I think this place serves the greatest Mexican food. I am truly in love with their chips& salsa too. The only thing is that the service is sometimes good and sometimes like they don't see you there! read more

This is one of the best restaurants I have found in the area. The salsa is quiet good but could use more fresh veggies. I usually order the pork carnitas. Excellent! read more

I went to this restaurant last summer. I went in during my break around 2-3 PM. There were a couple people in the bar and a couple tables in the restaurant. The service was good. I ordered the Camarones al mojo de Ajo, it was good too. The rice was GREAT though! It had pees and corn. read more

I frequent Chapala whenever I'm in town for work. Mainly due to the location and cost but also because the food here is consistently good. It's a good place to relax after working all day. The problem here for me is that I always eat too much. read more

Best Mexican food around!! Always very fast, friendly service, and super reasonable prices.

I'm not often a regular at any place, but I go here with my boyfriend's family once a week and I've never really been disappointed. Occasionally they won't give a lot of extra sauce, but overall it has been a 5 star experience! read more

This place is bomb. Great service nice environment and awesome food. If you like Mexican food go here NOW!

Noisy atmosphere that one could tolerate but the food was a disappointment. The shredded beef chimichanga was blah! No spicing whatsoever. Not identifiable as Mexican food at all. My husbands steak burrito was also tasteless with tough chewy steak pieces. Portion sizes were good but did not make up for lack of taste. read more

Tried Chapala's for the first time in July. The portions were large and the food was excellent. read more

Very good service, very good food, very reasonable prices...all fajitas, seafood burrito, tres enchiladas, camerones chipotle are all recommended. Review based off of several visits. read more

I love love LOVE this place. The portion sizes are large and the food is sooo good. I always get the same thing, pollo sopitos and always have a small meal of leftovers to take home. Guac, queso, chips, and margs all soo good. Ive read some of the other reviews complaining of service, i have always had fast and friendly service and ive been there with both large groups and small, in the afternoon and evening. My only tip wiuld be to expect a wait if youre going there on a Saturday night ;) read more

We ate at El Chapala on July 2, 2012. The food was wonderful and the service was great! We were very impressed with the cleanliness of the restaurant and the prices! The margaritas were awesome! We will definitely be back to eat here when we are in Waterloo, IA. again. Bill and Kris V-Clive, IA. (Des Moines) read more

Best Mexican food in town! Margaritas are incredible as well, must try!!! The staff is super nice as well!:)

I went here with some friends on a road trip and was pleasantly surprised to find such awesome mexican food in the midwest. The pollo mazatlán was fantastic. If I ever come through iowa again, definitely stopping here again. read more

Overall - pretty good. I liked it enough to have gone there a couple times, but I also wouldn't go out of the way for it. The food was solid - but I was a little disappointed my fajitas were a lot of vegetables (which I loved) -- and, in turn, very little meat. I'm always looking for a good chili relleno -- and my search still continues... The restaurant itself is very comfortable and clean - and the wait staff was attentive. The couple times we were in -- it was unusually warm... hopefully that's been a problem that's been fixed! read more

Best Mexican restaurant in the Cedar Valley. Try the Arroz con Pollo. Uh-maz-ing

Solid 3.5 stars. No issues... Good service and food was pretty typical Mexican. Serving sizes are HUGE so keep that in mind when ordering lunch...could easily split with someone. read more

This used to be the go to Mexican restaurant in the Cedar Valley. However, the service has gone drastically down hill. Food used to arrive really quick, staff was very attentive, now, you wait forever for drink refills and food orders take longer than 30 minutes. Additionally, the place is dirty, while sitting at my table, waiting an eternity for my food, I looked up at the ceiling & saw the air vents were filthy with dust that could easily fall into customers food & drink, it's disgusting. The waitress said the reason for poor service was that all focus has been shifted to their new location in Cedar Falls. That's an unsatisfactory explanation. I'm now searching for a better, cleaner place to enjoy Mexican cuisine. read more

It's like one of the best restaurants anywhere. The salsa is top notch and spicy. Carne Asada is amazing great every time. Prices very reasonable. read more

Salsa is on the spicy/hot side but it's good. The portions are huge though so be hungry. They tend to rush you and the service is I agree with others hit or miss at times. Drinks are I think over priced and they only have one refill on pop which is strange. read more

Not many places I'd give 5 stars but this s is one of them. Not much around here for authentic Mexican however this 5 star isn't by default. My cousin and i frequent this location almost weekly. Now I haven't tried much on the menu because I stick to my favorite, the chicken chimichanga. The portions are generous, rice and beans for many dishes which are great, not americanized. Fairly cheap with a large menu. Staff is very nice, bi-lingual and know our orders by heart which is very cool. Also very clean unlike many non-chain mexican place. Recommend this to anyone who likes Mexican. read more

Just stopped by here for a quick lunch and ordered a steak fajita. I was a little worried when I went in because I was greeted by only very non-Mexican people, but I figured it is Iowa, what did I expect? The salsa was sort of interesting. Spicy for sure, but very runny, without goodies inside to make it thick. Made for a messy table, what with salsa running all over the place. Based on other Yelp reviews I ordered a large Queso, and it did not disappoint. The chips were sort of bland and were not the "baked in the restaurant" type one would expect. But the steak, guac, etc was very good. All in all, a very very filling lunch for only $13 including tip. Would I be back? Possibly. A solid 3 stars. read more

My husband and I have been to Chapala several times and have had a good experience, but not so tonight. The service was very disappointing. It was not busy. We will not be back. We were escorted to a booth near the back of the restaurant where the seats were positioned awkwardly. If I would have put my purse to the back of the booth, it would have slid down on the floor. Also, I'm 5'7" and the seat was so high that my feet could not touch the floor once I sat down. They were dangling. Our server was not very friendly. We wondered if she had gotten lost, then she finally took our order. Also, she took my drink for a refill of soda, and I sat there at least 10 minutes without a refill and no water, no drink whatsoever. When asked about it, she blamed it on a new male employee who was supposed to be helping her. She also said the guy was supposed to bring us chips. The wait for our food was long. But when we received our food, it was delicious, as usual. It took forever for the server to come back with a box. Then again, several minutes more before we got our check. A group of guys came into the restaurant after we did and sat behind us. They got their food before we did. They had eaten, gotten their check, paid, and left before our plates were cleared and we were asked if we needed a box. We paid at the front of the restaurant, where we found three or four servers, including our server, all giggling. A younger man was flirting with our server. We were not impressed. read more

This restaurant doesn't even deserve one star if you ask me! !! My family and I were in town visiting relatives and had a craving for Mexican food, when we were first sat at a small table for 4 when there were 5 of us and when we asked for something bigger she pulled up a chair and said you can sit here. We sat for 6 mins before anyone said anything, when finally asked what we wanted to drink we ordered and asked for a side of queso. It took forever to get drinks (we just ordered soda too) our queso beat our drinks. When returning with drinks she took our order and put it in. While waiting for our food i had to get up twice to refill our drinks.When the food came our 2 out of 5 of us had wrong food. My son's tacos had lettuce and tomato on them and I ordered a seafood chimi I got some sort of steak burrito in a distinguishing brown sauce. When I said something she said no you ordered that. I tried to eat it anyway and it was terrible. When the bill came she changed me for the meal that was ordered wrong by her and not eaten! I will never go back or have a good thing to say about this place! read more

This is my favorite authentic Mexican restaurant in this area. I am a really big fan of authentic Mexican food and this is my go to place. Their portions are very big and super inexpensive. It comes with homemade chips and salsa. I got great service; not only was it very fast but also very polite. I drink water so fast when I eat meals and usually it takes a while to get a refill or me asking for more water. But each time I've eaten there our waiter was quick about doing so when he noticed my cup was low. Totally worth the drive into Waterloo. read more

We frequent Chapala's about once a month. The food is great and never a small portion. Good Margarita's, too! Never had anything here that I did not have again. read more