La Palapa

Ok so I live in San Diego so I hold Mexican restaurants accountable in comparison to the many great places at home, being so close to the border. So visiting here on business I thought it’s worth a try… Great! Truly authentic and the portions are huge! I had the especial, 2 chimichungas with rice and beans… enough for 2 and only $ 10…OMG. Washed it down as best as I could with some delicious maggies… good pours if you know what I mean?! Do yourself a favor and go here if you want REAL Mexican food, and you don’t have to drive 1500 miles to get it…
«Excelente»

Great food, terrible service,.The male server/​manager is so rude on the phone and at the restaurant. This is the first time that i ever felt so uncomfortable being in a resteruant. Dont ask for anything extra, he will give you a big attitude and he has this LOOK that makes you feel very uncomfortable. Very weird, it is a Restaurant!!! i tried to avoid asking him for anything by trying to get it mysrlf. I asked the guys that where cooking if they can give me more salsa, they heard me but straight up ignored me, then came server/​manager, when he asked they gave it to him. I feelt as though they are scared of him tooo. And one more thing, i got water myself and this unprofessional jerk told me that it is his resteruant and that i couldnt be doing that, what the hay! Again, food is great but no more business from me or anyone i know, i hope this review saves you from having a bad experience.

I like this place. I order this monster burrito. I think it’s the California and it is «Yuuuuuge!» I had asked for extra cheese and it was missing from the burrito which is why I giving it a 4 star and not 5. Other than that I was not disappointed. You can keep you brand name Mexican restaurants, I’ll go to La Palapa’s every time. The group I was with had no complaints as well. Good food, good prices. Enjoy!

Yum!
So good that we came back the second day of our two day weekend vacation.

Great first-​time experience at La Palapa this evening. Pablo made a great frozen strawberry marguerita for me; and, an equally-​enjoyed traditional on-​the-​rocks one with salted rim for my hubby. The melted queso, a staple in Texas but way too hard to find in the Northwest, was excellent… as was the rest of our food. Service was excellent. We’ll be back!

We had the California burrito and carne asada fries (but with carnitas instead of carne asada). This is as good as we’ve had since leaving Las Vegas, where Mexican and other Latin foods kick butt! Stopped in here on a whim, and so glad we did. Looks like we’ve found our new favorite Mexican place!

To sum up our experience in a few short words would be– odd with a splash of attitude.
I’ll start at the beginning. Walking in it would seem you order at the menu board and seat yourself. I have no idea if that’s how it’s done on one side and the other side is a sit down restaurant/​bar or what. We stood there unsure long enough for a fellow to come over and take our party of four to a table. We put in our drink orders and ordered the cheese dip. Our server asked if we wanted the jalapeños and onions that come in the dip. Being that two of the four at our table don’t prefer spicy things we asked to have them on the side. With obvious disapproval our server noted this on his notepad and was on his way. What is so hard about putting a few onions and jalapeños on the side? I’m still unsure. Fast forward about 10 minutes and our cheese dip comes out. We’ve finished our basket of chips while waiting but our server drops off our dip and speeds away to make a mojito for the bartender who doesn’t know how… A bartender. In a Mexican restaurant. Who cannot make a mojito. Is this real life? Okay. Not my mojito, not my problem. After finishing up making the drink my husband gets his attention and he returns to our table where we inform him we would like some chips to go along with our cheese dip (that has now been sitting and getting cold and chunky.)Cue annoyed look– okay, but we charge x amount for additional chips. Just the first basket is free. Okay, that’s fine. We would still like them. As he speeds away he say oh well I won’t charge you since you ordered the dip. That’s great as we’ve been sitting here for the last 7 minutes eyeballing our what we assume to be delicious cheese while you play captain save a bartender.
Shortly after we place our orders. Their menu is really interesting with many different options. I especially like their build your own burrito option. My husband and father both ordered the burritos and mine being the veggie there were even more options. Great! They also take it a step farther to label which beans are vegetarian. I can appreciate this.
So now we wait. And we wait some more. It took ridiculously long for our food to come. By this time we’re all a little «hangry» and unimpressed. 3 of the four people get their food finally and our server lets my husband know that his burrito is taking a little longer. Ok. I found it somewhat odd that I’m at a sit down restaurant and my burrito came wrapped in tin foil on a plate. Why? I brushed it off thinking it may be how they prepare all their burritos. The 3 of us start eating, I know terrible manners but the hanger had set in and It was every man for himself. By the time we were ¾ done the last burrito arrives… And not in tin foil. Odd. I will say my veggie burrito was very good and the vegetables used were fresh. My husband enjoyed his burrito and when our server came to ask how everything was we let him know we were set for the bill. He asked if we wanted to top off any beverages and I asked for a Pepsi to go as we were leaving. Again, the attitude kicks in and you can tell he wants to say no but still obliges. I’m not quite sure what’s up with this place and the service members who work here. I can’t quite decide if it was just an off day for this fellow, or that he wants to nickel and dime customers for everything, or maybe he doesn’t like specific requests… I don’t know. What I do know is there are far too many restaurants with good food and even better service in the Port Orchard area to be treating your customers such a way. And dangit, get a bartender who can make a mojito on her own!

The BEST chicken I’ve ever put in my mouth. This place is the tits!

Me & the hubs decided to try this place based on reviews. Wasn’t sure where it was initially (had to Google it), but found it down by the Cub Cadet/​Peninsula Feed in downtown Port Orchard (on the water side, about a block from the little ferry). Looked like a fast food type place, with single chairs and little tables shoved together, but decided looks aren’t everything so we went in.
First, the floor was tacky — your feet sorta stuck to the floor as you walked across it. Not impressed so far. We were seated in the bar side, which was fine as we kinda enjoyed having the place to ourselves (there was nobody else in there @ 7:30pm on Monday nite). Took awhile to get our order taken, and even longer to get my hubs his Margarita.
A few minutes after our order was taken, in came a party of eight… and out of the whole place, guess where they sat? Right beside us. :-(Geez, people! The whole other half was empty, and they had to come sit rightnexttous. Whatever. Not blaming the eatery totally for that, but, just sayin’… the waitress could’ve seated them somewhere else — not like they were full.
Finally got hubs his drink, and then came the guacamole — which was really good. So were the chips. Pretty fresh. Best thing about the whole meal, actually. Our dinners came in an okay time frame, but hubs’ dinner order got messed up: they gave him the whole beans instead of refried beans, but he shrugged it off as no biggie and just mashed them up himself. Beans weren’t bad, just a little bland… as was the rice. But the downer was my enchiladas, which were barely warm in the middle (chicken and cheese enchilada) as if they’d not been heated through and/​or had been sitting on the pass for awhile, and the enchilada sauce tasted more like a Mexican spaghetti sauce instead of enchilada sauce (too tomato-​y and too sweet). The price of the dinners was ‘okay’, $ 9.99 for two enchiladas with rice & beans, but given that this was more of a fast food atmosphere, I thought a dollar or two less would be more reasonable. Hubs said his ground beef enchiladas were «okay». So, they weren’t the worst enchilada dinners we’ve had, but certainly not the best. I really hate sending things back (don’t piss off the cook… ever… you’ll usually not know what they do, but I’ve seen some of those hidden camera videos, and I’m not taking a chance!!!), and it was warm enough for me not to risk it, so I ate most of it anyway.
Overall, the service wasn’t as good as we thought it would be, especially since we were at first the only peeps there, then even though there was a 2^nd group, we still thought we’d get better service. The waitress was very nice, just a little slower than we’d expected. It took forever for my hubs to get his 2^nd margarita, and he didn’t get it until after he finished his meal (he’d ordered it ½ way into it). He was bummed about that, I was disappointed with everything else overall (especially the sticky floors, that was kinda yuck — I’m sure if they rinsed the floors better, it might not be so sticky).
And then at the end… *drumroll*… we got our bill, and saw the margarita’s were $ 8.50 each!!! EACH! Holy jeez! And they were just plain ol’ margaritas! And not only plain, but they were ½ ice! So, even giving them the benefit of the doubt, I don’t think there was but about ¾ of a cup of actual liquid (margarita) in that glass. Wow. Almost half our bill was from just two margaritas. :-(So, no, not gonna go back there again. It’s nothing fancy, a bit on the high side for meals, and VERY expensive for margaritas (not sure what the prices of their other alcoholic drinks are, but I am not going back to find out). In general, there are better places with better atmosphere.
It was a noisy kind of place too — even with a handful of people, it echoed badly, probably due to the higher ceilings I guess. I’m sure the owners are trying to keep expenses down, but it seems more like a to-​go place rather than a sit-​down-​and-​enjoy-​your-​meal restaurant. If you want a fairly plain meal at a higher-​than-​fast-​food price, you may like it here — and in all fairness, a couple of the good things are that they have a large menu to choose from (lots of variety) and they are generous-​sized meals, so I don’t think you’d leave hungry. Granted we only tried the guac and enchilada dinners, too, so other food items may be better. If you want to enjoy a few adult beverages though, you may want to go elsewhere.
Hope the owners can make a few adjustments to some of the issues reviewed here on Unilocal,and we wish them the best of luck with their La Palapa Mexican Grill. :-)
Edit: Suggestion: I noticed your website is as of today (3−21−16) showing «This Account has been suspended»… hopefully you can get that rectified soon?

Omg! The food was so good! The cheese queso was amazing, the fajita chicken burrito was so large and flavorful! Normally the chicken in any Mexican meal has no flavor, but the chicken here had amazing flavor. Could not recommend this place highly enough, worth traveling for!

My husband and I are addicted to this place. We are both from New Mexico and usually not a fan of Mexican food in other areas but this place is amazing! The taquitos are my favorite and their burritos are seriously the best thing ever! We nicknamed their burritos BFB’s which stands for Big F*$&ing Burritos! Ha ha!

Just had a bad experience here and wish to warn anyone else who may follow in my footsteps.
First, I ordered something I have ordered and loved here before, an item that is specifically on the menu, a vegetable burrito without a tortilla. I chose my fillings as listed in the description on the menu and after telling the waitress what I wanted, she told me it would be easier to tell her what I did NOT want. So I reiterated that I wanted all of the choices except cheese and sour cream. (I told her I wanted grilled veggies, refried beans, salsa, lettuce and guacamole)
When the order arrived at our table, I noticed mine was not in a bowl but inside a tortilla which I was annoyed with but not enough to complain. I opened it up and scraped the fillings onto my plate to find the fillings were wrong as well. It had a TON of black beans with some lettuce and salsa.
I took it up to the counter to see if I could get it corrected. Unfortunately the lady I tried to explain it to was not only unapologetic but cut me off when I was trying to tell her what I wanted. She made me feel bad for trying to get what I had asked for so I literally gave up and told her to just take it off the order. I spent the rest of the time watching my boyfriend eat his meal without any refills for his drink or check in from our waitress.
There were three total people in here besides us so there is absolutely no excuse whatsoever for any rudeness or lack of customer service. I could totally understand if they were busy or if I were rude. But neither were the case.
I know everyone can have a bad day but no customer should ever feel the way they made me feel for «inconveniencing» them.
This will be the last time I ever come in and I hope you all get better service than I did

We’re huge fans of this place! It’s hard to find good Mexican these days but La Palapa nails it. The dishes are authentic and generous. We always leave happy and stuffed — with leftovers.
My only complaint is that the seafood selection is limited (I’m a seafood girl) but the seafood dishes they do have are delicious. Go for the shrimp quesadillas!

Food is good … I love their seafood options. I order coctel de caramarones (shrimp cocktail) it was fresh and delicious. My husband loves their fish tacos.
Overall is good and fair in price, they also are very friendly and helpful, my daughter is a picky eater and they were very good accommodating the food to her like. Churros are a must have !

This is my second time coming here. The first time I ordered flatus they were soft. This time we ordered them and they gave us taquitos. I called and to explain and the woman on the phone who really didn’t give a shit about the order being wrong. She said that they first time we ordered them they gave it to us wrong. She didn’t not apologize or ask would we like something different. I WILL NEVER BE BACK, their customer service sucks.

Excellent food and equally excellent service EVERY time!!! If you love authentic Mexican food… you’ll love La Palapa!!!

Good, friendly service everytime we’ere there. Great salsa, fair prices, food is good. They regularly have specials on food and on bar drinks, and their pink margaritas are pretty darn good (and i don’t like margaritas).
It’s a tiny place, easy to miss, but appears family owned and it’s a local business we love supporting.
It’s one of the very few places in Kitsap that you’ll find authentic Mexican food. Check them out.

Love the family atmosphere. Kind and friendly staff. Delicious food and reasonable prices. Extensive menu and plenty of parking. Try the Carnitas!!! Happy Cinco De Mayo!!!

Everything tastes very fresh! The owners are always there and they work hard! I love the shrimp cocktail or taco salad in the summer, and the burritos are enormous but delicious.
I lived in Los Angeles for many years so I know about Mexican food. This is good.

We just moved here; we are big on Mexican food.
Came here on a Sunday night for dinner.
We were not disappointed.
Wasn’t too crowded. Service was friendly and prompt.
Food was amazing!
I had a chicken fajita burrito — huge portion
And a margarita– all was delicious.
Definitely will return!!!