lola's burrito joint

pathetic food. mediocre service.
we four went for lunch from work. all of us had issues with the high amount of salt put in our food. all ofordereddifferent items.
this restaurant even charges for the chips and cheez sauce which is usually complimentary at other mexican restaurant. not worth a second visit. we are still recovering from the overdose of salt. visited this place on march 19th lunch hour.

loud "force-fed ambiance". i live in riverside. my wife and i bike everywhere when we get home from work, and on the weekends, and prefer to support our local restaurants. i have tried to support this place, but i actually like to speak with (and listen to) the people i am eating with. lola's apparently is more of a drink and text kind of place. the "force-fed ambiance" is generally very loud. i have walked and biked by several times and passed on eating there because the music was so loud. just after they opened we did try to eat there, but when i asked if there was any chance for the music to not be so loud, was told no. we peddled on.

i tried again recently on a weeknight. the music volume was low, so we figured we'd give them a chance. before we evenorderedour food, the volume of the music magically increased. guess they don't want our money. that's ok, there are so many good places around that do want my money i'm happy to spend it with them. i suppose i could have asked them time if they would turn the music back to the volume it was 30 seconds earlier, but i'd rather go someplace that is already customer friendly.

glad we tried it!. me and my wife go out to eat a lot, so finding somewhere that we haven't eaten is hard to do. usually when we are in the riverside area we tend to go to my favorite italian and the sister company to lola's "carmines". but last night we wanted something new, something we have never tried. i am so glad we decided to stop in and try lola's. we read the reviews and my wife says 50/50 so i said well lets give it a try. we were greeted at door and was seated very quickly. weorderedthe margaritas and chips with jalapeno cheese dip. the waitress was new and could give us no suggestion towards what to order for dinner. so, after about 10 mins we settled on the og burger and the winner winner chicken burrito. my wife had the burger and in her words " oh my gosh this is so good". i had the burrito and it tasted great, fresh and not messy. the portion sizes for both the burger and the burrito were just right. prices were a little on the high side but worth it in the end. only thing that i wish they had was more choices of hot sauces. but, in short we loved lola's and we will be back

disappointed. i have to agree with another poster who described the food as “mediocre” at best. the chips and salsa were the best part (not complimentary). i had two empanadas which i found to be very doughy with a miniscule amount of filling, one with black beans, and another with a butternut squash mixture. my hubbyorderedthe wet willy burrito, emphasis on “wet” or soaked in a sauce very similar to taco bell’s red sauce. the side of corn appeared to be from a can, with kernels perfectly cut, and no sign of being “roasted” as advertised. our waitress was attentive, and the rest of the staff was friendly.

still do not like it. i typically do not return to a restaurant once i have been disappointed once however since my first and only visit to lola's was on opening weekend, i was convinced they were worth another shot. the food was just ok, but the drinks were still not up to par. we ate at the bar and there seemed to be some kind of drama going on between bartenders, servers and managment which made it uncomfortable to try to enjoy a meal. plus the bill seems unreasonably high for what we ordered. i have to wonder if we were not also overcharged. i will definitely not be giving lola's a third strike. not so great twice, and they are off the list of options forever.


-----16 jun, 2012-----

expected better. i am a big fan of carmines and enjoy the new interesting king street businesses so could not wait to check out lola's. i will try it again before i decide to like or not like it because my first visit had pros and cons. the pros were quality, fresh, flavorful ingredients and friendly service. the con was the lack of quantity of ingredients that count. the margaritas are tasty but like the high priced mixed drinks lack enough of the ingredient that counts, alcohol. iorderedthe chimmy steak, thinking i was getting a taco but was served the steak burrito. i chose not to correct the misunderstanding since it was busy, though i should have. like so many places the large burrito is stuffed full of fillers like rice & lettuce and barely any meat. what little steak could be found in the burrito was very tasty and tender though. the burrito was served with a small mixed bean salad that was very bland. i also tried the curry chicken empanada, which i absolutely loved. the empanada was cooked perfectly and packed full of flavorful chicken and cheese. the pico de gallo served with it was also outstanding. i would try it again and next time recommend skipping the cocktails and burritos and trying the interesting beer and taco selection.

very inconsistent.. i've been here before...on the first visit were were two out of total of four people at the restaurant. the waitress forgot to bring one out of two requested drinks...my burrito was fairly large...disgustingly large.

during a recent visit on a saturday night, whilst the place was packed, iorderedthe same burrito and it was half the original size. we waited for 40 minutes to receive the main course and stuffed ourselves on cheap chips and salsa...

just as i finished my half sized burrito, i observed a table next to us receiving their disgustingly large burritoes.

so what gives, lola's?

just don't offend our collective intelligence with why it takes so long to serve food. this is not haute cuisine and the long wait time is not justified with the type of food you serve.

i'm very certain you don't cook beans, corn, and roast pork to order for my half-sized mojo pork burrito. i bet you are intentionally understaffed and pass it off as cook-to-order-wait-for-ever restaurant. there is no other explanation.

if the food was a notch worse, i wouldn't have gone back for the second time.

sheorderedthe "shrimp but no papers" with spicy shrimp, rice, cheese, cilantro, diced tomatoes, cabbage and mojo lime aioli. i think the reason why it was so good is because the shrimp were actually seasoned (the aioli helped as well).

great food, def going back. 2 of my friends and myself visited lola's on a sunday on accident. we were actually looking to try the soup company next door and luckily it was closed. we started off by being greeted by our waitress who was friendly then we were quickly brought drinks. the margaritas were really good. iordereda burrito with onions, green peppers and chicken and shrimp. the shrimp was sautéed perfectly. for an appetizer we had queso and chips it was amazing. the cesar salad one of my friendsorderedwe haven't stopped talking about it yet. sheorderedchicken to go on top, it was sooo flavorful. the plantains were sweet. the sweet potato empanadas were sweet as well. everything was great! cnt wait to go back

one more try...glad we did it. this was our third trip. the first was opening week...we wrote our experience off to them working out the kinks. second was a couple months later...service was o.k., nothing special but the food was really disappointing. cold food, skimpy tacos, etc.

we decided to give it one more try - and really glad we did. they're obviously making an effort to address their past shortcomings. the service was outstanding - professional waitress that checked on us frequently, two managers stopped by. the entire staff appears to work together to ensure the service is good.

the food was great too. we bothorderedburgers (new since our last visit) - they were huge and flavorful. the accompanying fries were tasty as well. we alsoordereda taco - well filled and they heated the tortilla!!!!

if you wrote them off last summer, give them another shot. we'll be back.

yummy and slow!. quick synopsis: good food, slow! we visited lola's for dinner last sunday. we had a group of seven so understandably had to wait a bit. once the table was empty it took forever to get it cleaned off. once we sat down, we loved the huge beer selection...lots of beers on tap for my boyfriend to explore. the menu was big and had lots of yummy choices. my boyfriend got the 2lb wet willie burrito...actually looked the same size as other burritos at our table. he liked it and polished off the whole thing! iorderedthe mexican street corn (amazing!), as well as an average fish taco and a yummy picadillo empanada.

i expected the service to be really slow based on other reviews...but was quite shocked at how slow it really was. we waited a solid 45 minutes for our food to come out....a little extreme for mexican. you have to pay extra for chips and salsa...seems a bit stingy.

we will go back though - they have a stuffed poblano burger that sounds amazing!

wrong order. i went there for lunch today with my sons and the food was good,however the service was slow and when we received our order it was wrong. iorderedthe taco salad with shrimp instead of beef i got beef and no shrimp. my sonorderedquesadilla with no tomatoes and when it arrived it had tomatoes.

pretty good. i stopped in this evening and had a seat at the bar for a beer and a burrito and i was not disappointed. they have a good number of beers on tap at decent prices including a few great local brews. i had a burrito... something "mojo"... with pork, corn, etc. and it was awesome - i'll have the leftovers for lunch tomorrow. it came with chips and iorderedsome of the verde salsa to go with them and that wasn't anything special, but the burrito and the beer were worth stopping in for. the service made it that much better too - the bartender was attentive and friendly and a couple of the waiters stopped and asked how everything was as well. overall, a good experience. :)

enjoyed it muchly, i did. two of us chanced in on a lark for lunch, after having read the mixed reviews herein. bottom line: really liked the food, the service was a "b" (but it was a busy lunch), and love the atmosphere and beer selection. weordereddiet cokes (got pepsi), and perused the menu.

weorderedtwo empanadas for starters, the chorizo and the lola's traditional (rice, egg, & beef), and they were amaaaaaaaaazing. good salsas, too. after that weorderedthe rajun cajun tacos and the holy mojo burrito. while very jacksonvillized texmex, they were right tasty and well built. my friend felt the rajun cajun tacos were too hot after a while, so i finished them for her. spot on, the heat was, but i like it hot.

so:
food a to a-
service a solid b
atm a solid a
location: duh!
go back we will...

p.s. to those complaining about bottled sour mix, puh-leeeeeeeeze...

on the border. visited lola's last sunday, got there when they first opened. we were seated promptly and the waiter took drink orders quickly. tried their margarita, it had good flavor but didn't seem like it had much tequilla.orderedthe street corn as an appetizer - this is delicious. for dinnerorderedthe chooie's chimmy- wasn't impressed! while the menu description lists steak as the first ingredient there was very little steak in the burrito. it was mostly rice and beans with a few pieces of steak. my friendorderedthe shrimp but no papers - there was more shrimp in this one than the steak burrito, but it was still mostly rice and beans. while these burritos were two fisted, they are overpriced at 8.97 with the limited amount of meat inside.

i'd give it another try.... we tried this place for lunch today and i wouldn't recommend coming if you're limited to an hour-ish lunch breah. it took about 40 minutes to order/get our food and isn't intended to be an in and out kind of place. iorderedthree tacos (2 shrimp and 1 ginger tofu) and they were pretty good. like some of the other reviewers, i was disappointed with the proportion of meat and shrimp i got in my tacos versus the other toppings. i think i got 2 tiny shrimp in my shrimp taco and a very small portion of ginger tofu but a huge pile of sauce, tomato and cheese. the flavors were good, but just wanted more of the good stuff! the pricing for the tacos/burritos is about average, though i couldn't believe that it cost $2.67 for a very small side cup of guac. i've seen restaurants that charge $1, but over $2 seems a little steep.

i'd give this place another try and would love to test out some of their margs. it looked like they had a pretty long list of good ones.