On The Border Mexican Grill & Cantina

My wife and I had dinner tonight. I had the Chicken Tinga enchilada The flour tortillas were thick and gummy, I would be embarrassed to serve such a small portion of chicken (a heaping tea spoon at best). I dont think I will go back, The price was not high but nor did we get much food. I would prefer to pay more and have good food.

Great food again– wait staff was awesome and attentive– not one dry drink while we ate. I recommend the big burrito and the flan– oh and the queso for the app works well

Steak fajita with rice and salsa was good. Service and atmosphere is very good.

We had an outstanding experience. Came on a Saturday night about 5, walked right in and sat down. The waiter was very good. We had out 15mo old son with us and he brought him a dough ball to play with while we waited. Our food came out fast and very hot. The plate for our son wasn’t too hot which was nice because we could feed him as soon as it was brought out. We also got a free queso since we had never been there before. Overall an amazing experience with the kiddo. We will come back again!

Nachos was ok. Salsa was good. environment was good. the service was ok. food was ok. Price was ok.

Been coming to on the border for a long time and the food has slowly gone down hill. Last night my food was left under the heater for so long that they handed me a plate with a melted cup of sour cream. I had such terrible stomach cramps late last night that I barely slept. I have to say that my boyfriend and I will not be returning to one of our favorite Mexican places in the valley. Very very disappointed

Filthy flatware, food under tables, food oversalted, restroom disgusting

What I ordered: coroniarita, queso, quesodilla
Went for happy hour, very pleased with quality, service, and their menu
Will definitely return.

We have been regulars here, but not any more. Last Sunday, around noon, the women’s bathroom was not only filthy, but BOTH sinks were stopped up. We told the restaurant about the problem via their online feedback questionnaire and have yet to have anyone get back to us. Thanks, On the Border, for NOT CARING. The department of health should shut your doors!

We like this place. The service is friendly, the prices are reasonable and the food is good. Chips, salsa and queso are exceptional. It looks like the chips are made in store, cut from corn tortillas which probably are not made in store. Thin, crispy and with just the right amount of salt, they are delicious. Salsa is smooth and slightly spicy. Plus, they are free. Good call.
We’ve been here four or five times and tried everything from fajitas to tacos to burritos to enchiladas. All are good, not very creative, but good. The place has more fish tacos then most and a nice selection of combos. All the Mexican standards are here.
Good, creative drink selection although nothing is very authentic. Lots of drinks based on some sort of sour mix. It’s a chain so you’d expect that.
My only real complaint is the menus … Often a bit dirty which sends me to the washroom after I order.

You can’t beat their happy hour specials — apps and drinks are fantastic, however, the waitresses are among the rudest I’ve ever encountered, and the tables were left dirty for upwards of 15 minutes. Totally disgusting atmosphere with garbage all over the floor. The manager looked pretty pissed, but the wait staff still moved like turtles.
If you come here, know that you truly get what you pay for… So come during $ 2 happy hour.

Telling you upfront: I don’t know if I should be posting a review or not.
Why? I don’t like Mexican food. I just don’t. I hate peppers, tomatoes, onions, salsa. You name it and I won’t like it. It’s just the way it is.
So I will review on my experience. There were 5 of us. I told the waitress that I was just along for the ride, that I didn’t like Mexican food. She looked at me, said okay. Then a few seconds later, asked if I would like a burger. My ears pricked and my eyes widened.
*Sproing!*
A burger? Can you do that for me?
Why, yes she could. And not just any burger, but a cheeseburger. I could even have bacon if I wanted. My brain said to skip the bacon while my taste buds yearned for it. Alas, not this day.
And it comes with fries, is that okay?
*sigh*…twist my arm, I’ll eat them if I have to :)
There is a never ending supply of nachos on the table. I think we went through 4 bowls. The last bowl was so fresh, they were still hot. My advice: grab the ones on top, they are salted and therefore have more flavor.
I don’t know what kind of nachos they are, but they don’t have the usual corn taste like you get from bagged nachos. They were actually kinda bland.
My burger was cooked just right. The waitress apologized, she had forgotten to ask if I wanted lettuce or tomato. LOL. I think she had some weird sixth sense going on, and already knew that answer, which is why the question was never posed.
So my burger was yummy. I overloaded it with ketchup by mistake, but it was still good.
Fries? Meh. Not as good as the golden arches, no matter how much salt I put on them.
Dessert was okay. I went with the healthier option of fried dough, haha. Doesn’t seem to be a lot of skill with making that.
Ambience: moderately loud, family type environment.
Service: very friendly and efficient. Those nacho bowls were never empty. Dunno what all the other bad reviews were about. I was watching other tables/​employees while I was there, and everybody seemed both happy and attentive.
Food: my burger was good. That’s about all I can offer.
The whole «would I go back» is kinda irrelevant… the answer is no, since I don’t like Mexican food. Everything else that I can review on seemed okay.

Love the burritos! And the spices here are excellent. Nice and hot.
Couple that with the Negra Mondello and you’re in heaven.

CHI-CHI’s RE-​BRANDED. Boy is this place bad. I’ll cut to the chase and quickly save you both money and time…
THE GOOD:
— Nice atmosphere, although without real Mexican soul. «Corp-​Mex» is a good term. Think SYSCO with a made-​in-​China sombrero. It’s as Mexican as Mertztown.
— Decent chips, although oversalted. When you see a pile of salt at the bottom of the basket… (Tortillas cut only in half. Must save work for the kitchen staff.)
— Simple, somewhat watery salsa, but has a nice burn.
THE BAD:
— Hostess: Bored, «half-​there» greeting from hostess. We were not made to feel welcomed. Not a word from them as we all left. Too busy chatting among themselves.
— Server (s): Helena, seemed nice enough, but also «not quite there.» Forgetful, absent minded. Forgot items ordered and never apologized when she was informed about her oversights. Slow to respond to multiple requests. She seemed as if her head was working her «ideal» job, which apparently wasn’t there. Other servers also looked bored… as if they didn’t want to be there. They moved slowly. I saw no smiles. Frankly, they added ZERO to the whole experience. In fact, they detracted. Took 20 minutes to get chips and salsa. Server said, «I’ll get you chips» and had to be reminded 10 minutes later to bring them.
— Food: This is where it rapidly goes downhill. Little enchiladas with little filling. White meat chicken? I didn’t see any. Gloppy white sauce. Taco? Decent shell, crappy filling… and little of it. Again, mixed dark-​meat chicken. Tostada, with its chicken-​part mix, tasted okay. Oh, and all of it served luke-​warm. Not a hot item on the entire multi-​part dish.
– Management: Crap restaurants equal crap management. They hire poorly, train poorly, supervise poorly and execute poorly. On The Border is the poster child restaurant of crap management. Do they stop at your table when there’s been a problem? Nah… no time to mingle with unhappy guests. Do they train servers to offer a free dessert to make up for forgetting multiple items and never bringing ordered food? «Nah, stop bothering us about unhappy customers. We’re managers. Too important for such nonsense.»
BOTTOM-​LINE: Remember how bad Chi-Chi’s was? Welcome to On The Border! If you’re looking for poor, disinterested service and wholly mediocre food (and dark mixed-​part chicken) served in a soulless, inauthentic Mexican atmosphere, On The Border is right up your alley. On The Border is tantamount to Taco Bell with a table service.
SUGGESTION: If you go, be prepared to be unhappy and feel as though you should have heeded this review before you dropped $$$ to learn for yourself everything you just now read. Olé!

This place is now the only formal Mexican chain in the Lehigh Valley, now that Don Pablo’s is gone. I have eaten at the On The Border on Rt. 46 NNJ and it’s always been good. Unfortunately, I cannot say the same of the Lehigh Valley location.
The LV On the Border is consistently bad. In a number of visits, we have not had one problem free meal. Food sitting under the warming lamp too long is common. Service is dreadfully slow. Meantime staff are in the office area, flirting, laughing, socializing and texting. I could see this ‘party’ clearly unfolding from where I was sitting. It appeared like a (younger) manager was part of the party. Really, management seems lacking in general.
Typical food related problems other than the warming lamp include under-​cooked veggies, over-​cooked & dried out meat; screwed up orders, veggie Fajita missing veggies; my wild berry marguerrita tasted like arsenic, not fruit.
To be fair, they will fix mistakes if you complain. But I feel like we just blew $ 40 on poor food, horrible service, a junior high school environment, and undrinkable beverages. Taco Bell is a better value. Seriously. ’ no mas’

For all of the complaints here, I can tell you that whenever we visit, this place is slammed with customers. Therefore, this On the Border MUST be doing something right!
If you visit, know that you’ll get a basket of tortilla chips and salsa gratis. Now, the salsa has just the right amount of heat … and cilantro. For me, the cilantro is a bummer since my palette translates cilantro as «dish-​soap» (it’s a genetic issue … Google it if you think I’m kidding. LOL!). Nonetheless, I still love it! I dig the almost purée quality of it. And, if you visit during regular hours you’ll get large, whole, warm chips (off-​hours you will not be so lucky). BUT, you MUST get the queso to pair with these. The bowl of queso makes all the difference! It’s actually crave-​able … no joke, we seem to keep gravitating to here because of the chips/​salsa/​queso magic.
Now, I am a vegetarian. They have always been able to accommodate me … even being polite enough to tell me what seems vegetarian on the menu but is not (like the refried beans have lard in them?!) The vegetarian versions of their dishes have an obviously less rounded flavor-​profile (because it’s not their specialty), but I’m grateful to any establishment that accommodates my needs. So, that gets a pass:)
We have had okay servers: a few inattentive ones (but never a «bad» one) and a few really attentive ones. And, on Friday, there was a manager checking-​in with the clients … ensuring that their experiences were positive ones. This shows a genuine concern for the customers. Again, nothing to complain about here.
Finally, I have never seen this establishment out-​of-​control. While there is a good deal of fun and drinking to indulge in, I have never seen management unable to handle a rowdy group. This is why we will return again and again.
Hey, it’s chain food so it’s nothing innovative … but if you’re hungry and in the area, it’s a solid choice.

Three stars would have been a generous rating to give… and I would have been nice enough to do that, however, given the circumstances, I had no choice but to drop it down to uno.
Why only one star? Because this restaurant lacks soul and integrity and will insult your intelligence when you call bullshit… But the guac and salsa are pretty good which is the only reason this place gets any star (s) at all.
So I order a beef burrito with sour cream sauce and a side of guac… my boyfriend, enchillada’s. Our plates are literally out in minutes. One would expect it to be piping hot but both dishes were cold and the beans had a skin over them like they’d been sitting for awhile.
First thing I noticed was that my burrito wasn’t folded but just sort of… plopped on like a giant face-​down taco. I don’t know if this is an exclusive On the Border preparation trait but it came off as lazy. I mean, it says «Fine Mexican Food» on the side of the establishment but they can’t roll the shit up properly? Even Taco Bell takes the time to fold your burrito. Not to leave out the good, it was garnished with a slice of jalapeño pepper– a pop of green which added a nice touch. I didn’t complain about appearances but didn’t want to pay «fine» prices for cold food.
The server (who was friendly) offered to have the dishes remade. Literally, less than five minutes later, we get some micro-​nuked monkey chow that was worse than the cold food… which at least tasted okay and had the right sauce on it.
My boyfriend’s enchilladas were hot, yes… but looked like dog food stuffed condoms, all floppy and rubbery. My face-​down taco was mushy and soggy with some cheesy ooze all over it… which they insisted was just cheese melted over sour cream sauce instead of listening to the person who was chewing on it… Oh, and they left out the pretty pepper garnish and forgot my guac.
You can tell when a dish is made fresh with love. When asked how it was, I said it tasted like it was cooked in a microwave (which it blatantly was), the manager asserted he witnessed it get «prepared from scratch» assuring me it was made by a manager. If that was manager approved, then Lord have Mercy! At this point, I just wanted to morph into Chef Ramsey and rip apart this dish and his b.s. because this guy was obviously taking me for a sucker… but instead of arguing, I just asked for the guac so I could muscle this crap down and get on with my day.
The manager did comp the meal but that didn’t leave me feeling happy or satisfied. I wasn’t looking for a free meal… just some good Mexican food. They are practically serving huge T.V. dinners to and trying to convince people it’s quality because they think we’re morons who can’t tell the difference. In conclusion, if you want quality Mexican food made with sincerity, skip the Border and hit up Cactus Blue on Shoenersville Rd. instead.

I thought this place would be a good substitute for Don Pablo’s as far as run of the mill chain restaurants go but so far for me it hasn’t been.
The one thing I do like is they recently became part of the No Wait app and you no longer have to carry around those hockey puck pagers that stop working when you even begin to think about leaving the place. They simply send you a text when you’re ready to be seated and will call if you don’t respond. The con to this is that they seem to send out a text to a handful of people at the same time which in turn causes a cluster fuck in the front end as everyone crams in to be ‘first’. This leaves the hostess standing there apologizing as to why she can’t seat people fast enough and you waiting around even longer.
They have the usual chips and salsa as a starter and I will say the salsa has a good kick to it however the chips can be so heavily salted that they become inedible.
The corn tortillas have to be the worst things I have ever tasted. I first experienced them when I ordered the fish tacos (which came out cold and I had to send back). I just took the filling out and mixed it with the side of rice which was quite tasty. The waiter came back and checked on us, noticed what I did and laughed. He said that almost everyone he serves complains about the corn tortillas and he now just brings out a side of the flour ones automatically. So if everyone is complaining about them maybe it’s time to switch things up?
I’d say this place is fine for after work drinks and apps but not one to quench your Mexican food craving. For that I suggest Mexico Lindo or Cactus Blue.

I’m going to come straight out and say that I generally don’t really like Mexican food, which I put down to being lactose intolerant, not liking tomatoes or beans, and generally not liking super spicy food. Also I have a strong preference for sticky rice.
Given those restrictions, there just wasn’t a lot of stuff for me to order off the menu — I ended up with a sandwich from the lunch menu that came with fries, and we also ordered a plate of guac. The chips fryer was malfunctioning the day we came in, according to our waitress, so we didn’t get chips until we had been seated for about fifteen minutes, and, even then, we got a pretty sparse plate. The chips we did get were fresh and well seasoned (not too salty), but both dishes of salsa were spicy and we would have preferred a little less spice. The guac was good, but it was a small portion for the price. I thought my sandwich was good as well, but, honestly, it was nothing special, and the fries were soggy and a little flavorless.

Went here for dinner and was pretty happy with the crunchie tacos. They were fantastic for a chain restuarant. However, the beef taco was extremely salty, to the point of my trachea and throat being covered with what tasted like a salt lick for hours. It was an unsettling discovery.
Free chips and salsa too, oh hellz yes. Beans and Rice were flavorful and pretty much terrific. Waitress was actually very prompt and cute and professionally dressed.
Only con was the margarita was a bit weak, and by weak I mean, tasted like a VIRGIN margarita.
Overall great experience, jusy opt for the chicken or steak tacos, steer clear of the beef, unless you like saltlicks.
We will be back. Resturant was slam packed, a great sign of great food and service.