Too Damn Big

Yes, I know....we never expect to hear me say that anything is too big, but the new Chacho's at 410 & Perrin-Beitel is just ridiculously monstrously huge.

Known in San Antonio for their jumbo sized 32 oz. margaritas and one of the more extensive menus in town, this new 3rd location not only offers the normal menu, but also has a coffee bar, a bakery, an ice cream stand, a pizza place, a fruteria/aguas frescas stand, and a taco and burrito bar. In fact, the place is so big that it's now called Chacho's and Chalucia's and is open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

From the outside, the restaurant appears to be 3 stories tall and has 4 drive thru lanes. Once you get inside, you see that there are only 2 very tall stories. Tall enough for a 4 level children's playset that goes almost all the way to the ceiling.

Did I mention that there's also a bar here? Located right next to the children's area.

At the Chacho's at Callaghan & I-10, most of the time, you have to be 21 or over to get in. That's because most of us know that the only real reason to go to Chacho's is to either: 1) Drink lots of margaritas or 2) To gorge ourselves on King Kong Nachos (8 different types of nachos buried under mounds of cheese, with a bowl of queso in the center). And the only reason anyone needs to have 8 different kinds of nachos is because they had too many margaritas. Readers of the San Antonio Express-News who voted in the 2004 Reader's Choice Awards picked Chacho's for the Best Margaritas in Town.

Putting the bar and the children's area right next together...there's a bright idea for you.

"Daddy...can I go play on the slides"

"Sure...just stay where I can see you from here at the bar" (where Dad proceeds to order his 3rd jumbo-sized margarita)

So I'm thinking that some of these parents are probably going to have a few too many and then drive home with their kids, or they're not going to pay any attention to what their kids are doing or where they're at while they're getting their drink on.

In relation to the food, I ordered the Chacho's Favorites plate. That came with a beef fajita taco, a chicken flauta, a snack-sized order of bean and cheese nachos, rice, guacamole, and 2 tortillas for $5.79. Plenty of food for a little bit of money, this is definitely a better value that Taco Cabana. The fajitas weren't drenched in spices and the meat was soft and tender. The rice had a good flavor to it and wasn't sopping wet in tomato sauce and all mushy. I would have been happier if the chicken flauta hadn't been topped off with guacamole and sour cream. I prefer to be able to dip my flauta in those things myself so that I can control how much goes on.

There were a few food issues that need to be corrected:

1) They need to find a way to fix the nachos. The problem with the nachos is that they bury the chips under a mountain of cheddar cheese (or cheese appropriate to the kind of nacho that you ordered) and then stick the nachos under the broiler to melt the cheese. What results is an impenetrable layer of cheese that won't come apart. When you try to pull one nacho out, everything on the plate comes up, resulting in some huge sloppy mess. If you're going to pile the cheese on like that, use some kind of processed cheese that melts smoothly and pulls apart nicely.

2) The friend that I was with ordered a 1/4 size order of spicy beef nachos. Now if you're in San Antonio, and you're going to call something "spicy" it had damn well better have some kick to it. At least a one or two (out of four) jalapeno kick to it. These nachos had no kick to them, at least not for virtually anyone who lives here. We all drench everything in salsa or jalapenos. So something spicy needs to have some kind of mild burn to it that's going to make us reach for our water.

3) Be consistent with your portion sizes. Chacho's offers up certain items as snack-sized, 1/4 sized, 1/2 sized, and full-sized. My friend ordered a 1/4 size of the spicy beef nachos. My plate came with a snack size of bean and cheese nachos. When my friend's husband arrived to join us, she ordered him a 1/4 sized order of beef fajita nachos. What came out was half the size of what she had received. When they went to ask them why the order was smaller, they were told that the portion size was correct and that my friend had originally received a 1/2 size order of spicy beef nachos and that they had screwed up on her order. When they complained that the sizes were different from what was offered at the other Chacho's locations, they were told that the snack sized portion was now smaller.

4) The service. The staff was rude and didn't seem to be trained. As I described, they can't figure out what the portion sizes were. The cashiers were slow when taking orders and my cashier was rude and impatient with a little boy who wanted some Sprite to drink. And when we were getting ice cream for my friend's daughter, the employees working the ice cream bar seemed generally annoyed to be there. Ice creams were mislabeled and when we pointed to one ice cream and said that she wanted a scoop of vanilla, we were told that the ice cream wasn't vanilla and that it was actually cheesecake. We pointed out that the label said vanilla and the employees started arguing about what kind of ice cream it was and who had labeled it incorrectly and started throwing ice creams labels at one another.

5) Get someone to direct customers inside the restaurant. You've got like 6 places to order food at, and none of them has a clear line to stand in to place your order at, so it looks like there's just a mob of customers gathered around each register.

6) The parking. The parking lot was packed at 4 pm on a Sunday afternoon. They should have built a parking garage to go along with this place.

For those of us who don't like children or think that getting a babysitter and a designated driver is a better idea, go to the Chacho's on Callaghan. The only way I'll be back at this one is if I'm going placing an order at the drive-thru.