Juan Colorado

The service and the food has always meet my expectations and for great nachos it will always be Juan Colorado’s. They have closed this location but I think there might still be another one down in Tualatin. Sorry to see a good restaurant go.

Sad day, Juan Colorado on Barbur has closed.
Hope all is well with you Rafael. Thanks for all the good times.

«It is what it is,» people say all the time these days. Juan Colorado fits into that bracket, if you’re looking for typical Americanized Mexican foods at a reasonable price.
It’s in our neighborhood, so we get in there on occasion, and last nite, it was just what the doctor (er, wife) ordered.
One of my «jokes» about Taco Bell is actually my admiration for how they have taken the same five ingredients, made them into different shapes, slapped a made-​up Mexican sounding name on it, and called it «new.»
Such is my taste for the typical US versions of Mexican food, so I get something silly, unless we are at someplace really authentic. (to wit).
So I went with one of those reconfigured shapes of the regular ingredients, and had the Mexican «pizza.»
No complaints, except it was really filling and a lot of it made it home — but mysteriously vanished sometime during my absence today. Dog? Cat? Wife?
Juan Colorado is a-​ok.

Service is always fantastic! Portions are huge– bring your appetite! Food is classic Tex Mex/​Mex American… super simple or loaded to the gills. This is a local neighborhood regular… we keep coming back!

We went here today with a friend to get a late lunch. It was our first visit to Juan Colorado, and I don’t plan on coming back.
I had some sort of steak tacos. The meat was flavorless and bland, even though the taco was covered in sauce. The rice was dry and bland. I had to add Tapatio and salt to make it edible.
On the plus side the chips and salsa were very tasty, and they had the Mexican coke in the glass bottle with real sugar. And like most of the others have said the service was good.

I have been coming to Juan Colorado for several years now. I have found the food to be good and consistant. The service is fabulous and the staff is very friendly. If you are looking for a quick lunch they have a discounted menu of lunch items that get you a meal and a drink for under 10 bucks. I pop in here quite a bit and get fast, friendly service.

Ok, so if your like me, you rarely use Unilocal for restaurants that you visit frequently. I noticed tonight that Juan Colorado has a 2.5 star rating… what the???
I always have great food here, very reasonable pricing and friendly service. Tonight I ordered Camarones Apretalados (bacon wrapped prawns) with a yummy white cheese melted over them. I requested a spicy sauce, because I felt a little spicy. Black beans, dry (they serve them in a bowl for some reason if you don’t specify). Dipped the prawns in the spicy sauce and built wraps with the rice, beans, prawns, peppers and onions. MMMMMmmmm. Very good.
If you go, ask for Rafael, he’s the Manager, but is most often your server as well. Extremely nice guy, very interested in how you are, how your food was. Great place. I recommend it to everyone.

Wow, some of the below reviews are so harsh I had to double check the address to make sure we had been to the same place! I too am a neighborhood gal and live just a few bus stops away from this location. My husband and I have always had good service, cold drinks, hot chips, fresh salsa, and decent entrees.
For a Latina girl from California am I going to claim the food is going to blow you away, no I am not. However, I have had quite a few very enjoyable meals, including desayunos on the weekend and the food fits into that «comfort food» category. And, with the right amount of lime and avocado and above average tortilla soup.
Really though, as many have at least given it credit for the staff are great. I distinctly remember hitting Juan’s late one Saturday evening after a performance gig with some fellow dancers. We were still in make-​up and costume and had been whisked out of a neighboring Indian restaurant who had decided to close the kitchen early that night. The folks in the «hood» know who I mean. Well the folks at Juan’s didn’t even bat and eye and were warm and welcoming to us.
Anyway, if you are in that part of town and hankering for some enchiladas or carne asada go ahead and stop by Juan Colorado. You might be pleasantly surprised.

Not a place I will ever go back to. The food isn’t inedible (thus 2 stars instead of 1) but it’s really not very good either. I tried it because it’s a couple doors down from my work and I was getting tired of Thai food every time I worked.
It’s a chain restaurant so it has all the personality of Olive Garden or Chevy’s and the food is a step down from both of those. The prices, however, are very high for what you get. I went for lunch and got a cup of tortilla soup (so-​so) and a taco salad with chicken (meh) and it came to $ 13.00. Yikes! And what I ordered cost less than most of the «regular» meals.
They have a sign outside advertising a $.99 value menu but I didn’t see any mention of that when I was in there. Then again I didn’t ask for a value menu when I was in there.
The guy who took my order was friendly, but that wasn’t enough to make up for the bland food and the high prices. Save your money. Go somewhere else. Taco Bell would have been preferable to this.

A casual conversation with a friend…
Me: Where is the meeting at tonight?
Friend: Juan Colorado on Barbur.
Me: Uh… crap. Any chance they would move it somewhere… you know… edible?
Friend: Not a chance.
Me: Any chance I can dodge this whole organizational meeting?
Friend: It’s only once, how bad can it be?
One star. That’s how bad it can be. That one star should be three for the service, but I, along with only want to drive the point home with great ferocity, this small chain, no matter the location makes Taco Time look good.
I was hungry, I am a borderline diabetic and I had to eat. Taking another restaurants food into anywhere else is just so tacky. I opened the menu, looked at the prices and just about walked across the street to Chez Mac for a Angus burger and some Monopoly pieces. I ordered that night’s special, Pork Carnitas with beans, rice, limp fried veggies, pico de gallo and tortillas (I chose corn). I also took notice that my $ 2.25 Diet Coke was restricted to one refill.
As we talked and hammered out logistics and planned the food started to arrive. A few dishes looked ascetically pleasing, mine was not one of them. However my neighbor, Gloria, has a bacon wrapped shrimp with melted cheese thing going on that looked pretty interesting. Mine… did not.
To a small degree of credit my Carnitas had some flavor to it, but it came at the expense of a greasy coating. The beans were overcooked and sat under the kryptonite bulb of death a little too long. The rice was dry… melba toast dry and had zero flavor. The Guac, actually was not bad and the sour cream was (as of 17 hours later) happily salmonella free.
If only they could match the food and the value to the high level of service. It is a delicate balance, I understand that, but come on, at least try.

Don B. is right: CHECK Unilocal FIRST!!! I was on my way to school last night, and wanted something outside of the cafeteria for dinner. It had to be delicious, cheap, and handheld, so I could be semi-​clean while struggling with the math/​diode problem that was plaguing me. I thought a burrito would be the perfect solution (to my dinner, not the problem!), and I had passed Juan Colorados many times and thought about going there. The server was very, very nice, and showed me a menu. I was looking for a veggie burrito, and found it, waaaay in the back of the menu, FOR 8.99!!! I should have walked right then and there. Now, I don’t mind paying for good food, but this obviously was going to be a plateful of something, probably slathered in some kind of sauce. Not the clean, handheld, study friendly option I was hoping for. The burrito arrived, in a large, foil and plastic tray, as I expected, along with a sack of warm tortilla chips. I decided to eat the thing in my car in the parking lot of the school. It was covered in iceberg lettuce and tomatoes, with cheese melted directly onto the sauceless tortilla. Now, if I’m going to have a tray full of burrito, it might as well be the saucy kind. This was BLAND! I had to pour the pico sauce that I assume was intended for the chips, all over the top. It didn’t save this thing. Inside consisted of rice and whole pinto beans, with some very watery veggies: onion, zucchini, carrots and mushrooms (I counted two). No cheese inside. No guacamole. My first inclination as I was headed up Barbur, was to go to Taco Del Mar. I should have stuck with my gut.

SLAM, SLAM, SLAM, SLAM, SLAM, SLAM…
The sound of Don slamming his head repeatedly into his monitor in a effort to drive home the message: «ALWAYS READ Unilocal BEFORE YOU GO OUT TO EAT!»
I like to be spontaneous and try new places. Sometimes this happens after I leave for my meal, yet before I arrive at my destination. Had I thought ahead and checked Unilocal,I would have avoided this place like the plague. Alex P. was right on the money.
I was planning on going to Thai Orchid with a work-​mate, and as we pulled into the parking lot, we both commented that we always wondered how good Juan Colorado’s was, so we decided to opt for Mex over Thai. Bad move.
The place is totally stucco, totally cheezy family mex restaurant, and, in true form, the decorations are campy and silly. It looks like these guys shook down a Nogales street vendor and made off with his whole shop. This crazy fusion-​rock/​fiesta-​mexicana music was rocking so hard and loud for a while we thought we were in a Tijuana disco. Then it stopped abruptly. We decided that the little radio simply exploded in a frenzy of accordion and cowbell.
The server was so nice, and he worked hard to deal with me even though I was massacring his home language while trying to order some simple carnitas. I ended up with carnitas de rez, and the sauce tasted like it was from a packet. Wait, am I at Mazatlan? No, this is at least 1 star better. One star better because the server was seriously a really nice guy. My buddy had the carne asada and said the steak was good, but the rest was just standard tex-​mex crap.
I really don’t like this style of mex food, especially for lunch. Who in the world can work after eating a few solid pounds of beans, rice, tortillas, and meat? Not me. They do have a happy hour, but it seems a bit spendy ($ 3 for a corona — that’s happy hour price??). If you like tex-​mex (think El Torito), you’ll probably like this place. For me? It’s back to the roach coaches (or should I say «cucaracha coches»?)
Under $ 10 each for lunch (not by much after tip), way over for dinner.
[it always pains me to write reviews like this when the servers are so damn nice. I just can’t justify giving this place more than 2 stars though. The food could be SO much better, but it’s just the usual run of the mill tex mex. When really nice people make bad food… argh!]

While the service was pretty friendly, this is a super stereotypical Mexican Restaurant. From the generic wall decorations to the horrible, horrible margaritas.
Yeah the margaritas were the worst I have ever had, it tasted like that crappy cuervo margarita mix with ice in a glass.
The food was ok, nothing great, pretty bland, but I didn’t get sick so hey that’s good.
Tex-​Mex blows.

Spendy tex-​mex.
Daily Specials. Happy Hour.
Bring an appetite portions are great!
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Things not looking up for this place in my book…
Great potential but pricing stuff out of comfort for me…