Chava’s Mexican Restaurant

I love the salsa and I love the cheese dip… the specials are awesome! Love the location too. super close to work

Hummm, where do I start…
How about the non-​food related stuff first.
The restaurant is very nice. It’s clean and has an adult atmosphere and feel to it… call it comfortable evening dining. The wait staff are all friendly, helpful and quick to serve (that’s saying something in E’Ville on a Friday night).
So the front of the restaurant gets high marks.
So why 2 stars?
Well the food is just a big let down. Ok first I have been to Mexico almost 20 times. When we are there we always seek out authentic Mexican restaurants.
We hit local non-​touristy Mexican restaurants no matter if it’s Vegas, Daytona Beach or Cancun.
Even the St. Louis area has some great Mexican places. But this isn’t one of them. The food was boring, bland and basic.
I will say the salsa and chips were very good. The salsa had a smoky flavor that we both enjoyed and the chips came out warm.
But the main dishes were lifeless. This is a guess but I’ll bet there are frozen bags of veggies used in the «build your own burrito» section. The veggie mix had baby carrots, baby corn and green beans. They really did appear to have come out of a bag.
You know the restaurant business has changed… fresh is in.
I had a chicken burrito with rice and beans.
First the chicken had no flavor to speak of, it was kind of like it had been sitting in some sort of mild chicken stock then stuck in a mini burrito. Ok we’ve all had rice and beans in Mexican restaurants. Is it that much to expect that the rice not be completely dried out and the beans not be pureed into baby food. Then neither had much flavor… thank goodness the salsa was good cause I coated everything with it.
Oh one last thing about my dinner, please serve fresh guacamole not the pre-​made, bought a Sam’s, green creamy stuff you put on my plate. Fresh guacamole has chunks or pieces of the green goodness in it.
No decent restaurant purée’ their guacamole.
So my wife ordered the «build your own burrito».
She was told if she added the ingredients on the list that the burrito would be huge. And it was a giant.
She choose steak, which was good, it’s a shame there was only 3 or 4 ounces of it in this 2 pound monster.
Other ingredients she added were cheese, sour cream, roasted veggies, guacamole. The guacamole I’ve already talked about and the veggies, well I wonder how long it takes their line cook to clean the baby corn and shave down and clean all those baby carrots.
Along with… wait for it… green beans. Yup green beans in a burrito. I gotta say that was a first. But yet again her burrito was pretty flavorless. Mostly because of the frozen veggie mix used to «fill» the burrito.
If you’re the owner/​manager of this nice restaurant. Please Please figure out how to add some flavor and freshness to your brand. Spend one evening and head over to STL and try Mission Taco or Tortillaria. Super fresh ingredients and flavors you’ll still be talking about the next day.
Edwardsville needs a better than ok Mexican restaurant, you’ve got a great location, a great staff, a demographic that is upscale and a opportunity to really knock people’s socks off… what are you waiting for?

One of my go-​to local restaurants, I really enjoy Chava’s. Their customer service is excellent, I’ve never had an order messed up or come out wrong. They are friendly, efficient and accommodating. I am a vegetarian and they cater to my diet which is phenomenal. My favorite dish is their enormous, fresh salads and I nearly always order that when I go. People I’ve gone with love their tamales, chimichangas, chicken wings, fajitas and amazing nachos. Their chips and dip are fantastic and the prices are incredibly reasonable. Oh, and if you’re in the mood, they offer a fantastic selection of tequilas for the perfect margarita. You really can’t go wrong by heading to Chava’s!

I’ll start off by saying you won’t find anything groundbreaking here. Chava’s carries a lot of the same items you’ll find at essentially any local Mexican food joint. The difference is they do it so well!
Everything here seems like it’s fresh, made to order, and good quality. I enjoy a lot of Mexican restaurants but many of them still give me the feeling that the ingredients are sitting in a pan of hot water/​steam waiting to be nuked and served.
I haven’t been disappointed yet, but I would recommend the Build-​your-​own-​burrito! Everything you want, nothing you don’t, in a massive and reasonably priced tortilla shell!

The Chavas location in Edwardsville is welcome variety for lunch downtown. Personally, I like the fajita style tacos with grilled steak along with munching on their addictive bowls of hot chips with tasty salsa. Most of the lunches I’ve had here are with co-​workers, so I haven’t tried any of their cocktails yet. Great spot to grab lunch during a long work week.

Chava’s has a nice atmosphere, the specials are always interesting and tasty. The soups and tacos are flavorful and reasonably portioned.
We get take out from here a couple times a month and eat in house at least once a month.
The appetizers are always fresh and hot.
Service has always been very good.
A very good restaurant in Edwardsville.

Wow. First time at Chavas in Eville. 7 of us in the group. Disappointing. Service ok but food is lacking quality and freshness. Not much Mexican here. More of a mediocre Tex-​Mex. Salsa was very bland and used pickled jalapeño s. Pickled jalapeño in the salsa and on the entrees. It is early October and fresh jalapeños are available by the baskets locally? Most entrée options on menu are fried. From burritos to Tacos. Rice was very bland as well. Shredded cheddar cheese used on 3 dishes, not chihuahua cheese. Pickled baby corn in the fajitas? Just bland and odd choices by the chef. If you would like real Mexican. Try el ranchito on fair mount city il. STL top 100 restaurants choice

Second visit here. Chips and salsa greatly improved. Still think it is a little higher than the competitors in town. Also, still no lunch menu? (We went at lunch). Not a good value for lunch time.
Food was good but I felt a bit tricked. The entrée I ordered described cheese in the ingredients; very common for «Tex-​Mex» foods. When it arrived, I took a few bites and couldn’t find any cheese inside or out. So I asked the server and he said «Oh yeah, we use Parmesan…» So, they sprinkle a little of the well-​known Mexican cheese called Parmesan (satire folks) and that counts as cheese? Hmmmmm…

I feel compelled to write a review of Chava’s in Edwardsville as the feedback I have gotten has been all over the board. The chips and salsa were fantastic– much better than I remember having in Soulard 8 years ago. I ordered the El Meriko and it was seriously yummy! I also ordered the frozen pineapple margarita, which was very refreshing and very strong! My mom had the frozen mango margarita and it was also surprisingly good. The only reason I am not giving it 5 stars is because my mom’s drink got knocked over right after she got it. But, they still charged us $ 7.25 for a new one. I understand that it wasn’t the restaurant’s fault it was knocked over, but out of good faith, the new one should have been on the house. They may have taken it off had we asked, but we really shouldn’t have to.

Best chicken fajitas ANYWHERE! The salsa is tasty and the chips are crisp, not stale. I love coming to Chava’s and would highly recommend it to anyone that loves Mexican food.

Best Mexican food in the area! Friendly staff and reasonable prices. Highly recommend their fajitas and tostadas!

Most of the Mexican restaurants in Edwardsville are all the same, but Chava’s is an exception. On my first visit there last night, I got the Mango Frozen Margarita (good…I can definitely tell they o.d.‘d on the tequila!) and these chicken burritos with guacamole and queso on top. Tasted like heaven. I’d like to try the build your own burrito and a few other dishes in the future. Its a shame that they don’t have many combo meals, but it can’t be perfect. The other thing is you have to ASK for hot sauce. Usually other Mexican places leave it on the table. I ended up with habanaro flavored salsa and it was mighty good!

I loved the taco salad. It was huge (minus the shell) and very delicious. Nice touch with bacon on it. Probably one of my favorite taco salads ever. The chips and salsa were very good. We were served quickly. Can’t wait to go back!

We have a lot of Mexican restaurants in Edwardsville, but Chava’s is one of the only two where I will eat. Their menu is slightly different than the usual run-​of-​the-​mill Americanized Meixcan food, which is likely why I prefer it. My family raves about how much better their salsa is, too.
The interior is clean (a big change from the handful of other Mexican restaurants in town that I stay away from), and they have filled out the space nicely after Caffe Avanti’s departure. The hostess and servers are nice and appropriately attentive.
I wasn’t a fan of their soft tacos — they were average at best. The other two dishes that I have tried since, I enjoyed. The «Fajita Nachos» are delicious, but not what you’d expect. Rather than a pile of chips adorned by a pile of toppings, you receive a wreath of boat-​shaped tortilla chips filled with beans, cheese, and meat, with extra toppings in the center of said wreath. The «Big Fresh Salad» was also quite good, although surprisingly spicy. They aren’t kidding around when they say «big,» either! This salad is monstrous, and I always ask for a box for half of it to make it more manageable.

Good food overall, but the best part is that it’s prepared juuuuust differently enough that it isn’t exactly like every other faux-​Mexican restaurant in the E-​ville/​Glen Carbon/​Troy area. Their prices are also reasonable, and for such tasty and uniquely prepared food, you just can’t beat it in this area. If you just want a plain ol’ enchilada or taco, sure, there are plenty of other options in the area. But really, try this place and you will notice the difference… and if you’re open minded enough to enjoy the difference, you will like it too! Enjoy!

Came in for a shot at the steak fajitas and they were good but on the oversalted side even though they had good flavor, they were too salty to eat the meat alone, it needed to be wrapped in the tortilla with the beans and such. Still, they were tender and tasty and seasoned the wraps perfectly. Their guacamole is some of the best I’ve ever had as are the refried beans – chunky and thick, not soupy like some places. The rice is ok, nothing to write about but the beans more than make up for it.

The service and environment were great! I loved the atmosphere and the clean bathrooms as well. Although the food I had wasn’t as great as some other mexican I’ve had (I had the fajita tacos by the way), it was still great.

Wow, not nearly what I was expecting. We eat at the soulard location all the time. and this was definitely not decent.
We brought our family here for lunch at 2 in the afternoon… Not only did it take forever, but this is NOT a family friendly place. No kids menu at all. We got a taco, and fries for two kids, and a shrimp quesadilla for the other one… $ 75 later, and we were leaving. Mind you that was two adult meals, and three small kids.
The El Meriko wasn’t anywhere close to as good as the soulard store.
Avoid this place if you plan on bringing any kids, we’ll never be back.

Glad to have finally had a chance to stop in here. Restaurant was about half full during peak dinner hours on Friday.
They have an interesting take on nachos: individual tortilla chips with beef, beans, and cheese. Sort of like two tostadas cut into fourths. Pretty good.
Tortilla chips were great, the salsa might be a bit of an acquired taste for some, as it has a distinct chipotle pepper taste. Good stuff, nonetheless.
El Mireko was fantastic. Two smoky, tender chicken burritos flash fried. I was not too fond of the refried beans (less authentic and more canned) and the Mexican rice (could’ve been the parboiled rice).
All in all, a nice experience. Torta will be a must try next time.

We visited on a weekend night, and found the place pleasantly full. A hostess greeted us immediately, and asked us to wait a few minutes as a table was being cleared. We noticed the bar was relatively empty, so we opted to sit there.
Drinks: Draft beer was limited to Dos Equis Amber and Blue Moon, I believe the basic Belgian White. I think my Dos Equis 12-​oz. draw was $ 2.50, competitively priced. My lovely companion had a margarita special, whatever it was, and liked it.
Food: I ordered a La Torta with fried tilapia filets. The fish was very good, and the portion was large, mainly because of the big bakery bun. She ordered tostadas (I forget exactly which one), which also was enjoyed. Chips and salsa were fine.
Space/​Parking: Chauvas occupies the space formerly used by Café Avanti, and the dining area has not changed much. But the bar is set parallel to the front wall, replacing the bakery counter that used to be to the left as you entered. Parking is tight at this busy northwest corner of Buchanan/​Troy and St. Louis/​Vandalia, especially on weekends, and there don’t seem to be good options for street parking in the immediate vicinity. In anything other than fair weather, it’s good to be prepared with the proper clothing, footwear, and/​or umbrella for a walk. You might try parking on the street on the west side of the library.