Pancho's Cantina - Barnum Island

Fantastic visit to celebrate my brothers birthday. So glad to see this place still going strong more than 25 years later no hurricanes could stop this place.. We were greeted with piping hot fresh chips with a chunky flavorful salsa as always. Bowl #2 arrived soon after and stood no chance every time I tell myself don 't fill up on chips and every time I eat too many because they are just so friggin good. Birthday brother ordered an Avion Cadillac margarita which tasted well balanced and fresh. Mom ordered a Moscow mule served in a generous copper mug, and Dad had a frozen margarita with Grand Mariner that had a bit of a bitter twang but overall was enjoyable. I partook in an addictive and irresistible frozen PEACH margarita. Yes, this was as addictive as it sounds, perfectly balanced with sweet peach purée and tart lime. Do yourself a favor and order a FROZEN PEACH MARGARITA on your next visit to Pancho 's and in the meantime I 'm going to invent my own until my next visit.. Dinner: Mom and dad shared tacos al carbon which was teeming with avocado and enough for two to share. Brother and I shared two items: first was marinated bbq skirt steak fajitas cooked medium rare and served on a sizzling plate with lots of pepper and onions, a side of typical fajita accoutrement (beans, salsa, lettuce tomato and cheese), and both flour and corn tortillas for wrapping the portion was generous and everything had major flavor. Second shared entree was a new one I 'd never had before: enchiladas in mole with pork carnitas inside holy Mole!!! This may be my new favorite at Pancho 's slow roasted pork shred inside a tortilla, smothered in jack cheese and a savory mole sauce, served with a choice of two sides (we chose fried plantains and waffle fries and both were spectacular). I 'm still thinking of this and will likely be back for another plate next week. Well done Pancho 's! Thanks for another amazing meal!

I was so full after this meal... To start I love the atmosphere and the hot sauce wall. Love their chips and salsa and their array of guacamole. Their nacho bar was on point. Got all the goodies underneath the mountain of cheese. The topping to Chip ratio was overwhelming! Had the bbq sampler which was good really like the chicken quesadilla. For main course I had 3 tacos in lettuce wraps. The pepper jack was not worth it. The bbq chicken was ok. My favorite was the pork with mango salsa. We also got their dessert minis because it was my friends birthday. They were great almost like mini trifles. The Chocolate, oreo, and flan were good. My favorite was the Snickers followed by s'mores. See why people love it here. Worth the long hike to Island Park! Don't forget to check out my profile!

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...

My favorite local Tex-Mex spot. I first went to Pancho's as a kid at the old location (25-30 years ago). The one thing I miss is being able to draw on the tables! When you sit, they bring hot chips and salsa. The flavor of the salsa is good, but no spice, so I always add some heat to it. I almost always get an app and the combo fajitas with chicken and skirt steak. It's big enough to split with my fiancé and both leave full. I also highly recommend the BBQ Tex-Amex wings. Best Mexican spot around by far.

Had my husbands 50th surprise party last night at Panchos... what a great event.. from the beginning plans with Gary and Dan to the actual party. Dan worked our party and the food and service was on point. Everyone loved the food and it was plentiful ! No wonder they have been in business 30+ years ....