I should probably start by saying that I'm hardly an expert on Mexican food. I've spent about three…read morehours in Mexico, and I was nine years old at the time, and anything even remotely spicy was too hot for me back then. So I can't really comment on how authentic the food is at TacoTime. Then, too, this isn't exactly Mexican food. It's probably most accurate to describe it as fast food inspired by Mexican food.
All that said, I love TacoTime. I was first introduced to in my college years, and I've visited one whenever I had an opportunity (which, since I moved to Ontario, hasn't been very often, because before this location opened up, the closest TacoTime was in Timmins, and that's just way too far to go for a meal).
Now, it's not like it's impossible to get Mexican food around here. For a while there, the was a nice independent place selling empanadas in Fort Erie. (Sadly, it was one of the first casualties of the CoViD-19 lockdown.) More recently, we've had a BarBurrito and a Burrito Guyz open up in town, and both make good food, but they're just not the same. Most recently, a Taco Bell opened up in town.
When I first moved to Ontario and realised that there were no TacoTimes even remotely close, I thought to myself, "Taco Bell should be about the same, right?" No, Virginia, it's not. I tried a few Taco Bells, and each time it was such a crushing disappointment that I've never even tried the location in Fort Erie. I'm just waiting for it to shut down and get replaced by something better. (It would be hard to find a place that's worse.)
So, when I learned that a TacoTime had opened up in Welland, which is practically next door, I was incredibly excited. Well, with a caveat: it's so far from the next-closest TacoTime that I did wonder whether the food would be the same. Where would the staff learn how to make the food properly?
When I finally got there to try it, my fears were put to rest. It's the same fun food that I know and love. My sweetie enjoyed her crispy chicken wrap, and loved her Mexi-Fries (she loves tater tots). I thoroughly enjoyed my tacos (it was Tuesday, after all) and crisp meat burrito. I didn't have an empanada, which I normally would, but they did have them.
There have been changes in the menu from what I remember. Now, you can get Jarritos (which my sweetie loves), and they offer "Taco Kits" that you can take home (or, I guess, anywhere else). They're supposed to feed five people, and it sounds like a fun thing to try.
So mostly, I was a very happy boy.
So why didn't I give them five stars? Two reasons, neither of which are the fault of the staff:
First, for some reason, even though there's a handicapped spot in the parking lot, the door is just about as far from the handicapped spot as it's possible to put it in that building. Clearly, whoever designed and built the place didn't put much thought into details like that. (Granted, if you're not mobility impaired, you may not care about things like that.)
Second, none of the chairs or benches in the dining room had any padding on them. The chairs are bare metal, and the benches are wood. Now, to be fair, that seems to be the trend in fast food joints these days. It's probably easier to clean. And I've spend my life sitting on bare benches, logs, and even rocks, so it doesn't bother me. But most people's tushies are a lot more tender than mine. The message received (although possibly not intended) when you walk into a place with seating like that is, "Sit down, shut up, eat up, and get out." As somebody for whom those mugs that say, "Sit long, talk much, laugh often" were designed, it grates when my table mates are starting to get sore in the behind after just a few minutes.
So thank you, TacoTime and franchisee, for bringing one of my happy places to the Niagara Region. But if you want that extra star, you need to fix a couple of things.