Carlos O'Kelly's

1406 S Gilbert St, Iowa City - 52240
157 reviews
Mexican Tex-Mex
(319) 354-5800

I loved the salsa that came with the chips, it has a very nice texture to it, and the chips also has a unique peppery flavor that you don't get often from most restaurants! I ordered a Chimichanga Dinner with Pulled Chicken, Cilantro-Lime Rice and Papas O'Kelly's for my entree, and I absolutely loved it, especially the Papa's! I also got myself a $5 Jumbo Margarita that was awesome! The one thing that was a little bit of a let down was the fried ice cream, I didn't really enjoy it as I didn't like the texture of it and I've had way better ones.The sofa seats are also uncomfortable so if you can get the wood chairs, get the chairs.

Had a great meal. Flexible servers who were awesome to work with. Will definitely be back!

Things I liked - the wait staff - Kai and Carl were wonderful. The salsa - both red and green - are made in house and were outstanding. The black beans as a side - I could have eaten a whole bowl of them!Things that were - Meh - had the fried fish tacos... Pretty much tasteless on their own... Load them up with the Aoli and salsa - better.Liked it enough to go back - would definitely try a different dish.

Staff is super pleasant. Food comes quickly,not too shabby. I recommend

Overpriced for what you got. Slow service, when the restaurant was half empty. Decent flavor for the food, but most of it was out of a can, or frozen.

My husband order 2 enchiladas and there wasn't hardly anything in them at all. I order chicken fajitas and the chicken was dry and wasn't hardly any peppers and onions on it and the tortillas where hard couldn't even bend them to put anything in them. The waitress was slow and didn't seem to care. Nothing about this meal was good. Very very disappointed.

The restaurant was in a tough place when we arrived with their kitchen having been slammed after the football game was over. Hostess communicated clearly and regularly that they weren't seating until the kitchen was caught up. We were able to wait, other parties chose not to. Once we were seated our waiter was awesome as was the food. Unlike so many restaurants these days, they had plenty of wait staff but kitchens can't be designed to go from an empty restaurant to full in such a short period without some sort of bottleneck. We will be back!

I love this place. Always delicious!

Always love coming here. Despite the short staff issues, we recieved excellent and professional service from everyone. Good prices and great food

The food flavors were simple but well done on everything I tried.