Mezcalero Cocina Mexicana - Alexandria

This is the best Mexican restaurant on route 1 that we've discovered in this area. The food is authentic and delicious. Every time we go it's good! And the tres leches is to die for. Highly recommend.

The service is slow staff didn't greet/acknowledge customers right away so it was easiest to sit at the bar then wait until someone finally came over. One of the two servers seemed to focus on Spanish-speaking patrons. The tacos were decent but they don't allow you to customize anything. For some reason, after asking for 1 topping to be switched/removed, they provided 2 pork tacos with only cheese so I had a request a side then use the salsa verde for the chips to make them more delectable. I like that parking is available and they had good music along with TVs to watch. The menus were beat up exterior could use some cleaning up.

3.5 starsTL;DR: don 't eat salsa til they bring you water,skip the chicken taco, GET the al pastor taco pineapple marg, and bring me some too. We had dinner here for the first time last night. It was pretty good, and we 'd come back. It was a Saturday night, and it was busy but not crowded, no reservations needed. Vaguely apathetic service took off a star. It took a really long time to get our drinks, including water. My mouth was on fire from the salsa (a med I take makes my mouth more sensitive to spicy things than most people for a while before we got anything to drink, and the waiter refused to let me add chipotle Mayo to my chicken taco (it was on a few other varieties of tacos, so I still have no idea why he wouldn 't do it , so my chicken taco was really dry. I was dumping anything I could find onto it to make it edible. Nice flavor, but onions don 't equal sauce. I ordered pinto beans, got black beans, but was happy with the mixup bc they were delicious. But the real stars, and the reasons we 'll come back, were the pineapple margarita and the Al pastor taco. Huge chunks of roasted pineapple in perfectly cooked and juicy meat made that taco the best street taco I 've ever had, and I order al pastor at most places I 've been that serve it. The pineapple margarita was very yummy too, light and fresh, no artificial sugar syrup here, and was worth the wait to get it.

Great experience here. Warm, attentive service and delicious food. Came here on a date night. Menu has classics and innovation. I got the queso fundido and huaracha with mushrooms and spinach it was spectacular. Wonderful experience.

My family and friends love this place! I'm a wimp and think it's too spicy for me. lol, but it's very good! Don't be fooled by by how a little dated it is. The employees are awesome too! Very welcoming.