Orange County Mexican Restaurants: Mario's Mexican Food

Date of Visit: December 18, 2006

Mario's Mexican Food
18603 Main St
Huntington Beach, CA 92648
(714) 842-5811

Listing on Yahoo! Local

Listing on Ask.com's Citysearch

No known official website

This is without a doubt the longest lag time between me visiting a Mexican restaurant and eventually posting my review of it. I visited the Mario's in Huntington Beach last December for a Christmas get-together with a large group of people, took a number of pictures, and was hoping to make it back and get a few more pictures and post a review within a month. Well, circumstances being as they were I haven't been able to make it back there yet so I'm going to go ahead and at least post the photos I have.

Mario's is one of a small handful of places I remember going to in the mid-70's that is still around. They were recently honored as The Orange County Register's "Hidden Gem" among the county's Mexican restaurants. They are a three-store chain; all their locations are in Huntington Beach, two are simply called "Mario's" while the third one is called "Mario's Fiesta Maya." The location featured here is in Surf City's famous Loehmann's Five Points Plaza where Beach Boulevard ("Highway 39" as my grandmother used to call it), Main Street, and Ellis Avenue converge. It used to be its own separate building on the lot there along with a one-screen Edwards Theater, a supermarket, a liquor store, and not much else. In the early 80's the whole place was overhauled and turned into a two-wing strip mall with all the separate shops now squeezed together.