Locations: DFW (4); Houston / College Station / Beaumont (19); Austin (5); San Antonio (3). For our NE Tarrant readers, it appears Alliance would be the closest.
HQ: Houston (founded: 1983)
Alrighty - Mr. Music is on the scoreboard for 2025! Looks like he's been visiting a chain that owns tex-mex.com. Let's see how his experiences went.
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I went out to McKinney to meet my brother, my sister-in-law and their son's family for some disc golf. After a great, long round in the woods we were all famished! My nephew and his wife, seemingly in unison said "have you ever been to Lupe Tortilla?" "We gotta go!". They explained that their flour and corn tortillas were freshly made there and they had fantastic fajitas and lots of other Tex-Mex dishes. They had me at fresh made corn tortillas! You don't get those everywhere! I figured this must be some cool mom/pop place; my favorite! I followed them to the restaurant, which was on Central Expressway in Allen. It is in the middle of a big line of restaurants and is a big, modern building. definitely not a mom/pop hole-in-the-wall, but most likely a chain, which it turns out it is. It was nicely decorated and bustling inside! We ordered drinks and they brought chips and salsa. The salsa had a nice flavor, but not much heat to me. But I love heat! The chips were fresh, not too oily and good. Our sever asked if we'd been here before. Most of us said no and a few minutes later, a man (who said he was a chef there) brought out a platter of small (silver dollar pancake sized) tortillas each with a chunk of beef fajita on them. He explained that this was a complimentary service for 1st time visitors to show off their wonderful beef fajitas.They were phenomenal! The beef was so tender and marinated to the hilt with a beautiful marinade they call lime pepper marinade. I wanted more of that! We browsed the menu, which is extensive and has many delicious looking choices. I recommend looking at the menu just to see all the interesting looking dishes. Quail, crab stuffed avocado, spicy shrimp and rice stew and lots more. The fajitas section alone was huge and offers pork, barbacoa, filet mignon, lobster, spicy chipotle ribs and more! You can buy any item by the half pound or pound. They have combo platters too. We decided on a combo platter for the table, the Grandioso. It has a mix of beef and chicken fajitas and bacon wrapped pepper shrimp. We actually got 2 since there were 6 hungry adults! The platter had lots of grilled onion and whole grilled jalapeno. The food came with all the fixings: guacamole, sour cream, grated cheese and pico de gallo. Plus we got a mix of corn and flour tortillas. Rice and beans too, which are served family style and unlimited. Everything was really good, although I thought the chicken was a bit dry. Seeing how moist the beef fajitas were, I wonder if the dry chicken was a fluke. The highlights for me were the fresh made tortillas and beef fajitas. The only issue with the corn tortillas is that they get hard once they cool, so you gotta eat them fast. This place is a bit of an upscale Mexican restaurant and the prices reflect that; they seem a little higher than other places albeit the portions are huge.
UPDATE:
Shortly after, I had the opportunity to go again. This time to the Addison location. Lady music and I met our friends, Concert Buddy and his wife, T-bird Betty. We got the complimentary beef fajita sample, which everyone loved. As a result, I got beef fajitas. Lady Music got shrimp and poblano enchiladas, which she loved. Our friends were really watching their calories and got The Original Lupe Chicken and a taco salad. The both liked their dish. They were pretty huge portions!
I do want to explore more items, but will have a tough time not getting the beef fajitas!
- Mr. Music review
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