Guanachapi’s Bar and Grill

It took an hour or so for my food to arrive… after me calling to remind them. Food was ice cold on arrival.

I love me some spanish food. I was told about this place by a client so I figured I give it a chance. When we walked in we where greeted by a lovely young host. Then our waitress came over to introduce herself, of which she did in an extremely rude way. We figured she must of just had customer that gave her a hard time so we let it be. We then placed our order of which she messed up on. Upon arrival of our plate we informed her she then took the plate back mumbling what sounded like trash talk in spanish. Took and hour to get our right plate and to my disappointment the food had no taste what so ever. It was like we were chewing on air. Not fan of the place or their employees.

I love Mexican/​south american food. So when it was advertised as a guatemalan etc etc food I thought to give it a try. the dining area smells oily and musty. The dance floor is right outside and blarrring speakers. too loud to have a conversation. The steak was cooked well but the seasoning was too much salty. Chips and salsa too lacked flavor. Worth a try one time. Dint have anything that would want me return once again.

The food was ok, not great. Not planning to go back. Menu selections were not that great. It was very loud. The seasoning on the pork was very good but the meat itself was very tough and fatty. Paposa was very greasy. The taquitos were ok. We didn’t like the sides.

My husband and I went for dinner on Saturday. It was relatively quiet and I had the impression that they were working up to a later crowd. There’s a big dance floor with dance music playing on the right side of the building. I’d like to see it in full swing.
The clientele was all Latino except us, but we felt welcome as well. The food was fair, I would say. The fried plantains were amazingly delicious, but the chili rellenos and the beef dish I had were just fair. It’s true the salsa was not very hot, but this is not a Mexican restaurant, so I wouldn’t expect it to be. Other Latino countries don’t eat very hot food.
The service was very good. Quick enough, polite, checking in and generally took good care of us. The beer selection seemed good. The restaurant seating area is next to the bar with two TVs going, but was not a divey bar scene at all.
I thought it was an interesting meal, but I won’t be rushing to go back as the food, though plentiful and probably authentic, was not the most exciting.

Currently sitting in this dump of a restaurant. Music is good and the place LOOKS decent but the service And food horrible!!! Our waitress is a dingbat, they failed at making fajitas and a steak quesadilla. :-/​never again! I ordered steak quesadilla and they gave me chicken… wish I could give this place 0 stars. Oh and I speak spanish so I don’t know how that moron got the order wrong lol

Same menu as the place on Moody Street. Both addresses printed on the front. We were the only gringo couple in the place that Friday night.
Parking is free, and easy (even if the place was mobbed, and it was not, you could park at Shaw’s — which has acres of parking). We ate in the dining room, not the dark bar with loud recorded Latin music.
The shrimp soup (sopa de camarones) was FANTASTIC. As good as it gets, and the small portion is enough for two people.
If you want health food, don’t order items with cheese, refried beans, or fried anything. But the GRILLED anything (shrimp, chicken, tilapia, steak) on rice with veggies is GREAT, and the portions generous.
Stark décor (plain table tops, silverware wrapped in a paper napkin, tile floor). Spanish speaking staff, so be prepared for the occasional innocent misunderstanding — but they are friendly, even if they don’t understand you. Bill was delivered in an AmEx folder, but they didn’t take American Express (at least not that evening), explaining that the «machine is down.» But they then offered to take Visa or Mastercard.
I’m going back, because I love grilled shrimp with cooked veggies on rice, lightly dusted with that orange slightly salty spice. That was really good. Might be even a better idea to just get the same dishes as take out.

I didn’t eat here, but stopped in on a saturday night at around 8:30 — 9:00 for a quick beer. When me and my girlfriend walked in it was like the scene in Animal House where the record stops when all the white kids walk into the black bar. We are in our 20’s so this shouldn’t have been the case. This place looked like the scene of a west coast latin hip-​hop video. The place was filled with latin 20 something men just hanging out drinking beers. Nothing wrong with that, but we were so out of place and the awkwardness was palpable. Maybe this was just a bad time to go. That being said, a friendly old local walked over and bought us a beer and said «gringo’s in here, very rare, here’s a beer so you feel welcome». I thought that was nice. I may go back there on an afternoon just to try the food, but would never go in again at night.

Now I know there are two of these in Waltham, but I personally would choose this one over the one on Moody Street. I usually order the steak burritos and the ones from here are fuller and thicker and just better.
Their service is so much better, the workers much friendlier, and not to be mean, but they are much better when it comes to english!
I’ve never dined in, but the inside is amazinggg.

No me gusta! I love to try out new places and tried the location on Moody Street and didn’t care for it too much but thought I would give it a try once again and went to the River Street location. I am far more patient when going to restaurants from spanish speaking countries and expect slow service which I found this was even though it was pretty empty at the time. I understand food takes awhile but just bringing refills and coming to the table to ask us what we was was rather slow. I odered a chicken burrito and it had a few bones in it. The margarita I had was alright but not amazing. I just didn’t get a great feel to the place both times I went.

My son and I visited their River St location and although I miss the cheesey Ming Terrace that was there for many years, this Guanachapis is much better than the Moody St location. The pork pupusa’s ROCKED, some of the best ever. My son had the Torta de pollo (chicken sandwich) and he said it was the best ever, except for mine of course. I had the taquito’s dorado with chicken, very yummy. As for the salsa and chips, people have to remember that is not typical for the Central Americans and Mexican to serve up that Americanize salsa, the thin style salsa is what you get and you get it with lots of things. Tacos, Pupusa’s, etc., etc.

i was super excited about Guanachapi’s opening here, since the previous two asian restaurants in this building were horrible. Since i live around the corner, i would love to have more decent restaurants stumbling distance from the house. I was highly amused that they didn’t bother renovating the place AT ALL. i expected it to be similar inside, but i kinda thought they’d remove the sushi bar and bad chinese artwork. nope.
Like Brent’s, my margarita was little more than salted ice. yeah, the chips and salsa are totally generic. From there, i must say things got better. The server was attentive and I thought the food was pretty good. Options for vegetarians are slim. You could go with the standard cheese enchilada, but i highly recommend the Queso Chilaquiles: kind of a cheese omelet, served over rice and beans. The dinner plates were in the $ 10 — $ 15 range, but the portions were very large and i ended up bringing home almost half my meal. I also really liked the cheese pupusa which was homemade and tasty.
so yeah it was good, authentic Guatemalan food… and i’ll probably just call in a take-​out order next time.

I have to agree with Kathleen G on this one, though I did make it to the food. On the bright side, chips and salsa were delivered immediately to the table. Unfortunately, the salsa was bland and watery — literally the worst I’ve ever had. (not as good as «jarred» salsa). The margarita’s are touted on the sign outside, but my frozen margarita was basically ice with salt. Again the worst I’ve ever had. The server had to be prompted to bring the appetizers before the main course and by the time the guacamole arrived, their were no chips and again the server needed prompting for more chips. I had the enchilada’s which were bland, small and sub-​par. Others at the table had fajitas that came with the smallest tortilla’s I’ve ever seen. The shrimp filling was OK, however. The Guatemalan appetizer we had was the best thing and was actually good. The entrée’s are 10 – 15 dollars and are overpriced for both the quality and quantity. The place is new, so one could hope they will improve in the future.

Different menu from the place on Moody St. (so I’ve been told). I’d never heard of this place until the waitress at Fiorella’s told us about it about 2 weeks ago. I’ve been there, oh, 5 times since. Once to have a margarita or three and check the place out, twice for lunch and twice for dinner.
It definitely looks like a converted asian restaurant and I’ve only sat in the bar– several booths, few high tops and an ok size bar. Margaritas are good, beer selection is what you’d expect. Service has been solid. The manager came over each time to make sure everything was ok and even fried up some jalapenos for us when they didn’t have any hot sauce.
Reminds me of a NY restaurant in that there’s pictures for everything on the main menu.
Friends have had the fajitas a few times and they’re tasty but not greasy, served with white corn tortillas. Free chips and salsa.
Worth checking out if you’re in the mood to try some new mexican.