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| Connie’s: Long Time Wichita Staple |
For over 50 years, one traditional homestyle Mexican restaurant has stood the test of time. While many restaurants have come and gone in Wichita, Connie’s Mexico Cafe has been feeding people for over five decades; that’s a lot of food.
Connie’s is located at 2227 N Broadway at the northwest corner of 21st and Broadway.
I vividly remember my first time going to Connie’s when I was 18 years old and being recruited by Wichita State University. Contrary to what most of you are thinking, this recruitment event wasn’t to play basketball at the university or for any big scholarship. I didn’t apply myself enough in high school for a large scholarship and my parents didn’t pass on the genes to me to play D1 basketball (Thanks mom and dad). So I settled for being recruited by fraternities. On my first trip to Connie’s, I thought it was fantastic. Between then and now, for whatever reason I never ended up going back.
That all changed when my co-workers and I decided to go check out Connie’s as they’ve never been before.
Upon arriving, we were immediately greeted and seated at one of the roughly 20-25 tables inside the building. Typical to many Mexican restaurants in town, we were given a couple baskets of chips and two different kinds of salsa, hot and mild, along with tortilla chips.
The mild was very mild and didn’t have much bite to it but still pretty tasty and the hot was certainly as advertised. It was the kind of hot that didn’t hit you right away but snuck up on you when you thought you were safe. The hot certainly had the better of the two flavors. My co-workers ended up mixing both hot and mild as seen in the above picture. One co-worker decided to also order some queso and enjoy the cheesy goodness in front of me while I just watched.
For lunch, we ordered a couple different burritos and at the suggestion of our server I went with the Monterrey Special which was a large, flour tortilla topped with refried beans, lettuce, slices of grilled pork roast, avocado slices, sour cream and black olive.
The burritos, I was told, were nice big portions at a great price. The food was good but not great which is a common theme I’ve heard from others as well. While filling, the flavor just wasn’t anything memorable. I felt the same about my Monterrey, I ended up needing to just pour on some salsa to get that extra zing to the meal.
Overall the service was fantastic, the prices were great but the food was about average.
When debates about best Mexican food come into play, Connie’s always up there in the discussion. For our personal tastes, we felt differently but that’s not to say you may not like it. Check it out for yourself if you haven’t. I’d love to hear your thoughts.
Happy Dining
Here’s the menu for your reference:
I have eaten at Connie's three times and was always underwhelmed by the food. We tend to eat in small local joints and off of food trucks where they sell really good food, cheap prices and the serving size is great.
I thought the food sucked, I couldn’t believe how full it was for lunch.