Fiesta Ranchera

Going here really boils down to a question of ‘why?’. The food isn’t terrible, but it isn’t great. It certainly isn’t authentic. There are a multitude of other places in town that manage to have decent food without smothering it in bland sauces and fake cheeses.

Me and my girlfriend walked into this place after Mary Anns diner was full from Unofficial weekend. The chips where not bad, but when i took the first bite after dipping it in the salsa my perception of this place completely changed. The salsa tasted like it was from a can.
The service was not bad but i think the waiter suspected we were not enjoying our meal. Everything tasted like it was microwaved and on top of that the food was already bad. If i wanted beef tacos, tomato sauce enchiladas, and flavorless rice I would have gone down the street and ate at taco bell for half the price.
To sum things up, if you want authentic Mexican food, DO NOT GO HERE!

I was hesitant at first when trying Fiesta Ranchera as I had been there when it was El Toro and wasn’t sure that they would live up to my expectations. I was pleasantly surprised.
The salsa and chips are consistently good (where some Mexican restaurants have bland salsa about 50% of the time). My husband and I have ordered a variety of items off the menu and overall enjoyed everything we have ordered. The fajitas have been nicely caramelized; the rice is the best we have had in town. They are flexible with ordering. I don’t care for re-​fried beans and they have been happy to let me substitute for rice or in the case of bean enchiladas, for a cheese enchiladas.
Other reviewers have said they thought the food was microwaved and I have never thought that. Perhaps the quality has gone up since they were reviewed 6 months ago?
I only get the flavored margaritas (peach, strawberry, mango) and have felt they had a sufficient amount of tequila in them. Tuesdays and Thursdays are half price margaritas; any size and flavor. Well worth the value!
I have only two reasons for giving 4 stars instead of 5; relaxed service and dessert. This is not a place to go if you are in a rush; the service is designed that way I believe. While they get your food to you quickly, they do not rush you to finish by rushing the check. I suppose you could ask them to go quickly; I personally never have. In regards to dessert, we have tried to order the fried banana dessert three times and only been able to get it one time. Once they were out of bananas; the other time they were out of ice cream. The one time we did get it, it was fantastic however.
My husband and I have switched from going to El Toro now primarily to Fiesta Ranchera. Our only complaints are certainly minor in comparison!

As others have said, steer clear of this place. My friend and went there for dinner, walked in the door at 6pm on a Saturday night and the place was completely empty (first warning sign). The staff is ambivalent at best. our waitress took our order for a Fiesta Burrito and a Fajita quesadilla. And against our better judgment we decided to order a pitcher of margaritas (since it was only $ 15). We had one question for our waitress, how big the pitcher (like in how many ounces)? Her response? «Look in here, it should say» while she hands me back the menu. To which I responded to her that the menu did not in fact list the size of the pitcher. Her next response was that it was «normal» size and walked away.
Our food came out 5 minutes after we ordered it, getting to the point of being «too fast» in my book (making me wonder how it was prepared, microwave?) As the food was set down our waitress mentioned that the «plates were hot» (mind you she is wearing huge silver oven gloves). I will tell you this, she wasn’t lying, these plates were scorching hot, as in I could not even touch it to move it on the table.
The food was at best mediocre. My burrito was filled with greasy pork and covered in bland rachero sauce. My friends fajita quesadilla was passable (though quite small).
Finally the pitcher of Margaritas showed up. I will say I typically do not have very high expectations for «house» margaritas, I’m expecting inexpensive tequila, but these margaritas didn’t even meet those low standards. They were neon green and tasted of pure sweet and sour mix, not a whiff of tequila was detectable in smell or taste. My friend and I finished half a glass each of the concoction before we decided we could stomach no more.
Our waitress took 20 minutes to come back and check on us. Upon learning that we were not satisfied with the margaritas she responded that she would half to speak to the manager. She returned a few minutes later and said that she was sorry but that we would have to speak to the manager our selves when we went to pay (which you do up front). Fine, so we go up to pay. We get to the front cash register and there is no one there. We wait 3 or 4 minutes, still no one there. We finally decide to look in the bar area and find the host sitting a table watching TV. We point out to him that we want to pay, so he gets up to go man the cash register. When we explained that we were not happy with that margaritas, he says he’ll go get the manager. Finally the manger comes out, we explain (in an extremely polite way) that we were simply not happy with the margaritas. He thinks for a minute and tells us that he will give us half off the pitcher (mind you, we consumed less than 1 glass total from the pitcher). At that point I was beyond arguing and just wanted to get out of the restaurant, so we paid and left.
A word of advice, take your money elsewhere.

I used to really like El Toro which was in the same location. Name change brought about other changes as well that I am not loco about.
The service and décor are the same. It is a big restaurant and we were here on a Friday night of Moms’ weekend and we got seated right away. Yay!
The chips and salsa were good and we ordered an additional appetizer. The cheese quesadilla was on tortilla folded over some cheese. It tasted like it had been heated in the microwave. No sour cream, no lettuce or tomato garnish, no guacamole on the side. Boo! Who serves an appetizer like this?
My daughter and I both had the Carne asada which was pretty much icky. Thin, dry and over cooked even though I had ordered it medium rare. This piece of meat zoomed past medium rare ten minutes before they took it off the grill. I thought if I could put it in the tortilla with some other goodies, it might be a bit more edible. It took forever to get anyone’s attention to fill our salsa bowl. We were both bummed and had coffee and split a fried ice cream to cheer ourselves up. Didn’t really do the trick. :(
I won’t come again, Champaign has other options that are better — now I understand how we got a table so quickly.