Tacos Chabelita

Shame on you, Tacos Chabelita! My experience tonight was awful. I ordered wings over the phone, picked them up, and they were lukewarm—clearly not fresh. As you can clearly see in the picture below, I only took one bite.

I walked back into the restaurant to see what could be done about it. They told me it would be another 20-minute wait—after I had already waited more than 20 minutes! At that point, I said, “No, that’s fine, I’ll just take a refund.” I was told that no refund would be given because “there was nothing wrong with the wings.” Really?

I reached out to my wife, who was not happy. She called the restaurant to speak with the manager, Caira. When she asked for her name, the phone suddenly went silent. My wife asked again, and this time, Caira moved the phone away from her mouth so we couldn’t hear her clearly.

When my wife asked if she was aware of the situation with our wings, Caira replied immediately, “Yes, I do, I was just talking to him.” Okay, fine. Then my wife asked what happened with the wings and why they were served cold. Caira replied, “Because the wings are small, they get cold fast.”

Excuse me, what?! How are the wings going to be cold after being told it would take 20 minutes to make them? I showed up early and still had to wait. But now you’re saying they’re cold because they’re small? That makes no sense.

So my wife said, “If the wings are cold, and you’re saying there’s nothing wrong with them, do you think it’s acceptable to serve cold food to your customers?” Caira then said, “No, we don’t.” My wife followed up, “Then why were my husband’s wings cold and why was he told he couldn’t get a refund—just a reheat of the ones you already gave him?”

No—we don’t want reheated wings. We want fresh, hot wings.

My wife asked again, “If you claim you don’t serve cold food, but my husband’s wings were cold, why wasn’t he refunded? Just because you don’t think something is wrong doesn’t mean there isn’t something wrong.”

Caira then said, “Well, the wings don’t really take 20 minutes to cook and they’re small, so they got cold.”

So my wife said, “Let me get this straight. Not only are you unsure how long it takes to cook the wings you serve regularly, but you also gave my husband false information about when they’d be ready (which means they were sitting), and you think it’s okay to serve cold, dissatisfying food just because you believe there’s nothing wrong with it. Yet, you just admitted the wings were cold because they were small and didn’t take long to cook. Is that correct?”

The manager was speechless.

So my wife asked again, “How are we going to handle this?”

Caira said there was nothing she could do and added, “I don’t know what to tell you because this isn’t something we have to worry about.”

Why would she say that?!

My wife let her know we would be reaching out to the owner, Mr. Don Miguel Barrueta, and informing him that his staff feels customers’ concerns about cold food aren’t important. Since Caira said, “This isn’t something we have to worry about,” we’ll also make sure everyone knows this restaurant is a disappointment. They give out false information and don’t even know how long their food cooks for—so there’s a chance your food might not even be fully done.

As you can see in the picture, the wings were not small. The manager, Caira, clearly didn’t care and wasn’t trying to help at all. After this eventful trip I won’t be coming back to this establishment.

I love this place a lot and have never had a problem until today, when I placed a DoorDash order and found a rusted screw at the bottom of my rice after already eating a majority of the rice. I don’t know what to say or what to do but I am frankly upset by it, and feel grossed out by the entire situation.

This place surprised me , I love places you can smell the food outside... small place but the food coming out of here is worth the wait.