Chili Pepper Cafe

The $5 breakfast sandwiches both hubby & I chose were absolute perfection. No photo as we devoured them quickly... Crow, our server, was a hoot to chat with as the place was not very busy. Good coffee too!!

The service at the Chili Pepper Cafe is super friendly and welcoming. The food is really good. I especially like the cheese enchiladas.

So glad we found the Chili Pepper cafe! We had been to three other places that were either closed, or had an ungodly wait time. We were sat right away, got a couple of drinks and enjoyed a delicious meal. Thank you chili pepper cafe, that was delicious!

Tried this restraunt yesterday with my mom. Everything was great! We had chips and queso for an appetizer. My mom had a beef, cheese and bean burrito. I had a cheeseburger and fries. This restaurant had good flavor and everything on their menu is very affordable!

+4

We were traveling from NJ to big bend for few days and with the restrictions of our food we found this amazing place that catered to our needs. The first day (cant remember his name) the server took the time to ask the chef what can be made and then the second day the server Crow gave us his suggestions and also toom the time to make us a separate quacamole and hot sauce. We were a group of six that did not eat onion:garlic egg and were vegetarians. We are so satisfied and recommend this cafe to anyone visiting Big Bend and surrounding areas. Thank you for taking care of us!

This is a tough review. The place is cute, but the inside atmosphere was really lacking. There was no music at all, so it was so quiet you could hear a pin drop — it honestly felt like eating in a friend’s basement. Not very inviting. That said, our server was amazing and the food was delicious. I’m on the fence about going back, as there was just no ambience.

Cute little place with some good eats. Very reasonable prices too. Indoor and outdoor seating, all covered from the sun. Nice working staff that were very helpful.

Great screened in porch area. Modest dive - seats about 30. Fantastic tamales. Fresh. Salsa had a good taste, but kick I couldn’t handle. I liked the chips. Menu very hard to read. Chatty staff willing to advise things to do and places to go for visitors.

It is a local place with a small desert town charm. The people were very friendly. The food is definitely home cooked and I appreciate those meals a lot. However, my food did come out on the cold side and they didn't offer any fruit for breakfast. I had french toast that was served on whole grain bread (soggy) and there were no other side options I could eat. It was thin bread, egg and cinnamon. They only offered 3 kinds of pork. It was just okay. I wouldn't say it is high quality ingredients and food choices but more on the homey side. My partner enjoyed their breakfast burrito. Very quiet atmosphere. Nonetheless thank you for being open early in the morning, for your generosity, and it was lovely to meet everyone.

We had combo fajitas, chips and queso. The meat had a nice flavor but both the chicken and steak were tough and overcooked. I have no idea what was in the queso. Maybe it’s “authentic” but we didn’t like it. Not a great meal. Wouldn’t go back.

The food was ok. I ordered the fajita burrito. The menu said it came with shredded cabbage and instead had iceberg lettuce inside. My dad enjoyed the crunchy tacos. The queso had a weak cheese flavor. It tasted watered down. The service was good though and the prices were fair.

First of all calling anything nachos and serving stadium cheese sauce is downright diabolical. The 2 servers we had were like good cop and bad cop the way their approaches were so different. Not particularly bad service mind you but it leaves some to be desired. Atmosphere is kind of like Mars in the sense that it’s somewhat there. Now back to the food, the fajita steak was tougher than tungsten steel. Enchilada sauce tasted canned and there’s something very off about the way they prepare the rice. The rice was very overcooked and over salted. Refried beans weren’t bad but obviously just came out the can and cheese was melted on top. To be honest you’d be better off driving to Alpine than eating here.

Terrible. Ordered Two poached eggs , they came out fried and overcooked. Asked for ham I received Two half pieces of what looked like Oscar Meyer lunch meat the potatoes were cold and a scant portion. The biscuit was cold and no butter or jam for the money they charged it was the worst meal ever.

Do not go. Verty dirty. Chairs, tables, floors all sticky and dirty. Full of flies. Flies were sitting in our food as we were eating. She offered a fly squatter but never brought it. Even the jug of water was so dirty. We ordered nachos with queso and salsa. It was good. The enchilada was very good. A young woman took our order. Didn't get it right. We requested grilled veggies be added to the enchilada. We received boiled veggies on the side. An older lady (manager ?) tried to help. We switched out table to another side of the restaurant they said has no flies. Made marginal difference. They seemed to be overwhelmed with the number of customers but it was less than 50% full. The prices were very reasonable. Our total bill was $60. Hoping they're better other times. Maybe we went on a wrong day. Maybe they were short staffed. Anyways thay have what they had. Dunno

This was genuinely so bad. Service was awful, came in and was told to sit wherever we want. No real acknowledgment or warmth when coming in. After sitting down the young girl server/host comes by and drops some menus and utensils on the table without a word and walks off. She has a stand offish and hostile demeanor to her. The atmosphere sucks, hospitality wasn’t there at ALL. So I cross my fingers and hope the food makes up for it… I order a cheeseburger. Tried to ask if I could have the onions sautéed bc I can’t do raw onion. She just shakes her head no. Not gonna waste my time going back and forth. So no onions it is, sure whatever. What restaurant can’t make such a simple accommodation? You have a grill, put the onions on the grill hello??? So silly and laughable. When the food came out all of our plates were beyond disappointing. 1- guac was insanely bland, super small portion. The chips it was served with were chips from a bag that I saw them carry to the kitchen. Tasted like cheap store tortilla chips. Doubt the guac is made fresh, or with any care at all. for $7 and a tablespoon of guac at least make it good. 2- Salsa tasted like slightly spiced tomato sauce. Disgusting. 3- I can’t speak too much on my brother and his fiancé’s food, but they also had nothing good to say about their plates and had an upset stomach after eating what they could of it. 4- cheeseburger patty had an off taste that made it hard to even try to eat, not to mention it was dry, buns were definitely cheap store bought. Fries were mid. Do not come here if you don’t want to overpay for bad food and bad service. Extremely disappointed. Can’t use the fact that it’s a small town restaurant as an excuse for this quality because other spots i’ve been to in Terlingua shined in comparison to this place. Do better, care about your customers, step up the quality of food.

Stay away from this place. I wouldn’t wish this dining experience on my worst enemy. Absolutely a disgrace to foodservice operations—if there were a manual on how NOT to run a restaurant, this place would be the prime example. The food was an insult to taste buds everywhere. The red chili pork? A chewy, musty-tasting abomination that was clearly stored uncovered in the fridge, absorbing every unpleasant odor imaginable. The chalupas with beef? Unrecognizable. It looked like a toddler’s arts-and-crafts project using mini taco salad shells and gray, lifeless beef that had never even met a seasoning shaker. Service? If I wanted to be treated like an inconvenience, I’d go to one of those gimmicky rude-themed restaurants where at least the attitude is intentional. Instead, our waiter seemed like he was actively trying to set the bar lower than the food itself. Abrupt, disinterested, and clearly miserable to be there—frankly, I don’t blame him. If I could rate this place a zero, I would. In fact, I’d go into the negatives if possible. It’s a culinary disaster zone, and the only thing worse than eating here would be suffering through it a second time. Hard pass.

We arrived for dinner on a Friday evening around 6:00 p.m. The place was nearly empty—just three occupied tables out of about twenty—but it still took about ten minutes before we flagged someone and asked if we could seat ourselves. After 10 minutes of being self-seated, we grabbed our own menus and utensils from the cashier’s station (since no one offered them, or came by to introduce themselves). There were three staff members working the front and a visible kitchen crew, so it wasn’t a staffing issue, just a lack of attention. We ordered combo fajitas for two and a cheese quesadilla. The fajitas arrived in about 20 minutes and were disappointing—clearly a pre-made “heat and serve” dish. The chicken and beef chunks were bland and indistinguishable, while the peppers and onions tasted like overcooked frozen vegetables. The quality just wasn’t there. Meanwhile, our kid’s quesadilla never showed up. Every time we checked, the response was simply “it’s coming.” In the meantime, no one offered refills, brought napkins (even after asking), or delivered the cups of ice we requested. We ended up drinking our sodas straight from the cans. By 7:20p the quesadilla still hadn’t arrived. We were the only table inside at that point, but the staff seemed more focused on chatting at the cashier station than checking on us. We finally got up, went to pay—minus the uneaten quesadilla—and left. No explanation, no apology, not even basic courtesy. We didn’t have a bill, so it took about 10 minutes for the cashier to track it down, and another 5 minutes to get the undelivered quesadilla removed. Terlingua has some great local spots, but unfortunately, Chili Pepper Cafe wasn’t one of them for us. It has potential given the space and location, but the service and food need serious attention before we’d consider returning. Food - 1 (out of 5) Service - 0 (out of 5) Atmosphere - 1 (out of 5)