Critic's Review
Pancho's Closed in Oct 2014.
Review 5/16/12
When I think about misnamed restaurants; I think of Pancho's Backyard. The name certainly implicates some sort of outdoorsy setting, and the actual place is nothing like that. With it's strip mall location, you get a choice of a concrete mall outdoors or a big rectangular dining room inside.
They have 2 big TVs, but as usual in these types of places, it's not on the news, sports or anything substantive. It's not a very festive place; there's no mexican music or anything like that. The servers are efficient if not mechanical; they take your drink order and drop off some chips as you're seated.
The chips were warm and freshly made. The salsa wasn't the red kind you usually get; it was yellowish and not very spicy; but the chips were pretty good.
I was surprised at how fast the food came out. 5 minutes tops.
I thought for $10.95 I might get a really big piece of meat (the other lunch specials where around $8), but this is your standard lunch cut. I don't know why they covered it in raw onions; I wanted the chimichurri sauce and not raw onions. They gave me a pretty good sized bowl of black beans, so it was plenty of food. The steak was perfectly medium rare, but not very well seasoned. I'll guess that they didn't season it at all, so it needed salt. The Chimichurri was pretty good; not the best I've ever had, but I made the whole thing work. They give you a choice of plantains or Yucca and I have no use for plantains, but I've never had yucca that wasn't disguised as french fries. They were pretty gooey and tasteless so I didn't bother with them. The steak, beans and rice were plenty of food without them.
Panchos serves both mexican and spanish dishes, and they have some pretty good choices. Not bad for this neck of the woods.