Bridget G.
Yelp
We like to try a different neighborhood spot for tacos every Tuesday, and Ernie's is in our regular rotation. I looooove old school, dark, 1950s Mexican restaurants with the cozy booths, and I love that this place has been open in NoHo for over 60 years and looks mostly unchanged. That's the main reason I want to support.
The good: They have a pretty robust menu with a good variety of combos, specials, seafood, and a la carte items. There's something for everyone. I really like the flautas and hard tacos. No taco specials, unfortunately.
The margarita list is short and sticks to the basics, but the drinks are strong. Unfortunately, most of them have sweet and sour mix, so I usually get the skinny cadillac margarita to avoid the artificial taste.
My only beef with this place is the service and the ambiance. No matter what time we go in, the staff always seems to want to rush us out. The posted hours state that they close at 10PM on weeknights. We've been in at times where they don't play any music at all for the last few hours, and have dead silence. They'll often close the bar more than an hour before closing time, sometimes without telling us. Last night, last call was just after 8:30, and shortly afterward, our server brought our check and asked every few minutes if we were done eating. When we weren't, he said "I'll be back in a few minutes." They turned off all of the lights except for the ones around our table, stacking chairs, well before 10. I used to be a server and it was a big no-no to turn off lights, music, or do major cleaning until after the actual closing time. This has been such a regular and expected occurrence that we always wonder that if they want to close before 10, why not just change the posted hours and call it a day?
Maybe weekdays are slow, but it's also a little off-putting that the first sight at the entrance is the large, dark, abandoned dining room that they sometimes use to store supplies, before you're led into the main dining room with the bar. I get that they may not need it or be staffed for it, but it would be better to at least have the lights on and make it look nice.
Ernie's has such great history and old-school ambiance that I honestly think it could be as packed as Casa Vega, or even Don Cuco's nearby, which always have long waits on weeknights. I feel like they don't care as much about that as getting home early.