Carlos O'Kelly's - Iowa City

1406 S Gilbert St, Iowa City
(319) 354-5800

Recent Reviews

alexandrasophia24

Food and service was tops The waitress was excellent and professional.

Atmosphere: 5

Food: 5

Service: 5

Doyle Schrader

Best top shelf Margaritas ever!!Great food. Really enjoyed our visit.

Atmosphere: 4

Food: 5

Service: 5

Recommended dishes: Fajita Cheese Crisp

Lynn Standfuss

Very friendly.. awesome

Atmosphere: 5

Food: 5

Service: 5

Recommended dishes: Chips and Salsa

Shawnoo

This food was literally disgusting the place was freezing cold everything was nasty even the

Atmosphere: 2

Food: 1

Service: 4

Lu Hileman

I loved this places, but since it's reopening, my last 3 taco salads have been awful. Lettuce core, wilted lettuce, beans on the bottom with no idea they were there on the 3rd try, because the first 2 never had beans on the bottom..... no mention of that on the menu. I'm very sad and disappointed because I loved to meet friends there... not anymore. BOO! In my book, 3 strikes and you're out.POSITIVE UPDATE!!GREAT service and they've gotten my salad right the last 2 times!

Wheaton Schroeder

Good food, friendly atmosphere and servers. We went for chips, dips (guac and queso), and drinks (happy hour is 2 to 5 pm). Their margaritas are very good, coming in both frozen and on the rocks. They come in 4 flavors, which is a scale back from recent years (they used to have several flavors). Was a great place to catch up with friends over drinks!

Atmosphere: 5

Food: 4

Service: 5

Recommended dishes: Chips and Salsa

James H

They decide to close early as they please. Thank you for wasting my families time for you to tell us your closing early. You’re not sorry, so don’t bother with the apologies. Never to come back.

Service: 1

Katelyn Mindrup

Absolute worst customer service I’ve ever experienced. Waited over an hour before getting any help from wait staff just to be told they couldn’t do our

Service: 1

agiftedcurse

Great place to eat, service was great, food was good!

Atmosphere: 5

Food: 5

Service: 5

Recommended dishes: Chips and Salsa, Chimichanga El Dorado

Tim Orris

Margaritas were delicious, staff was fun. We will go back.

Atmosphere: 4

Food: 4

Service: 5

Recommended dishes: Chips and Salsa

John Rowan

I expected more of a fusion of cultures in the food items. It was good but no different than any other Mexican theme restaurant. Waiters were attentive.

Atmosphere: 4

Food: 3

Service: 5

Recommended dishes: Steak Fajitas

Patti Kochevar

Great food and great service. Went there 2 nights is a row once to try it and the 2nd night we took a party of 35 people and the service was top

Atmosphere: 5

Food: 5

Service: 5

Justice B

waited 15 min for a server, he came to the table 4 separate times before finally asking for our order. the waiter asked what i wanted to eat and when i started placing my order i was cut off and told he wasn’t ready even though he ASKED ME what i wanted to eat, so then i waited and had to order a second time. waited almost an hour for our appetizers that we ordered with no chicken and it came with chicken all over it anyways. after picking off the chicken we realized the food was literally cold. plate was steaming hot though. the waiter brought us 6 salsas even though we didn’t even finish the first one. we waited another half an hour for the rest of our food. mine came with sour cream on it despite also asking for no sour cream. the food was horrible. none of us finished our meals, 3 out of the 4 of us didn’t even finish half. we then waited another 45 minutes for the check. we ended up being there for over 2 hours, for a meal we spent maybe 10 minutes eating. overall a terrible experience, but i’m glad i had it so i can let anyone i know to avoid this place at all costs.

Atmosphere: 1

Food: 1

Service: 1

Mara-Lane Kelley

We went out fully well knowing that they would be busy with people coming from the football game. That being said, service wasn’t great, and the food was terrible. After we had been sat down, it took the waiter about 10 minutes to take our orders. We had ordered an appetizer, which came out a good 45 minutes after placing the order but was cold. Also ordered without chicken, came with chicken all over it. A good 30 minutes after that our food had arrived. Plates were really hot, food was lukewarm at best. I got the street birria tacos which weren’t bad, just a bit underwhelming. Rice was terrible, way undercooked. Beans tasted like they came from a can, which would’ve fine if they had tasted good. Chicken from the diablo pasta was very fatty and almost gummy. We had to wait until a different server brought us our food to get silverware and napkins. Will not be coming back.

Atmosphere: 2

Food: 1

Service: 2

Nicholas Shorten

Carlos O'Kelly's has the best Chipotle Chicken Burito with the creamy Diablo sauce. My daughter has a steak quesadilla that she said was really good, fully loaded with steak. The service, however, was terrible! We waited forever to be seated and ended up seating ourselves. The waitress took forever to get drinks and take our order. There were other people who came in and left because the service was so bad. The worst part was they weren't even that busy, only four tables with groups of two to four. I hope this was a one time thing because I love eating at Carlos O'Kelly's!

Atmosphere: 5

Food: 4

Service: 2

Recommended dishes: Burrito

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