fries for breakfast!!! It was excellent.

Taco Tuesday is the best night of the week! Friends all come together to enjoy an hour at Francisco’s and eat delicious tacos and converse with everyone that works here. So Francisco’s is not just a place to eat really good Mexican food :)

This place is great. My friends and I come here every week religiously to their dollar taco night on Tuesdays, it’s the highlight of my week. The staff is super friendly and its a great place be.

Best Mexican in town. Make sure I check out the specials every day because they are the best deal around

So we were in the area and wanted to try some Sonoran hot dogs. We were only a few blocks away so we stopped in. Apparently they have a night menu which is different than the day menu. No Sonoran hot dogs until evening. WTF. Husband is eating taquitos as I write this. Said they are ok. Nothing spectacular. Too bad as the evening reviews sounded good.

You got to try their enchiladas! Best I’ve ever had! Yum yum yum! I love their pork chops too! The staff is friendly and their atmosphere is casual and laid back. I enjoy going here for dinner any day I don’t feel like dressing up much. Delicious, convenient, and definitely comfortable!

Had a very tasty burrito here today — birria Francisco’s style (with additional peppers, onions and bacon). Mmmmmm. Came with a roasted jalepeno, delicious fresh tortilla. Also the salsa bar was excellent, the horchata had free refills, there was a big pot of beans for free, and it was cheap! I’ll be back.

This place is unpretentious and delicious! For other transplants to the Sonoran desert who, like me, are still wrapping their head around the fact that chimichangas, flour tortillas and lots of carne asada are actually what is authentic Mexican food here in Tucson, you will be pleased to try to this Michoacan-​style restaurant which is a little more like what I’d expect in a down-​home Mexican place in CA. But don’t worry, they do still cater to Sonoran tastes with grilled chiles and onions plus Sonoran hot dogs on the menu, etc.
Highlights included:
–Housemade corn tortillas
–Enchiladas estilo Michoacan, which means they dip the whole corn tortilla in bright red chili sauce then throw it on the griddle and fill it with white queso fresco
–Help-​yourself salsa bar and pot of beans! All salsas were fantastic plus they had homemade pickled carrots and jalapenos and some crazy sauce I’d never seen before: it was very dark brown/​red and oil-​based, seemed to be made with finely ground, deeply toasted chiles and seeds… had a great nutty, spicy flavor.
I love all the old photos and funny signs on the wall plus the vintage lunch counter. If this place was in my neighborhood I’d be here all the time. BYOB encouraged and definitely no «corkage» fee. Oh god, I almost forgot we got free refills on horchata and jamaica! Unheard of!

The middle hours aren’t open but if you go there for breakfast they serve a great breakfast. When I first went I thought the waitress was giving me sass but it ended up into a great conversation and really added to the experience, I keep coming back!

Been wanting to try Francisco’s for a long time but I don’t live close by. When I worked close by, I would get breakfast from Frank’s occasionally, so I was excited to try Francisco’s. Since I was in the area, I ordered a bean burro (with cheese inside) enchilada style and got it to go. Should be simple, no??? Service was super fast and gal who took order was nice. Problem was that the beans were not cooked all the way! You could see the white little pinto pebbles that were not successfully mashed because they weren’t tender enough! Ewwwwwwwwwwww! Now, I’ve made a zillion pots of pinto beans in my lifetime and there is no reason whatsoever to not cook beans long enough so that they are completely COOKED! Disgusting. Since the red enchilada sauce was so good, I peeled bits of the tortilla without any beans and sopped up the sauce. The white cheese they put inside of the burro was a couple of chunks here and there and it didn’t even melt. I would have preferred a meltable cheese inside, like cheddar or monterey jack.
Then I threw it in the dumpster; $ 5 down the drain. I was really hoping for a knockout experience based on these reviews, but if you can’t even boil a pot of beans until they are tender, I’d be leary to try you again. Ay Caramba Francisco!

Best fish taco I have ever eaten!
The value for money here is astounding. The staff are extremely pleasant.
The simplicity of the tacos is what really grabbed me.
You do not need to put anything on them. The meat is so flavorful: moist, tender, and delicious. The corn tortillas were made fresh.
The ingredients are clearly fresh and home-​made. They even have a salsa bar and fresh chips. You cannot go wrong.

UPDATE: The general manager contacted me immediately and promised that this would be rectified, all staff would be retrained, and procedures would be put into place to not have this happen again. That’s good, because I’ve always thought Francisco’s was a fantastic value with very tasty food. And I think it is pretty great that the general manager acted so quickly to fix this problem.
You know, I’ve always been a fan of this place. It was pretty much a weekly spot while I was doing doctoral work.
But what I saw there tonight makes me not only never want to go back but warn everyone of the danger. I ordered my usual, the two pork chop plate. But, for the first time ever, I sat at the bar, which has a full view of the grill. And I watch this woman who was doing the cooking. She kept on picking up raw chicken with her glove covered hand, and then with the same hand, grabbed the spatulas, the oil that is above the grill, and the sauce container. That in itself was disgusting and dangerous.
But what she did next took the threat to public health to new heights. With pretty much everything in the kitchen now being contaminated with whatever was on that raw chicken (and everyone should know what’s on raw chicken). she then stuck that same hand in the raw lettuce and tomatoes and dressed a plate with them (the Mexican side salad). Then she grabbed four other plates with the same gloved hand, a glove stained with blood and raw chicken juice, and dressed all of those plates as well.
By this point, I was debating on whether to purge my food that I had already eaten. I flagged over the manager, and I told him what was going on, even told him that I used to work for the health department and that stuff like that is either going to 1. get him shut down, or 2. kill someone with salmonella. He said that he would talk to her. He did. She changed gloves and then proceeded to do the same thing again.
HOWEVER, the manager let the plates full of contaminated salad go out to the customer without being cleaned. I hope no one gets salmonella poisoning. I hope I don’t get salmonella poisoning, although it’s been 6 hours later and my stomach doesn’t feel so hot.
Let’s hope it’s psychosomatic and not salmonella.
If this is how Franciscos de Noche runs its shop in the areas you can see, I don’t even want to know what goes on in the back in the areas you can’t see!
I’ll never ever go back here again, and I would warn you not to do so either. It’s cheap, but the hospital isn’t!

At least once a week, I trek from the West side of Tucson over the Francisco’s. The staff is always welcoming and friendly and how can you turn down free pinto beans and the best salsa bar I have encountered in Tucson? There are different specials every night. My favorite nights are:
$ 2 Sopes on Mondays
$ 1 Tacos on Tuesdays
$ 2 Tostadas on Wednesdays
Should I mention that I’m a vegetarian? Plenty of options for everyone in your party! The portion sizes are large and prices are low, I wonder how they even stay in business. This is the one restaurant I always insist on taking friends and family, and it never disappoints.

I have become a fan of Franciscos de Noche! Went around 8pm on a Tuesday and the place was fairly empty of patrons. I had the Carne Asada and Birria tacos, the SO had the cheese quesadilla. The Carne Asada is well worth the trip alone! The Birria is more of a shredded meat, which I believe was beef, and it was so well prepared the peppers shone thru the flavor of the broth! Tacos are prepared with only tortilla and meat. But the tortillas are awesome, flour is very crisp near the edges on any dish you order with the flour tortilla, including the quesadilla my SO ate. Speaking of quesadilla, they use a blend of the two cheeses in the quesadilla and they cut the quesadilla into four equal parts. No soggy or not-​cut Nicos style quesadillas here! Only crisp and fresh and not weighed down with oil.
When you arrive, you sit anywhere and the service is fast and attentive as well as very friendly. There are two sides to the menu, spanish y ingles. The salsa bar is inside across the the grill, and the huge pot of beans are right accross from that.
GO HERE!!! EAT MEAT!!!
I’ll be back durante la noche again for sure!

I visited this restaurant for the first time recently with my favorite local dining out group. My first impression was that the appearance of this place is everything a Mexican dive should be. The serve-​yourself ranch beans were good and the salsa bar was reasonably well stocked.
I ordered the Pork Ribs in Red Chili Sauce. I was eager to try this since I had never had anything quite like it before. The pork was tasty, nicely seasoned, and the chili sauce had good flavor and the right amount heat. My only complaint was the pork wasn’t as fall-​off-​the-​bone tender as I would have liked. The sides of refried beans and rice were also good.
I also ordered a Sonoran Hot Dog. What impressed me most was that portion size was a good deal for the price. Unfortunately I can’t rate this among my favorite Sonoran Hot Dogs due to the bacon-​wrapped hot dog being somewhat lacking in flavor. They also took a couple of short cuts by using the serve-​yourself ranch beans and salsa bar to dress the hot dog, the result a mix of flavors that really didn’t work well together.
Several of my fellow group members ordered different entrees that looked very good and I am sure I would like to go back at least once more and try their other items and hopefully be able to give them a higher rating.

Only 9 reviews???
Seriously?
When visiting my sister in Tucson… this is a MUST stop for me.
She got my hooked (Julia C.)
The Good:
* Prices… $ 1.50-$ 3.25 for a taco, quesadilla, carne asada?! come on… CAN’T GO WRONG!
* Sauces = yummy, authentic… all you can eat!
* Private parking lot
* Free beans, but you have to find the pot of beans yourself!
* Great service, always smiling, always helpful
The Bad:
* Sticky tables
* Sticky chairs
The Weird:
* Interesting to see the different people that come into this joint. Real mexicans, white-​washed mexicans, asians (me), and full caucasian. See what amazing food can do! It can all bring us together!

There is not a week we don’t go here for our weekly taco fix :).
oh.and caramelos.
They have the BEST house spicy sauce in their unlabeled sauce bottle.
and the condiments bar for the tacos… always refrigerated, fresh, and fully stocked with yummy lime/​salted red onions, guacamole, salsas etc.
Its Franks in the morning (serving mediocre breakfast and such. see review)…
But at night. its Francisco’s and its wonderful :).
It is a hole in the wall joint. but very clean and homely.