Delicious Mexican food for a low price! Coming from California, I was so relieved to find this place. I ordered the carne asada, al pastor, and chicken tacos. The tacos were all seasoned and cooked to perfection. The horchata was a bit too sweet for me so I'll have to try out their other drinks next time. The service was fast and friendly. I definitely plan to come back and try out the rest of their menu. read more

Absolutely the best tacos in town! I've tried every authentic taco place in AA, and Chela's is the most consistent, delicious, juicy taco. Every time I go, I order the carnitas, al pastor, and carne asada tacos and top them with the generous salsas available in the fridge! Try the mild green salsa - it's delicious! The tacos come with chopped white onion, cilantro, and limes. Do. Not. Eat. These. Without. It. You will thank me later! read more

Excellent Food and Service. We continue to get togo food from Chelas! A least once a week to support small businesses in our area! Ordering Family Late Lunch now!!! read more

I ordered Pozole..... what I got was a watered down chicken broth with a few pieces of chicken. That is NOT pozole. I realize your customers may not not authentic Mexican food but please don't call something what it's not. The chips are also not homemade. There were Tostitos or some other store brand. read more

Chela's - This is what was served - Mexican Near Me - Ann Arbor, Michigan

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The service and timing of my order was great! I would say the food was pretty decent in my opinion. I had the torta asada (steak torta) with the elote. The torta asada was like a 7/10, I'm used to having grilled onion with a jalapeño and lime on the side. Also, I wish the cheese on the torta was a bit more melted or shredded. The elote was great and the prices are very reasonable! read more

I love Chelas! Their Tamales are absolutely delicious! And oversized and underpriced. My favorite is pepper and cheese.. The sauces are very flavorful and Fresh. Their food always tastes fresh and honemade. Because it is! read more

This is some of the best Mexican food I've had. their: barbacoa tacos, street corn, Tortilla chips, rice pudding, and sweet hibiscus tea puts a smile on my face. I find the people at Chela's are kind and ready to listen and 100% of the time get my food with no mistakes. -Jeevan McKnight read more

Chela's is probably my favorite spot to get Mexican food in Ann Arbor. I've always gotten excellent service, the food is delicious, and the prices are fair. The staff have greeted me warmly every time I've been here. A few months ago, I placed a pretty large order for a group of about ten people. They prepared my order quickly and packed it up efficiently. I wanted to give them a tip for their great customer service, but they refused to take it! I was so pleasantly surprised and grateful! I usually go with the tacos, and recently I ventured away from meat and found that the potato taco is fantastic. I've also ordered a burrito before, and it was so good! They don't skimp on the fillings here. I love Chela's, and it's my go-to whenever I want some awesome Mexican food but don't want to spend a lot of money. By the way, I recently noticed that there's another location in the State Street area! read more

So tasty. Favorite tacos in town. Tamales are bomb. Every once in a while something will be a little dry or not perfect but what are you doing coming to a taqueria if you want sit down perfect each time? The rice is so good here i just want to eat spoons of it. Seasonings are making it happen for me up in this foodstuffs. read more

Chela's in Ann Arbor has a few tables. We interrupted the fascination with a handheld device to place our order. As they don't have complimentary tortilla chips and salsa I purchased some. The red and green salsas were weak and runny. The Cubana sandwich was ok but nothing special. I wanted a container for the left over chips and again caused an unwanted pause in texting. Wow, if you want to be earning money while enjoying your cell phone apply at Chelas. read more

Great flavors. Fresh. Their homemade sauces are delicious. Traditional dishes. Cozy atmosphere.

Chela s was very disappointing for us. We had tacos, tamales, burritos, elotes, and taco salad and salsa. The amount of meat was light for 6 inch tacos and not good meat. The carnitas were super dried out. The chicken was dry with little flavor. The carnitas burrito surprised us with jalapeños even though a child ordered it and we we asked what was on it. No salsa just like a hot sauce dip. Tamales were tasty according to my son. Horchata was tasty. Grande elotes barely had toppings for 4 bucks! read more

Chela's is my family's favorite Mexican restaurant-the food is so yummy every time and the staff is kind and friendly. They have an adorable outside seating area! Catch it while the weather allows! read more

Omg. Barbacoa tacos add cheese, that's all you need to know. Lol but seriously everything I had here was insanely delicious. The guacamole, ALL 3 salsas, the rice, black beans... SO GOOD. The special comes with two tacos (or tamales), rice, beans and a drink for $7.85... so affordable. I even got an extra taco to take with me so I could eat it for dinner too!!! read more

So so so amazing, and the staff is so sweet. I ordered from there once and they forgot like 2 things from my order. I called them to let them know and to be honest I wasn't that upset, but the woman who answered apologized profusely and wrote my name down somewhere and told me that the next time I ordered from them, I wouldn't have to pay. That was so nice of her! The food is so delicious. I could eat it all day and not get sick of it. Probably my favorite place in all of Ann Arbor! read more

Chela's is THE BEST. My family's favorite. My kids love the cheese quesadilla and the pepper tamale (not too spicy, contains cheese). I always get the daily special with a chorizo taco and a pepper tamale (we order like 4 of those things because we all love them), it comes with rice and black beans. My husband gets the loaded burrito Al Pastor. It's the kind of place where you find the perfect food and then just can't stray from your usual order which is sad because I'm sure everything else is also excellent! We have never had a bad experience with the food or service. read more

Highly recommend!! This is the best place you can get food in Ann Arbor. The staff is wonderful and the food is amazing!!!

Stopped in for lunch this past Saturday, around noon. Atmosphere: Order at the counter, have a seat, wait for them to call your name. The dining room is small, but not uncomfortably so. Staff: The incredibly friendly young lady behind the counter greeted us as soon as we walked in (and did the same to the other people that arrived while we were there), answered our questions about the menu, and was generally very pleasant. Food: I had carne asada tacos, with rice and beans on the side. The tacos were good, though they could have maybe used a bit more seasoning. However, a little bit of their red salsa (the hot one) fixed that right up. My lunch companion got the Chorizo tacos, which were excellent. Easily the tastiest Chorizo I've ever had, though I'll admit that statement doesn't really cover much ground. The beans were good, the rice was unremarkable. But, it's not like anyone's coming here just to eat Spanish rice, I'm not holding that against them. Value: Excellent. $5.50 gets you two delicious tacos, rice, beans, and a fountain drink. This price apparently includes tax, since our two meals came to $11 even. A la carte, the tacos are $1.50 each. I'm going to eat here every day until they wise up and start charging more, after which, I'll still return regularly. read more

Tried Chela's Taqueria for the first time today and enjoyed their 'Mexico City-style" Mexican food and excellent service. The 2-Taco luncheon plate with rice, beans, veggies and a drink was very tasty and was competitively priced at $ 7.50. My only gripe was they were very stingy with the veggies...I got exactly two slices of carrot and one small bite of cauliflower. Come on Chela...you've gotta come across with a little more love for your customers if you are going to call out the veggies on the menu. On the positive side, I loved the very friendly and outgoing attitude of the gal who owns the place with her husband. She took our order and told us that the place was named after her late mother-in-law as a tribute to her. Nice touch. As I wolfed down a pair of delicious tacos del pollo, I took special notice that the owner knew and greeted every patron by their first name as they walked through the door. This noteworthy personal touch by the owner made up for my measly veggie allotment and boosted what would have been a 3-star up to a solid 4-bagger. I love to recognize excellent service and I can assure you that you will get it at this taqueria. read more

This place got rated as the second-best tacos in Michigan from M-Live. Since it's just right down the street from work, the hubby and I planned an early dinner date and met up here since we're always down for good tacos. This place is a place your order, then pick it up when they call your name type of place. It's sorta cheap-ish inside and the servers don't seem very happy to see you, but this place got rated #2 in the STATE for tacos! Surely I can deal with some sins to get excellent tacos. I didn't get excellent tacos. My husband and I both ordered chicken tacos, beef tacos, fish tacos and a tamale. I'll state first off that, had I only eaten the fish tacos, this place would get 4 stars easy. They were delicious. If you go, get the fish tacos. I wouldn't recommend much else, but the fish tacos were definitely worth eating. The rest.... meh. The doubled-up corn tortillas were good. They were warm and slightly cooked to the point that they were a little tough or chewy? It was actually good because it held up to the fillings really well. The chicken and beef was very meh. Very bland. Not really worth it. Even doused in salsa and lime juice, they were still meh. The tamale was a little better, but still needed a lot of help with salsa and lime juice. Just get the fish tacos. Everything else was really disappointing. This place definitely isn't the #2 place for tacos in Michigan. Unless Michigan REALLY has no idea what a good taco is. Just get the fish tacos. read more

The Dexter location has the best fish tacos I've had. Everyone here is always so nice and friendly.

Yum-o! Will definitely be going back for more. Stopped in on a Saturday afternoon for a quick bite. They were busy, likely due to the article in the local paper. Waited a bit for our food but not an unreasonable amount of time. I tried the carne asada and chorizo tacos and they were great. Having a little bit of chirozo in there definitely added to the flavor. Beans were great, plump and not soggy at all, rice was eh... but who goes there for rice anyway? Both salsas were great, the red was hot but not unbearable. Tried the horatcha which was incredibly refreshing. Can't wait to go back and try their tamales! read more

I am so disappointed with the owner of Chela's. I have been looking for a place that would cater a Celebration of Life and Chela's list catering with a wonderful menu. My daughter and I went and tried the food it was good authentic Mexican (my husband would of loved it), the employees where very friendly and helpful. Avery nice young man took my information to have the owner contact me. NO REPLY! I sent an email per their website explain what we would like and approximate number of people. AGAIN, NO REPLY! I called again and an extremely helpful young lady took all my information, wrote it down, and read it back to me. What an amazing employee. Well yes you are right. NO REPLY Any type of reply would have been nice. Sorry we are not catering currently, we do not delivery to Milford, anything but no reply at all speaks volumes about the owner. This place might be a place to eat but not for those who need catering services. read more

Wish I could say I liked this place better. The staff was friendly and the food was fresh (so we'll give them another try) but overall the flavors weren't really there. Brought the family in to try this place out -- got three or four varieties of tacos, a salad, adn a quesadilla. The meats in the tacos were pretty bland. So bland, in fact, that without the salsas they would have been difficult to eat. The pork and beef were both dry. It is nice to see an authentic taco in Ann Arbor, but this is far inferior to what I'd expect from a taqueria in Cali or Chicago. Maybe I caught them on an off-day. I liked the people so I'll give them another try, but judging by this visit alone I wasn't too impressed. read more

Friend and I had Chela's for dinner the other night and I think this will be our last time eating there. The best thing about them is the fact that they are extremely friendly and always smiling and interacting with their customers. That is great but I don't go to restaurants for friendly service, I go for good food. And that is the part where Chelas is lacking. The steak tacos we both had were extremely dry. The meat was cooked past the point of well done and was tough and rubbery. The chicken tacos were flavorful but the chicken tamales we had were mostly filled with massa and sauce with very little chicken meat to be found. They also forgot to put our rice and beans in our bag and instead gave us three containers of chips instead of what we actually paid for. My friend had a stomach ache after our meal and was ill the next day. Like I said they are friendly and try to give good service but their food leaves a lot to be desired. read more

Tacos, anyone? I've been here twice and that's all I ever get. Carne asada, al pastor and the campechana are all great- next time I'm trying the fish tacos (they come with guac, nom)! Ambiance is not really Chela's thing, but it's super cheap and really, really delish. I might even say these are the best tacos in Ann Arbor.... and my lunch was only ~$4, so there is actually no reason for you not to try. (The only knock I have on this place is the horchata- it's too thick for my taste and wasn't cold, but still come for the food!) read more

Pretty good Mexican food. The tacos didn't look like much, especially the tortilla, but the flavors really compliment each other well. The tortilla, meat, cilantro, salsa, and onion really blended in well. For those that get lettuce, tomato, and cheese on their tacos, I encourage you to try the cilantro and onion here. How they season their asada here really blends in well with the cilantro and onion. The horchata was okay, but could have been better. read more

Fantastic tacos and burritos! Friendly service and great food for a good price. We will definitely be going back! Absolutely went back and updated this review to a 5 star review! Amazing service and food! Also a patio area to eat on weather permitting. I grew up eating Mexican food in California and so glad to have found a place in A2 to go when I get my cravings! read more

I wanted to try Chela's as my last dinner before I moved out of state. I got their "lunch special" which is 50 cents or so more if you get it outside lunch hours. But it's still a whole meal for less than $8, which is ideal. The combo includes two of your choice of tacos or tamales, rice, beans, and a drink. I chose their al pastor and campechana (mixture of chorizo and carne asada) tacos, and I got the jamaica drink (hibiscus tea). The tea is not caffeinated and was very sweet. I do like myself some refried beans, but I also enjoyed how Chela's beans seemed very pure, simply black beans without meat scraps or other flavorings typically stewed with beans. Definitely give Chela's a try if you are craving authentic tacos in Ann Arbor! read more

Chela's - Dinner special: al pastor and campechana tacos with rice and beans, ~$8 - Mexican Near Me - Ann Arbor, Michigan

Let me just say it's all relative. A socal native, my standards for Mexican are high. However, for AA - this place is long overdue, and AA is much better for having Chela's here. Service / Staff : super friendly Prices / Menu: prices are reasonable, and I like the a la carte options, not forced to order combos of things I don't like Food: It was just ok, I think based on all the hype and other reviews was hoping for more, but it is "Ann Arbor 'good' ." Like I said, it's all relative. To be clear, I'd totally come back, but some of the meats were a bit dry and tasted overcooked. But was a fan of the sauces. read more

Hands down best Mexican place in Ann Arbor. No competition. First off, gorgeous ambience - multicolored hand-painted wooden chairs decorated with flowers & suns, warm finished wood tabletops, artisan baskets hanging on the walls. The atmosphere is warm and inviting. My friend & I sat down and had an intimate dinner here, and many joints in similar price range are a little too dive-y for that homey restaurant feel. Second of all, the food. The tacos were packed with meat and flavor - they were heavy yet sturdy. Tortillas were fresh. I had the al pastor and the fish taco. Each one was specially designed with its own set of sauces and supporting ingredients. I think I preferred the spicier flavor elements of the pork, but the fish taco was hearty and juicy too. THE BEANS! The black beans were rippled with oaxaca cheese and firm yet packed with flavor. My friend got the pork tamales. They looked perfectly wrapped, moist and mouth-watering. We both had horchatas. Sweet, cold and refreshing. Pricing is fair for what you're getting. The food isn't dirt-cheap, because it doesn't taste cheap - there's a care and uniqueness to the quality. This place is special and worth your business. And lastly the service. The cashiers were friendly and proud of what they were doing. The hosts will call your name to give your order, which gives the restaurant a personal feel. The owner has a wonderful sense of hospitality and knows many customers by name. Chela's is a world and a golden vibe of its own. Come enjoy! read more

I miss SF tacos so we went here, and the tacos were ok but not great. We tried barbacoa, carne asada, and chorizo, and of these, the barbacoa was the best. The sides of rice and beans were pretty bad. The rice was hard. The horchata was very sweet. The mild salsa was VERY mild. read more

I've already been there several times! The food is really good. The tacos are fresh made to order, and really hit the spot... although not so great reheated, so I recommend eating these as soon as they are served. The tamales are awesome period... even very good when reheated. The best on the menu is the "Tortes" Cuban Sandwich... a little pricey, but worth every cent, and then some! If you compare Chelas to Taco Bell, it's a no brainer. Much, much better food, better customer service, and about the same price. read more

Chela's for lunch: it's a good thing. I like that Chela's keeps it simple with a smallish menu, but overflowing with quality at great price. Lunch time is great. 2 Daily Specials: Two tacos (your choice of Of Two tamales (your choice of three varieties) All served up with tasty black beans and rice. Pozole with Hominy was the soup today. A savory chicken soup with delicious chunks of white chicken, spiced up right with slices of avocado. Alongside, are additions of chopped onion, cilantro and lime. read more

Favorite place in Ann Arbor for Mexican food. My friends raved about this place and I now understand why. Fair prices for good food.

Loved every bite of it. Got a al pastor burrito loaded (Guac, Rice, Beans and Jalapeños) and it was heavenly. Reminds me of my favorite mexican spot in NYC that I frequented once a week. They don't serve beer but there is a liquor store right next door. No complaints and Ill be back soon. read more

Great food and service. Love the tamales and horchata. They also serve breakfast! If you happen to be looking for the best tamales in town, look no further. read more

The food here is simple and delicious. My favorite is their Barbacoa tacos, which are always delicious. They offer a spicy, red sauce and a tomatillo green sauce, standard fare for taquerias but theirs tastes very fresh, being made in house. On the side, I get their vegetable soup or chicken pozole soup and add sour cream and red sauce. For a drink I get their delicious limeade, with free refills. Tips are included in the price of your meal, which is inexpensive to begin with. The owners are passionate about their food. I always leave satisfied and happy. read more

I've been to Chela's about four times in the last year. I am Mexican-American so perhaps my review is going to be slightly biased. I have tried the tacos and tamales. I am not a fan of the large corn tortillas used to make the tacos - I prefer the mini ones as per traditional Mexican tacos. Also, I seriously wish they had pinto beans instead of black beans - which are consistently over or under seasoned. In fact, it was today's visit to Chela's that sparked this review - the black beans had no seasoning whatsoever. They should throw them in a pot with some bay leaves and garlic, and salt at the very end. The rice is usually over or under seasoned, too. The tamales are okay - again, the consistency is just not there. I had one that was so salty I couldn't eat it. Anyway, I'd much rather spend $6.00 on their lunch special than on Mc Donald's or subway or greasy Chinese - it's an excellent bargain for your buck. Taco King down the street is no better or worse. My overall suggestion is that they standardize their recipes. No review on breakfast. read more

The beans and rice were VERY bland. I don't think the black beans even had salt in them. The only reason I'm giving two stars is for the quesadilla. I ordered the campechana quesadilla and it tasted very good, mainly because of the chorizo. The tacos were pretty uneventful as well. Service was great and fast though. read more

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