Qdoba Mexican Eats (Stadium & Drake, Kalamazoo)
2061 S. Drake RoadMy first full regularly schedule weekend off in seven years saw us being a little lazy when it came time to meals. We spent the day in Battle Creek…first, with lunch at The Fire Hub followed by an afternoon at the Kingman Museum. When we got home, everyone was tired, but starting to get hungry.
J had asked me a couple of times what I wanted to do for dinner. I had no idea. I was kind of exhausted myself and not in the mood to cook. We also hadn’t gone grocery shopping yet so there wasn’t really anything to cook.
Luckily for us, there are more and more dining options popping up around Costco which is giving us more options for eating out close to home.
Qdoba already had four locations in the Kalamazoo Metro area before the newest store opened in some new construction on Drake Road just north of the Stadium Drive intersection. It’s in a building that was built in what used to be a parking lot near the At Home store.
This is the first store in the area that was built under the new branding. In late 2015, Qdoba started a massive rebranding effort that changed the name from Qdoba Mexican Grill to Qdoba Mexican Eats. It also changed the design and feel of the stores. The other four restaurants still have the old brown and green motif while this one uses the updated blue and yellow.
The redesign was carried over inside as well. The dining room is much brighter with brighter wood tables and sleeker, cleaner lines. The floor and walls are hardwood. The tables carry the same hardwood design and are surrounded with metal chairs.
The only thing that isn’t really any different is the way you order. You still order on what is essentially an assembly line which is a pretty popular way of doing it at these fast service Mexican restaurants.
The food has been redesigned too. I’ve always liked the tacos at Qdoba, but their new line-up of tacos are even better.
Qdoba now has seven different tacos they call “Knockout Tacos.” I used to always get the same Pulled Pork tacos with cheese, lettuce, and pico. Now there are several options and I actually have to choose what I want each time we go.
On this trip, I picked the Triple Threat. These tacos come on a single tortilla with steak, bacon, queso, fajita veggies, pico, and cotija cheese. I chose to leave the veggies off. These tacos are so delicious. The steak is nice and tender while the bacon is super crispy and salty. The pico always has a very fresh taste and even though it has onions, it still has the delicious, crisp taste of tomatoes.
J did what she usually does at these fast service Mexican places. She did a burrito bowl. She doesn’t typically do any meat on her burrito’s instead opting for rice, beans, lettuce, cheese, and queso. Her typical motus operandum is to eat half for dinner and save half for lunch later in the week. I don’t think Qdoba’s burrito bowls are as big as Moe’s, so it got to a point that it really wasn’t even worth taking it home because there wasn’t enough left for a full meal.
We did a kid’s meal for L but we probably should have just gotten her a regular quesadilla. The kid’s quesadilla is made on taco tortillas so it’s pretty small, but it does come with apple sauce and a juice. She had the juice gone before she ever took a bite of the quesadilla so I was back at the counter getting her a glass for water. She tore through the quesadilla and even dipped it in some of the queso to give it an extra cheesy flavor.
You can’t go to Qdoba without getting a side of chips and queso. The chips used to be really unique with a salty lime flavor. Qdoba claims they haven’t changed anything, but the lime was not as pronounced on this batch of chips as it has been in the past. Still delicious, but it just didn’t seem the same.
We always go with queso when we get the chips. There are a couple of different queso options with different heat levels. The Queso Diablo is pretty. It ranks four chili peppers on their heat scale. The regular queso only clocks in at one chili pepper. We got the regular queso because all of us, including the kids, were going to end up eating. Even that ended up being too spicy. B got a piece of tomato off my taco with queso on it and about lost his mind. L kept trying it thinking it would “cool down,” but in the end, it was too spicy for her too.
The bill for this meal was a little over $22. I really like what Qdoba has turned in to. I’ve always liked the place, but the new taco options really do it for me. We’ve been a fan of Moe’s Southwestern Grill since they moved in a couple of years ago, but Qdoba will give them a run for their money
SW Michigan Dining 