The food and service are decent, but nothing spectacular. I was disappointed because I ordered the beef and guacamole tostada and the beef and bean burrito (combo) expecting juicy shredded beef, and I instead received a mushy mess of ground beef in my food. The menu should have specified which type of beef they use. Not worth another visit.
Review Source:I have been to this restaurant three times now, and after the third visit, I will not be revisiting.
My first visit was awesome. Â I had a Groupon for the fajitas, and they were amazing. Â The margaritas were decent, no complaints, and the service was pretty good that day.
I went another time, and the food was good, the service was fine, no major complaints.
However, all of that good was undone on Saturday, June 16th.
I went in for lunch with my boyfriend. Â The waitress didn't pay us a whole lot of attention, which isn't normally a big deal, but we were the last people in the dining room to get our food after ordering. Â It is a huge pet peeve of mine when I get my food after everyone else without an explanation of why. Â A nice young man noticed apologized, and had our waitress inform us that our food was coming soon. Â I ordered a quesadilla, and my boyfriend ordered enchiladas. Â Nothing special.
So, then the food comes out. Â My quesadilla has too much filling or not enough cheese, and I flag the manager. Â First, it was a lovely see through white blouse she had on. Â Second, she said, "You do know it's white cheese, right?" I said, "I know, but there's not much, and I was under the impression that" Â At this point, she looks to my boyfriend to fix the issue. Â He tells her "more cheese", which was the wrong answer, but I will discuss that in a review of him on a more personal website.
So, she takes my plate, saying "We'll have a new one out to you in one or two minutes."
My boyfriend was about done eating when my food reappears. Â I was disgusted, because there were fork marks in my sour cream, I thought that they had given me the same plate. Â At this point, I deal with it, which I shouldn't have done, but I was hungry.
So, the nice waiter comes by and asks how it is. Â They hadn't fixed the problem at all, it didn't have more cheese, it was the same thing I'd been given 10 minutes before, and I inform him as such, saying "But I guess I'll deal." Â He tells me he's sorry to hear it, and gets my waitress for me.
When she appears, I tell her about the same thing. Â Normally, you don't want to hear "It sucks, but I'll make it work." Â If you're striving for a high level of service, she may have stuck around for a few seconds after dropping off the second one to make sure it was ok instead of running away before I could even ask about the fork marks in the sour cream. Â I waited what seemed like an eternity (which was honestly, probably 3 minutes, but on top of everything else, it was too long) to have her come back, and at this point, because of the lack of cheese, I already dug into the sour cream to try to make the thing edible, but I did not succeed.
So, she drops off the bill. Â My food is on there (after sending it back, complaining about it, and still not eating it? Â No, I'm not paying for it). Â So I had the manager come over again. Â We explain that we waited a really long time for our food, that my second quesadilla took so long that my boyfriend was done eating. Â And that I was disgusted that it was served to me on the same plate. Â The manager informed me that it wasn't and I said, "That's even worse, because now I don't know who put the fork marks in my sour cream."
She informed me that there were not fork marks in my sour cream, that she still had my other quesadilla in the back. Â I became insistent, she finally said. "Well, I don't want to argue anymore" so she huffed off with the receipt and removed my meal from it.
I have never been treated so poorly by a manager in my life.
I called the comment line twice since, my calls have not been returned. Â I sent an email through the website, no return email. Â So not only did I get awful service, but nobody seems to care about it.
It's too bad---it was my favorite Mexican restaurant until that fateful lunch that Saturday afternoon.
Update: Â Called the restaurant directly. Â Spoke to the manager. Â According to the manager, I didn't pay for the food, she didn't see what the big deal was. Â Claims her boss will call me, but she does not have a direct line for him or have any idea when he will drop by. Â Also, she claims not to have been there, and I could be wrong, but she sounded very similar, and her name rang a bell. Â Hopefully it's because of a different, more positive visit, but I guess time will tell.
I met a friend here because she suggested that I'd like the queso. Â I've been looking for good queso in Denver for a LONG time. Â I grew up in Texas and went to school in Georgia and both of those states offer up some pretty fantastic queso. Â For some reason, Colorado doesn't seem to have the same idea of melted cheese.
Well, this place certainly gets it! Â I wish they were closer to my house (wait...maybe I don't). Â I only had the queso and the margaritas here but I can definitely say that I'll be BACK FOR BOTH!
YUMMY!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Tried this location for the first time last week. Â My friend and I just got chili con queso and multiple margaritas, so I can't speak to most of their food, but what we had was good.
We were seated promptly and our server took pretty good care of us. Â The queso was delicious, as always. Â (As I've said in other Armadillo reviews, they would get 5 stars if it was solely based on queso!) Â The margaritas were ok. Â I tried 3 varieties - house, midori, and ultimate. Â Both the house and the midori had a very sweet taste, likely from the mixer. Â In fact, the midori one almost tasted like a jolly rancher - not really what I was looking for. Â The ultimate was good, but a bit too strong on the alcohol flavor for me.
Our server was very patient (as we were there for multiple hours catching up) and kept the drinks and water flowing. Â Overall, a good experience.
I need to preface this revue by stating that I used to manage this place years and years ago...so I know the restaurant's menu staples inside out and have prepared each dish innumerable times and have hired and fired a slew of employees at this location, as well as several other locations. Â I will not bias this revue based on any past good or bad feelings as a result of having been employed here...it's been 10 years now since I left the company, and I've returned as a customer numerable times since those days.
If you go in with the mindset that this is "Rocky Mountain Chicano" food and not authentic Mexican, you'll be fine. Â The Lucio family recipes for their original menu items are good. Â They have the best green chili in Colorado, in my opinion (regular, extra hot or vegetarian choices.) Â Their fajitas are stellar, as is the addictive and fattening con queso dip. Â Their signature item, the Burrito Supreme, is very very good, a huge portion of beef or chicken and refried beans inside and smothered generously with the wonderful green chili, shredded cheese, shredded lettuce, diced tomato and sour cream and guacamole.
The chicken soup, menudo and tortilla soup are all good, as are their fried ice cream, flan and apple chimichanga desserts. Â Nachos are great. Â I don't recommend salad or seafood here; it's just not their forte (nor authentic to the whole Rocky Mountain hispanic family experience.)
Anything that might seem slightly adventurous (and newer) on their menu is generally not the best choice, so just ask your server what the most popular items are, and they'll steer you in the right direction. Â They have pretty good margaritas, but go top shelf.
Service is generally pretty good; just understand that this is a low-priced old school Colorado Mexican food haunt and as such, don't expect anything out of the ordinary.
Very kid-friendly, and their chips and salsa are strangely addictive, even though not "authentic" by any means (too much oregano and black pepper.)
I could take it or leave it.  I don't mind going here though.  I actually really like the salsa.  I like that it doesn't have chunks of  anything...it's minced well.  I just don't like chunky salsa...chunks of tomato, onion, jalapeno...gross.  Seems like a simple recipe and fresh...sometimes simplicity is best in my opinion. Every once in a while you'll get a chunk of garlic, but, I don't mind that.  They used to sell mole, and it was so good.  Unfortunately they don't anymore...they kind of americanized the menu.  I mean, it was pretty american before, but, now...even more so.  As far as dessert, I always get the flan which is really good if you happen to enjoy flan like myself.  Oh yeah!  I almost forgot!  The wings are surprisingly very good!  I definitely recommend them.  The chicken soup is good too.  But, definitely try the wings some time!
Review Source:This review is from a dinner recently at the Armadillo grill/cantina that was a special treat from my mom.
I've never been to the Armadillo before, but on recommendation from my uncle we decided to go. Â The food was filling, fast to arrive at the table, although I will agree with some of the other reviewers in that the salsa and queso could have been spicier or at least a bit more flavorful.
The chile rellenos was great, the rest of the main course and dessert was quite good as well. Â I've tried many different styles of Mexican/tex-mex and 'southwestern/new-mexican' food, from the chains to the smaller hole in the wall run by immigrants places. Denver has a wide variety of such food abounding. Â Although the Armadillo serves up what is definitely an americanized style of cuisine, it is a reasonably priced tasty place to eat a quick dinner or lunch. Â I was very happy with the quality of the food I was served knowing full well I wasn't going to get the selection found in a burrito van or a hole in the wall place but rather something more sanitized for the american palate. Â For this style, the food is rather good.
Although there seems to be more seating than customers, (the place seems second only to Casa Bonita in cavernous-seating alcoves) they seem to know what they're doing, as they've been around forever. Â Late on a Friday night there were about 6 different groups eating. I can imagine there is more of a crowd around lunch and and I for one look forward to going back during lunch some day to find out.
I rate it high up on the kitchy/campy coolness factor as well. Â The mariachi music was quite pronounced all throughout dinner :)
To those who say make mexican food yourself, I agree; I can cook up an amazing bean/beef burrito dish in a crock-pot that will make any of these places pale in comparison. But for when I just don't want to cook? I'll go here ;)
Their margarita selection was rather impressive. I forget what I shared but it was very tasty indeed.
Ok, initial disclaimer, I am not Mexican, I have never claimed to be Mexican and my tolerance for Mexican food runs about the length of the drive thru line at Taco Bell. Proceed with caution.
My husband loves Mexican food so we occasionally venture out for it. We've eaten at various "chain type" places from here to Tampa, FL (maybe that is our mistake) and are typically disappointed in what we find. And since we're not IN Mexico, we live with it. This place is really no exception.
We were seated right away, which was no surprise because there were a total of 6 people in the place (first warning sign, I know). But our server took her time playing around behind the bar (not serving anyone, not restocking...just moving glasses around and nonchalantly wiping things off) before she wandered over to take our drink orders. We were given AMPLE time to go over the menu (read: Â it took her 15 minutes to bring carbonated drinks back to the table), at which time we ordered our food. The typical warm chips and salsa were served. And yes, I am not Mexican, but I know what salsa is or isn't. And it ISN'T tomato PASTE with tiny "might be" onions in it. Right? Right.
My 5 year old ordered a cheese quesadilla and it was awful. It was nice and hot when it was served, but the cheese had a "sour" taste to it. He didn't finish it. My husband ordered the tri-color enchilada plate. One was cheese, another chicken and finally a beef. He only enjoyed the chicken enchilada, the others were sadly lacking in flavor. I (being extremely conservative with Mexican fare) ordered the two combo enchilada plate with one cheese and onion and one spinach enchilada. The cheese and onion was excellent, I loved it. But the spinach was really, really bland. But I guess that is what I get for ordering a spinach enchilada, eh? All of the dishes were served with refried beans that were very tasty and Spanish rice that was sort of bland. A little bit of good and bad with every bite. LOL
Overall, this place didn't stand out but neither did it completely disappoint. It was pretty much on par for a chain type Mexican restaurant. Perhaps next time we go out for Mexican food we should try a tiny, hole-in-the-wall, stip mall place. Any suggestions?
I took my boyfriend and roommate out for dinner here in December 2008. We all love Mexican food and were driving down Mississippi and spotted The Armadillo. It was a Friday night, around 8pm, and the place was completely dead. I was a little scared at that point. Restaurants are dead at peak hours when they've proven themselves to be sub par. We were promptly seated, drinks brought out quickly. We waited a little longer than we should have for our appetizer of chili con queso (melted cheese... how long can that take when you're not serving anybody else?). The table was also sticky and it irritated me throughout dinner. I ordered the chili relleno plate. It was mediocre at best. The beans were mealy, the rice had hardly any flavor and the chile rellanos were soft, mushy and really unappealing. The quality of food did not match the price tag. Our service however was good. I downed about 3 giant glasses of water. On our way out, I stopped by the bathroom. It was shocking how dirty it was! I saw paper everywhere, water all over the sink and just turned around and walked out. I made the boys hurry up with their cigarettes so we could drive home so I could use the bathroom! I don't think I will be returning.
Review Source:Great atmosphere and the chips and salsa are excellent. Â Took the family here the other day and my daughters vouched for the cheese burgers (yeah I know). Â I had a traditional margarita and the Yucatan shrimp bucket. Â I was terrified that the "shrimp bucket" wouldn't actually come served in a bucket (hey when it says "bucket" it better be delivered in a bucket) and it did much to my relief. Â Anyway the shrimp was lightly battered and plump and the bucket was impressive. Â Been here a few times in the past five years and I'm pretty sure based on that experience that we'll be coming more often assuming we all still are employed in '09. Â I think there's going to be 17 people employed in the US by the end of the year and we'll all be living in yurts or something. Â But yeah hopefully we all still get to eat out the rest of the year.
Review Source:This place gets four sars because I was pretty impressed by the menu. Â They have some unusual items that I haven't seen at other Mexican restaurants (meat sopapilla, anyone?) and a decently sized selection.
One star gets removed because their queso was only average and the meal itself was a little greasy, even by Mexican food standards.
The decor was cute, the atmosphere was friendly, and the service was quick. Â It would be a fun place to take a group of friends without spending much.
The 5 best restaurants in the 2015 Denver Restaurant Week
3,611 Views | Category: Denver
The complete list of 2015 Denver Restaurant Week businesses
1,972 Views | Category: Denver
The tourists' guide to Portillos: 5 must have dishes
3,318 Views | Category: Chicago
Pho = Pronounced "fuh" not "foe" for pho-king sake
2,915 Views | Category: Denver
Indulgery selected to exhibit at Collision Conference
2,987 Views | Category: Press Releases
Not Logged In
BUSINESSES
Local Businesses
Near Me
My Favorites
SOCIAL
Blog & News
MY ACCOUNT
Login
Register
Contact Us
Add Your Business
