Pancho’s Cantina
“Best fajitas, quesedillas, enchiladas, guacamole and margaritas in long island.”
“Started with the Sangria, it was decent, pitcher could have been bigger but it had a nice kick.”
“Margarita not frozen also does the trick
They play very good music ie the Dead, Dylan, Beatles etc and show sports on TV
Everything was rebuilt after Sandy and it works well.”
Pancho’s Cantina
Takes Reservations: Yes
Take-out: Yes
Accepts Credit Cards: Yes
Wheelchair Accessible: Yes
Good for Kids: Yes
Good for Groups: Yes
Has TV: Yes
Waiter Service: Yes
Caters: Yes
PokéStop Nearby: Yes
Price range.
$$ Price range $11-30
8 reviews
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Had dinner here tonight, mustache Monday, with some close friends.
My friend arrived first, a little before 8, and put her name down on the wait list. Wait was about 15+ minutes. No big deal, we just caught up.
When we were seated, we were brought through the restaurant to the back room, which I was told was usually the kids area. Strange. Not to mention, there were a large handful of empty tables, so none of us really understood what the wait was for.
We were given tortilla chips and salsa and read over the menus. I ordered a margarita, my friends had sangria, and my fiancé had the Sangrita. His drink was too sweet. Overwhelming sour mix taste to it. My margarita was perfectly fine, nothing special, and a little weak given the $7.50 price tag. I'd probably skip drinks next time because I thought they were pretty overpriced considering the size and weakness.
Now onto the food. 4 out of 5 of us ordered combination platters. My friend, who is a regular here, ordered the skirt steak fajitas. Large portion of meat, peppers, and onions, with small sides of accompaniments such as guacamole, sour cream, beans, and cheese. She orders this often so she clearly liked it. As for me, I had the combination quesadilla and taco grande. I ordered the BBQ skirt steak in my quesadilla and it was very tasty! Probably my favorite bite of the night. As for the taco grande (a hard taco wrapped with a soft taco covered in refried beans) I had it with chorizo and potatoes. I wouldn't order this again. The chorizo had the texture of a hot dog, which was a little off-putting to be perfectly honest. It had a nice kick and flavor though, so that made up for it. I paired it with mac and cheese and sweet plantains. The mac and cheese was very similar to velveeta. I mean, I'm not complaining because it was delicious, but I've always liked it. The sweet plantains were incredible. I order them whenever I see them on a menu and these were some of the best I've ever had. Perfectly caramelized and the portion was plentiful.
It took some time for someone to come by, especially when something was needed at the table. I waited a solid 5 minutes without eating my food once it arrived at the table because I wanted sour cream and there was no one around to ask. I did appreciate the manager coming by in the beginning when I mentioned my food allergy. He handled it very well. But other than that, service left a lot to be desired. We were the last people in the place, and would had probably finished earlier if our waitress was present more often. She was very sweet though, so that wasn't the problem. They were just bussing every table around us and it made us feel a little uncomfortable. Like it was a hint to leave. If we were seated right away, which we should have been, we wouldn't have been there as late as we were.
With all things considered, would I come back? Yes. I had fun with my friends, wearing fake mustaches, eating good food, and having free dessert. Perhaps it was an off night given the circumstances, we'll see for next time.
Eh, very run-of-the-mill Mexican food. After a few visits, this place gets boring real fast. You can draw on the table with crayons, but that doesn't make up for the lackluster food. I'd definitely go elsewhere for authentic Mexican food.
This place seemed like the perfect fun TGIF place to eat and talk with friends. Service was slow. Didn't like being in the back room. Waitress did give our table some extra pitchers of soda and chips to appease the natives. Entrées came out and some were very good and others were awful. Tacos were good for example, but the "special" chicken stuffed with chorizo that my friend ordered was awful. If Pancho's could correct some of these inconsistencies they'd have a real winner. I liked the huge variety of hot sauces to try and buy. Menu is large and they were accommodating to one of my friends who had special dietary needs. FYI I can't draw so the crayons and craft paper on the table were useless to me.
I have been to this place several times. It is a fun place. I had the chicken fajitas and went crazy with the chips and salsa.
I came here for dinner on a Saturday evening with my wife and my 2 very good friends from the local area. I came to Pancho's knowing it wasn't going to be "authentic" Mexican so my expectations weren't that of what I had in say SoCal.
That was fine I wasn't expecting to be have authentic so this review in no way is going to be a complaint of how this place isn't like the restaurants in SoCal. I'm not in SoCal and my disclaimer isn't such that I was expecting such.
There is potential at this place to be better than they were when we visited however and it comes in the sense that there were simple issues that could have been resolved and I believe that it mostly had to do with the service and not the food. I was rather happy with the food overall and I did not leave disappointed, hungry nor did I leave feeling cheated but rather just neglected for lack of a better term.
The chips with salsa came before we ordered anything else. My friends had ordered guacamole.
To start things off we had all ordered water with lemon for drinks. To me that's a rather simple request and not something that is uncommon or demanding. My friend also ordered some sort of mango drink which was served in a mason jar type glass. I also ordered a Corona as well. The bar drinks came rather quickly.
The guac was dropped of by somebody else besides our server.
Well we had a pitcher of water dropped off actually it was rather slammed down at our table with 4 stacked glasses that we were to pour for ourselves. This was served to us by another server, not our server. We didn't receive any lemon. We didn't see our assigned server again until it was time to receive all of the mains we ordered.
My friends ordered 4 tacos each so they had a total of 8 and my chimichanga came with my sides and my wife's fish tacos (baja catfish style) came with her sides. My friend who had noticed the tacos didn't come with any lime asked that we have some lemon and lime. The lime was for his and his wife's tacos (8 tacos) and the lemons were for our water (all 4 of us). Our server only returned with 2 lemon and 2 lime slices.
I'm sorry but the simplest of requests to have lemon water wasn't fulfilled because we didn't even have enough lemon for 4 glasses. My friend had 2 lime slices for 8 tacos. I told my friend I would forget about the lemon for my water since I had a lime in my beer.
My food was good. I was however expecting my chimichanga to be crispy. While it seemed as if it was somewhat fried it didn't really seemed to be deep friend and if it was, it wasn't long enough to actually make the wrap crispy.
This chimichanga on the menu is actually their special menu as a burrito which they will turn into a chimichanga (by frying – my impression). It was OK but not like any chimichanga I've ever had and yes this includes non-SoCal Tex-Mex type places.
The food was good overall but the service was lacking. It was friendly, but I felt our needs were not really paid attention to nor was I felt to be totally satisfied with the service. If I have to feel like something was left out or something was forgotten that's a problem. If we weren't asked if everything was ok or if we had everything we needed AND there was something we still felt we needed then that too is a problem.
For the food I'd give a 3.5, for the service I'd give a 2 so I'll average it out as a 3.
By the way they have a nice collection of license plates…
Ponchos is your run of the mill Mexican restaurant. It seems to be a crowd favorite for families (with kids) from Island Park and Oceanside, as that is the majority of the crowd every time I'm there.
Menus are in 3 ring binders….which is strange, no? Its rare to order food from a trapper keeper.
Margaritas are good, pretty strong. Beers are your typical Mexican staples. Drink specials? Any? Ever? Hmmmm…I guess full price it is.
"Taco truck" tacos are small but tasty, usually get a few different varieties.
Pork sombreros are awesome, kinda like fried Mexican dumplings.
Fun atmosphere and/or any sort of ambiance is non existent. I wouldn't recommend Ponchos for a date spot. Unless your date likes kids coloring with crayons and yelling. Verrrry romantic. Muy caliente.
Overall Ponchos is standard Mexican, nothing out of this world, but decent and affordable.
I've been a regular at this place for over 10years and I always recommended it and rated it five stars until the renovation.
The staff is now extremely rude and not courteous (I told the waitress that I was vegetarian and asked about each dish to make sure that I wasn't receiving meat….I then asked her to recommend a sauce and she took my plate to the kitchen and returned my plate with some green meat sauce which she was raving about. When I asked if it was pork she said, "yes…well you didn't say you didn't want meat in the sauce") She then seemed to have gone home before we were done eating so there was a lot confusion in getting our bill.
The food wasn't even half as great as it used to be. This restaurant is now just a memory. Plenty of better mexican places around…even taco bell tops this.
I went with my wife for dinner at panchos cantina on mustache night. I remembered the old Panchos before Sandy as a moderate cost restaurant with great food.Not so for this restaurant.We ordered two make your own entries of burritos and tacos. It took over 30 minutes to get our dinner.Once we got our dinner my burrito was very hard and luke warm. My wifes guacamole had a strange aftertaste and was returned.We also got some free desserts for mustache night which were cakes put in a shot glass.The chips and salsa however were quite good.Considering the meals cost the price to value ratio is below average for this type of restaurant (fajitas were around 20.00 without peppers which were extra). All in all this was not a great experience and I will probably not be returning in the future.