Barriba Cantina

I thought it was very good. Salsa and chips good, tacos great, music even better. They called it Fusion German and Mexican. That sounded strange until you think about San Antonio history and the people who lived there. Now it makes perfect sense.

here on a sunday night with freinds. not too busy. service was quick and food came out quickly. I only had chips anf guaq. the chips are fresh and made here. very please will come back

This is the place to get Mexican on the river walk. Great tacos, great queso, prices are good. Much better than the other hyped up places.

If you consider yourself a foodie then skip this place. Décor is cute & funky, service is friendly enough, the food isn’t great. Honestly, I’ve had better at Moe’s or Chipotle. Free chips & queso with Unilocal check-​in was the best thing we had. The menu is small and disappointing. Basically you can choose between enchiladas or tacos. Hubby had the beef tacos and I had chicken tacos. Tortillas were super thin and couldn’t hold the filling, making it a mess. Meat was pretty bland. Rice & beans… egh. I feel like this place is just going through the motions. We came for lunch on a Saturday, live music is only at night.

Food here is meh. Frozen margarita was weak. The service was pretty good. The music is what really wowed us. Didn’t quite catch the bands name, but the lead female singer could really play the guitar and had a bluesy and mesmerizing voice. We left and went to a martini bar but came back for the music.

Our server Steven was AMAZING! From the start he was very friendly! Continuously checked on us. Gave us great recommendations on food and drinks! We asked for the manager to give him out great feedback on Steven. The manager Adam was not pleasant at all. We could tell that he did not care about what we had to say. Adam was rude and very disrespectful! When I’m telling someone how amazing their co-​worker is. I would at least like to be looked at and maybe even pretend I’m being heard. This place needs a new manager!

All about presentation. Food is great! Waiter is disinterested about his tables and seems almost bothered with requests.

This place looked nice with a great breeze so we thought we’d give it a shot given all the Unilocal reviews … Wrong wrong wrong (except for the breeze part). This place was terrible! We didn’t even make it to ordering a main course!!! DO NOT ORDER MEXICAN MARTINI — UNDRINKABLE!!! Queso was so so bad … I’ve made better at 3am after coming home drunk from the bar!!! The only good thing about this little piece of hell was the breeze. If you want good Mexican go somewhere else. ANYWHERE ELSE!!!

A+ for food
C– for service
Since Unilocal is for people in search of great food, I would recommend this place. It’s better than other places that have 4+ stars in San Antonio.

I really wish I could rate each restaurant based on categories. If so I’d say the following
Overall I’m going with 3 stars.
food quality is 3 stars
I had the chicken tinga cheese enchiladas. Great overall seasoning but I couldn’t tell where the cheese stopped and where the enchilada began.
Service is slow maybe 2.5
What was missed? My free appetizer for a check-​in from Unilocal!!!No chips and salsa with my meal. And slow to get a check, water and place an order when nearly empty.

Great mango margarita but don’t come idyll are looking for phenomenal service. The quest was good and cheesy and reminded me of my college days! Highly recommend with a margarita! Mango fish tacos were okay. Nice outside seating!

Great atmosphere with the outdoor seating just above the Riverwalk, and live music tonight made it more enjoyable.
Had Cheese Enchiladas with Brisket & Black Bean Chili, which was really good.
Our server was very good, as well.

I have to say, I was not expecting this delightful meal. I had no appetite this evening, and was craving some shrimp ceviche, I went to many restraints along the river walk and the host at all of them were very friendly and helpful, though they could not tell me for sure where I could get shrimp ceviche, they did direct me to this place but they only have tilapia ceviche… I am not a fan of fish ceviche so the manager recommended the Mexican deviled eggs. Really tasty and it sparked my appetite, they were even better with a bit of salsa on top! I meant to take a picture, but had already eaten two when I realized I missed the photo op.
I had a couple wonderful margaritas with repesado tequila and the bar tender asked for my order, I said I wanted something tastey, he recommended the del ray tacos. A very good recommendation, I highly recommend them and the black beans are a very good side, I am usually unimpressed with black beans, but these had a really good flavor cooked with bacon and I added the fresh salsa to them half way through, as I still had some left and it was really good on the tacos and the deviled eggs.
For dessert I am having another margarita.

We were looking for some good drinks and food the night of Cinco de Mayo in San Antonio, simple, right? Well, unfortunately, our options were very limited.
We settled on Barriba Cantina because there was nothing else open. I didn’t have high hopes given the 3.5 star rating.
When we arrived, there was a band playing VERY loud cover songs. It wasn’t BAD, it was just very LOUD.
There was no host or hostess, and I asked the bar if it was open seating — he just sorta motioned me away in a semi-​contempt manner.
Our server came after about 5 – 10 minutes of waiting (it was a little busy, but not really too bad). He was not overly friendly, and seemed mildly annoyed at our presence.
I got the «chef’s special appetizer» for checking in on Unilocal,which was chips and queso. The chips were good and the queso was not bad, although, it was gratuitously spicey. I like hot and spicey, but this was hot with little added flavor. I also had one of the margaritas (some $ 14 concoction). It was not bad, bad certainly not worth $ 14.
My wife had some kinda chicken tacos, which were pretty good, and a friend with us had the soup, which I did not try. She said it was good though.
Overall:
Service 1.5 stars
Food 3 stars
Value 1.5 stars
I really wish this had been the cinco de mayo we’d hoped for, instead of the dull taste of disappointment.

This place was very busy but it’s also very big with a lot of employees to handle the demand. Very professional staff. The also have table side guac I love that and I love the fact they out no salt and ask you to do that yourself. I got the fajitas they were your typical fajita nothing special took a really long time to get food but I wasn’t in a rush thankfully all in all very good awesome location above the river walk

When in Rome, grab some margaritas at the Riverwalk. We settled for Barriba Cantina which had indoor and outdoor seating. We sat at a table that had a view of the actual Riverwalk. Our waiter was very courteous but service was slow and almost non-​existent. We had to get up to get our own napkins. Nonetheless, I enjoyed my Prickly Pear and Mango margaritas. Both had great fruity flavor and I could taste the booze. Yay!

Good spot on the Riverwalk for drinks and Tex-​Mex. The Del Rey Cheese Enchiladas were delicious, as was the heaping plate of chips and salsa I ordered for an appetizer. The beer selection was also solid, with a number of local craft brews on tap and in bottles. Grab a table on the patio and enjoy the view. Thumbs up.

After leaving a long and emotional TCU bowl game, we sauntered back to the Riverwalk with hopes of finding some good places to dine, relax, and dry off from the rain. We were a bit surprised that most of the restaurants on the Riverwalk were closed, leaving us with few options.
Before having to submit to the supreme mediocrity that is the Hard Rock Café, we noticed Barriba Cantina nearby and decided to take our chances. We were more than happy to see that not only was the place open, their service was on point. We were greeted, sat, and waited upon very quickly, something much appreciated after a 30 minute walk in the cold and the rain.
As you can expect, we weren’t going to be particularly picky at this point, but I will say the food at Barriba was quite good. We both rolled with some form of tacos, I ordered the Chicken Tinga. 3 hearty street tacos came with the entrée and I loved the chipotle sauce that the tacos were smothered in. Something else stood out, the beans! Usually something I ignore at most tex-​mex and BBQ places, these beans were oddly satisfying, which makes a bit of sense since the bean chili seemed to be a feature item here.
So Barriba has fast service, good food, and reasonable prices. They had a band there as well so it definitely seems like a nice place to enjoy a drink. At the end of the day, we were grateful to finally find a place to eat and the good food and service at Barriba was a nice way to end the night. I can only wonder how much money Riverwalk vendors lost out on due to TCU and Oregon fans unable to find dining options on a Saturday night, but Barriba wasn’t one of them.

I stopped in for the live music — there was a three-​man band playing blues, and they were pretty good. The atmosphere of the place was fairly nice both inside and outdoors, including some day-​of-​the-​dead murals.
The double-​marguerita on-​the-​rocks I ordered was way to sweet — I didn’t finish it, it was just too much sweet and not enough flavor. It would appear to have been made from a mix, with no fresh ingredients, though if enough sugar were added they could have ruined even fresh squeezed lime juice.
I’d go back for the music, if it were good, but as for drinks and food — this is a tourist trap on the Riverwalk, and the quality reflects that (in other words, not so good).

Everything along the riverwalk has low Unilocal ratings, but Barriba Cantina had the highest ratings amongst mexican food joints, so we thought we’d try it.
We were the only ones there. I guess eating dinner at 5pm is not a popular thing to do :) It worked for us and our 14month old!
TO THE POINT: flavorful and tender meat, okay margaritas, high «touristy» prices, air conditioned, live music and good queso. 3.5÷4 stars out of 5.
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The Details…
We started with chips and salsa, or should I say salsa and some ranch-​type dip and then a third mystery dip.
If you CHECK-​IN on Unilocal you get a free «Chef’s Surprise» which turned out to be a huge plate of chips with queso — yummy!
FOOD…
Was good. Meat was seasoned really well and was tender. The Enchilada Dinner was fine, but nothing special 3.5÷5 stars. The Mango Pork Tacos were fine too. The orange tortillas while looking cool, bled orange color all over my fingers which worried me what was in them, so I ditched the tortillas and ate the fillings.
The rice and beans were skipped (nothing special about them) and we both still had chips and queso to conquer.
MARGARITAs…
Were fine. More refreshing on a hot day than anything else. I didn’t taste much alcohol at all and neither did the hubby. The size is deceiving as well. They serve them in large shaker cups with miniature little glasses, but the shaker is basically all ice. We got maybe 3 or 4 mini glasses out of it.
For what’s offered on the Riverwalk we would definitely recommend Barriba Cantina.