La Hacienda

This place is BEAUTIFUL!! The interior has classy decor and the outside patio has a stunning view of the bay! (That's the good)

SLOOOOOOWWWWW service, prepare to wait for everything. There were not may tables being served, but it seemed to take forever to get service, drinks, refills, our order taken, and food.

WARNING: If you don't like to be freezing cold under the air conditioning, don't sit at any tables on the outer walls or windows, they have the a/c blasting!!! Stay in the center of the restaurant so you don't get frost bite.

I ordered nachos, pretty hard thing to screw up, but the cheese was melted on the chips and was then served to me cold, that means none of it would come apart. The meat was a bit on the crunch side, and the small spoonful of guac was okay at best.

Prices were average, service not so good, parking is easy. There are too many other restaurants on the island for me to have to come back here.

I had read all of the yelp reviews before we placed a to-go order here so I knew that our dinner was not going to be cheap and I was fine with that. We are on vacation so we don't mind paying the island prices for a good meal but what we do mind is the automatic gratuity charge on a TAKE OUT/TO-GO order! Yes, they charged my credit card a 15% gratuity without even asking me or even showing me my bill until after my card had been run. Has anyone ever heard of such a thing!? I can't get over it. So I was charged $51 for two mediocre entres ($6 was the tip that they gave themselves).

The food was disappointing. My steak fajitas came on a bed of nearly raw onions with ONE, only one bell pepper slice. They gave me hardly any fixings (ie: sour cream, guac, ect.) I asked for extra tortillas because three just isn't enough for me and the manager/owner who was helping me seemed very bothered by that and even more bothered that I wanted some salsa to go with my $50 to-go order. He told the bartender in spanish to get me just a small amount of salsa and she brought the container to him to get his approval. It was a very small container and he agreed to allow me to have that much salsa. It was all very uncomfortable.

Don't go here. The food is mediocre, overpriced and they will help themselves to a tip without asking.

This all seems like a very poor way to run a business.

It has a good view... and that was the most interesting part of this experience. Both times we've been there, the service struggles. It's hard to maintain good service (I suppose) if someone has to keep coming out on the deck but if you're going to create that type of atmosphere, you have to be able to delivery.

Our margaritas were watery and sweet. The palomas were made with some awful straight from a can white grapefruit. It's my understanding that their carnitas are quite good but everything we got (incl guacamole) was relatively uninspired.

Net:Net This is too close to Mexico to be serving mediocre mexican food. And too beautiful to let the experience suffer as a result of service.

I wish I could review the ambience of La Hacienda separate from the food, because the first deserves 6 stars (yes, 6!) while the latter only gets 3. I really wanted to love the place because of it's great location on the bay and the effort they went through to ensure an enjoyable outdoor dining experience, but unfortunately the food just didn't keep up with everything else the restaurant had to offer.

We sat outside on a Friday evening - our reservations were for 8pm and we were seated promptly at a large table on the long deck that lines the restaurant on the bay side. Shortly after we arrived, they turned on the outdoor fans with misters. This was a sophisticated system with a unit built into the overhang of the restaurant over each table. The cool breeze was well received at our table - the fans were quiet and efficient.

The waiter was attentive and was able to explain the food well and answer our questions. The complimentary chips and salsa were, as others have stated, quite addicting. The chips are served warmed and are thick cut - definitely made in-house as they had a unique shape and crunch to them.

Appetizers
- Shrimp compeche - decent, basically a chilled shrimp cocktail with 6 large shrimp
- Ceviche - decent, nothing to write home about, but good
- Table-side guacamole - nice presentation, but without much flavor

Main dishes
-Seafood enchiladas - Good presentation and good quality ingredients. Sauce was thick and creamy, as described, and had a good taste to it (slightly sweet which is common with seafood enchiladas), but entree was merely luke-warm. Refried beans were a little thick for my liking, but had a good taste to them. Would have been much better had the enchiladas been piping hot right out of the oven. They also needed a little more sauce, in my opinion.
- Spinach enchiladas - great taste with a white creamy sauce (different from above), but again served barely warm.

Dessert
Fresh fruit crepes - I'm a broken record here - fresh ingredients (strawberries, bananas and kiwi rolled in a (what tasted like) house-made crepe), but served barely warm. Even the caramel sauce drizzled on top was cool to the tongue. All would have been better heated through.

The sunset was a very nice touch to the restaurants ambience (I highly recommend getting reservations between 8/8:30pm to experience the lovely sinking orb). And on Friday and Saturday nights there is a fireworks show that starts at 9:15pm.

One complaint on the waiter - he added a 19% gratuity for our party of 4. There were no gratuity messages on the menu (i.e. added automatically) and for the small size of our party, we thought the auto-grat was strange. He promptly removed it when asked stating "it's just automatically added for all tables."

Overall I would visit La Hacienda again, but probably just for a drink (while the margaritas were a little sweet for my taste, the beer was cold), the sunset views, and the fireworks show.

I'm in PR, so I don't trust many reviews. The experience at La Hacienda in SPI is the reason I am writing my first Yelp review.

From the view to the attentive service, my family knew we picked the vacation spot for dinner. And then the homemade chips and salsa came to confirm it!

The food was bananas good! Not one thing wrong with this place. If you stay or visit Padre, this is the place to go for a nice stay, great view, and even better food.

The view at La Hacienda, especially at sunset, is hard to beat. Tables abut the windows, which are huge. The restaurant is enclosed so even on a windy or hot night, diners wouldn't be bothered by the weather.

The service is also top-notch. Our waiter was polite and attentive, and the floor manager was actually on the floor and paying attention to what's going on.

Unfortunately, we met the manager because my husband's baby back ribs were so hard they were inedible and he sent them back. For $26 he expected a lot better and a whole rack (the plate was only a half a rack). He didn't want a new plate, so the manager removed the cost from the menu without a fuss and with apology, so she handled a bad situation well.

My seafood enchiladas were just OK. I got a lot more cheese than seafood which was sort of disappointing for a place so close to the product (that is: seafood from the sea).

The free chips and salsa were excellent, by the way. I would go back to La Hacienda for happy hour at sunset but not for dinner.

The restaurant has a great view of the ocean. I thought we would have to endure the windy conditions to enjoy the great view but that was not the case. The restaurant was clean and employees friendly. Although the salsa was a bit spicy for me, the chips were addictive.

My husband & I ordered the seafood enchiladas & pomegranate margaritas. My son ordered chicken fajita nachos. I thought our enchiladas would have real lump crab meat but instead it was topped with imitation crab meat. I was really disappointed. The margarita was excellent.

If we were to return to SPI, I would not go back to La Hacienda as it's a little pricey for what you get.

This was the worst experience ever so I'd like to dedicate this to the horrible staff that made it possible. I was in South Padre on vacation with my best friend and her baby for the weekend. Since every place on the island is pretty much a bar we wanted a restaurant type of place to eat comfortably, so we skipped on Coconuts next door. Worst decision we made that weekend.

So 1, right when we entered the host seemed annoyed. We asked for a table outside on the deck, like every tourist would, because we wanted the experience. She let us now there was no tables available so we asked for one by the window and again she was annoyed. So being the nice Dallas people we are, we decided on a table in the middle of the restaurant.

2, it took a while for anyone to come up to us. When our waiter came we asked for 2 mango margaritas. Now I understand he was an older man but if you cannot handle delivering 2 margaritas to a table without spilling half of it on your way there then you should probably NOT be waiting tables. Now what made this worse was that as he put them on the table THEY WERE STILL SPILLING EVERYWHERE. My initial thought was "awh it's okay he'lol clean it up" bc duh!! Right? Well no he didn't. He walked off. We were in shock. I really felt like we were bothering him. The margaritas were nothing special. We made better ones the next day at our hotel room.

3, we began to let him know our order and what we did and didn't want on our plate. First of all the prices are ridiculous and the food is nothing special. I remembered I didn't let him know I didn't want beans with my enchiladas and let him know before our food came out. His response was "idk they're already working on your plates" so I said "ok can you tell them before it comes out?" And he walked off. At this point I just can't believe we're here.

4, our food comes out & of course my enchiladas came with fries and rice even after I asked for no beans. My friend got flour tortillas when she asked for corn. Now the part where you would think we should've just walked out. She hates cheese and I am not exaggerating when I say hate. Her fajitas had bits of white cheese sprinkled on top so she told the waiter "I don't eat cheese it didn't say it had cheese on the menu" and he just looked at her, shrugged his shoulders and said "oh well too bad" we looked at each other like what in the world? And to make things worse my food was COLD! Ugh I wish I could give this place -100 stars!

Up to this day I regret not walking out on this ridiculous excuse of a restaurant. Over all our Padre experience was bad. It was a waste of time, gas, lack of sleep. Everyone is so rude there it's just a sad place! I wouldn't recommend coming here for vacation at all!

This is for Padre mind you

Great location very nice inside
Tip don't sit next to the windows if you get cold easy

Prices are fair and on par with most of the run down bars and strip restaurants in Padre
They do have some dishes that are $20+ but if you stay with the Mexican fare most dishes are under $15 there is plenty to eat and you could share if you have a small appetite or if you have filled up on their fresh chips made in house.

I had a Chile Rellonos and my plate came out with two fresh pablano chilies stuffed not with cheese but a nice ground beef, cheese, onion and cilantro mixture than dipped in egg and possibly panko and put in the fryer and fried to a crispy golden brown. They were excellent. The rice is dry with little flavor and the beans had little favor also but it's rice and beans.
My husband had Carne Guisada ( rib-eye) it was a mound of slow roasted beef in a wonderful sauce fresh tortillas rice and beans

Our waiter was awesome gave us two containers of salsa, verde and fire roasted and chips to take home

All was good and worth a trip back

Prices range from $10 for a ground beef or chicken ranchero taco plate to the most expensive Fajitas for two $36, steak and shrimp $28 or fresh fish $26-$31

If you stay away from alcoholic drinks any where from $8 and up, beer ?, you can have dinner at a nice restaurant for under $50 or $60

For everyone that prefers water with there meal not only because it keeps the bill down but because it keeps us from eat too much The water here s good

My wife and I had dinner at La Hacienda with some out-of-town friends. It was the first, and, sadly, the last time we will eat here.

PROS: We went on a Monday evening. Fortunately our party of four was only one of two groups in the whole place. The decor was pleasant, and there was a nice outdoor seating area at the back. Our service was also very friendly and prompt- probably owing to the fact that we were pretty much the only people available to serve.

CONS: Basic Mexican food like flautas are really, really simple. You can buy a good plate of flautas anywhere in the Valley for less than $6. Sadly, I was charged twice that for four flautas, displayed in a very pretty manner, on a pile of lettuce. If I wanted some salsa verde with them, so I wasn't eating them dry, that would cost extra.

The flautas were the cheapest item on the menu. My friends were charged 2-3 times normal rates for really, really basic Mexican food. It all looked pretty, but they couldn't manage to get it to taste good- or, in the case of my wife's dish, even cooked all the way through. Undercooked pork sucks... and is dangerous.

If you're seeking good Mexican food, you're in the best spot in the United States: The Rio Grande Valley. Go somewhere else, not here.

If you're seeking someplace classy, don't go here. Don't embarrass yourself in front of your date or your guests. Go somewhere else.