Our first night back out in Steamboat Springs, we were walking up and down Lincoln Ave. on a very nice evening. Sunny skies earlier in the day had given way to clouds and a few sprinkles were starting to drop. We happened upon a Mexican restaurant that seemed to be hopping. And Mexican food didn't sound all that bad that evening. This was our experience at Vaqueros Mexican Restaurant and Taqueria in Steamboat Springs.
Vaqueros (which means "cowboys" in Spanish) has been around for a little over 7 years. But the family line of restaurants behind this restaurant dates back to over 25 years ago starting out in Guadalajara, Mexico by way of Spokane, WA.
For a number of years, the Diaz and Rodriguez families ran restaurants in Guadalajara before Jose Rodriguez moved to the Pacific Northwest and opened the first of what turned out to be five Rancho Viejo restaurants in the Spokane area. One of the guys who followed him to Spokane, Carlos Diaz, had gone to Colorado to scout out places for restaurants in some of the smaller towns west of Denver. In early 2001, Diaz - in a partnership with Jose Rodriguez - opened the first Fiesta Jalisco in the town of Silverthorne, about an hours drive west of Denver.
From there, Diaz and Rodriguez opened more Fiesta Jalisco locations around Colorado. (Jalisco is the state in Mexico where Guadalajara is the capital.) The Silverthorne location was quickly followed by a Fiesta Jalisco in nearby Breckinridge, with more opening over the next four years in Avon, Frisco, Evergreen, Steamboat Springs, Winter Park, Eagle, Golden and Colorado Springs. At one point, there were 12 Fiesta Jalisco locations in Colorado, and the Diaz and Rodriguez family fully-owned or were part-owners of 24 restaurants in Washington state and Colorado. That has now been pared down to the 3 Spokane Rancho Viejo locations, and 6 of the Fiesta Jalisco locations in Colorado. Well, and now Vaqueros.
In 2013, Vaqueros opened at 730 Lincoln Ave. in Steamboat Springs. (see map) Jose Rodriguez's son Mario was made the general partner in the venture. The food at Vaqueros was basically the same as the Fiesta Jalisco restaurants, made fresh from scratch daily with recipes handed down through generations of the Diaz and Rodriguez families.
It was about 7:30 when we walked into and up the stairs at Vaqueros. We noticed that they had a roof top patio that appeared to be very popular - it was, as we were told it would be a 45 minutes wait. With sprinkles coming down and the fact that we could be seated sooner if we sat inside, we opted to stay in. We were told that it may be 15 to 20 minutes, but it was less than five minutes before our name was called. It wasn't enough time for us to sidle over to the bar to order a couple of drinks while we were waiting.
We were taken down what amounted to a hall way with booths on both sides. Brick arches segmented the seating area. On one side were a number of booths that could seat 4 to 6 people, depending upon their size. On the other side were a handful of booths that could barely seat two people. The tables weren't all that large, but we were comfortable enough with what we had to deal with.
There was a lot of interesting Mexican artwork and photographs hanging on the wall. From every lamp on the wall had a longhorn steer horn curling down from the bottom. And each lamp was attached to the wall with a galvanized star base. There was one picture on the wall that had me sort of mesmerized - it was a movie still or a promotional photo of an actress with machine gun. I tried a couple apps that I had hoped would tell me who the actress was (I thought it may have been Loretta Young, but I wasn't certain), but they were no help.
One thing we noticed is that there were a number of Hispanic people eating in Vaqueros. To us, that's always a good sign that a Mexican restaurant has good food if there are Hispanics dining in the the place. So, we were hopeful that observation would bode well for us.
We were given menus to look over and our server for the evening, and not long after, a middle-aged guy by the name of Victor came over to take our drink order. They have nearly 100 different types of tequila to choose from at Vaqueros and they have about 20 different specialty margaritas. My wife and I both got the Cadillac margarita - they usually use Hornitos tequila in it - which is fine - but we had Victor switch it out for the Herradura reposado. He said it would be a couple bucks upcharge and we said that was no problem. The Cadillac had cranberry and orange juice added to it and then it was topped with a shot of Grand Marnier. I got a large - which was probably a mistake because with the upcharge it came to just under $20 bucks! Ouch! My wife went with the small which was a more manageable $10.50, but still a lot of money for what she got. I made pretty short work of my margarita, though.
Fresh chips and salsa were served to us as we looked through the menu. I asked Victor if they had any of the salsa verde. He brought out a warm bowl of the green tomatillo/chile salsa. The salsa verde was very good and had a bit of a spicy kick to it.
My wife was more hungry than me - my lunch had been sitting in my gut like a bowling ball for the previous six hours plus. But I knew that I could eat something. They had a lot of interesting items on the menu - the pork with salsa verde caught my eye, as did the pork carnitas burrito. They had a number of fajitas including beef (strip steak), chicken, pork, shrimp, and a traditional skirt steak on the menu. My wife was interested in some of the chicken entrees they had. But, she too, was still somewhat full from lunch, so she was thinking along the lines of something light.
Victor came back and we ordered our meals. And we waited. And waited. And waited. Victor had completely abandoned us. We were well past down with our margaritas and I was wanting to get a bottle of Sol for my next drink. The young guy with the chips kept bringing us more chips and salsa, but we were getting a little anxious for our food to show up.
My wife finally tracked someone down to get Victor to come to our table. He rounded the corner, saw my wife give him a quick wave, then he immediately back-tracked into the kitchen. He rushed out with our plates of food. I ordered a Sol from him at that time.
My wife got the beef enchilada and chile relleno combination. It was a small beef enchilada with sauce on top sided with a cheese-filled chile relleno. A massive amount of rice and refried beans came on the side.
I got the fish tacos - grilled tilapia with a half of avocado and some pico de gallo. A like immense amount of rice and refried beans came on the plate with the fish tacos that were in soft flour tortillas. And for some stupid and insane reason, I got a bowl of Vaqueros' green pork chili. Soft flour tortillas came with the soup.
The first thing I noticed was the the fish was rather crispy, as in overcooked. The top layer of the rice and refried beans were also crispy. My wife encountered the same thing with her food. We reckoned from past experience that our plates had been sitting under a heat lamp for probably 15 minutes, at least. Victor just completely forgot about our meals, got busy doing something else, or decided he was going to go on break before he served us our food.
The food wasn't all that bad, but it wasn't good. It was way overcooked. My wife didn't care for her chile relleno all the much, and she thought the beef enchilada was just "OK". My grilled tilapia was dry and dull. The pico de gallo and avocado helped spruce up the taste, but it was a major disappointment all the way around. The green pork chile was fine, but definitely not the best I'd ever had in all the years I've been coming to Colorado.
Nonetheless, we were stuffed after we threw in the towel. We had bulked up on the chips and salsa waiting for our food to come out and figured that was the reason why we couldn't finish what we had.
When Victor brought me the bill, I about shit my pants sideways - it was just under $90 bucks before tax and tip. We didn't have much - a chile relleno and enchilada was $15.99, and my fish tacos were $17.99. The bowl of pork green chili was $8.95. Granted, I had a $20 dollar margarita, but that wasn't worth $20 bucks. I just sort of shook my head and my wife asked how much it was. When I told her, she said, "Definitely not worth it. We have Mexican restaurants back home that were better than this place at less than half the price." And Victor's service - or lack of good service - only garnered him a $10 tip. And I was reluctant to give him that.
But that was our precursor to visiting other restaurants in the Steamboat Springs area. It turned out they were ALL expensive. But we had gotten such a great deal on flights, a rental car and hotel room (free - with Hilton Honors points) that we could splurge on meals while in Steamboat. But we were on vacation and sort of a captive audience.
I'd have to say that we were highly disappointed in Vaqueros. Had the food been served directly after the line cooks had placed them on the warming table, I think things would have been fine. But our waiter forgot about us, never came back to check on us for drinks, and only when my wife flagged him down did he remember that we hadn't gotten our food yet. The experience could have been so much better than it was. The salsa verde was actually very good, but it wasn't good enough to save the overall meal that we had. And that's too bad. Vaqueros showed a lot of promise, but overall it was completely disappointing.
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