Mad Mex (Columbus)

No Longer In Business

Met Puddintane here on a Saturday afternoon and watched the second round OSU game in the NCAA Tournament. We each ordered a few pints from the impressive draft menu (I can’t think of many other Mexican places with a rotation of good craft beer). Local, regional, and national craft labels represented- I ordered a few brands I can’t get in St. Louis. The location is cool, right at the southeast edge of OSU’s campus and a little north of the Short North core. The decor is modern southwestern/Mex. Bartender was friendly, but maybe more focused on the cute, drunk girls partying on St. Patrick’s Day that were sitting on the other side of the bar. Prices were decent; $5-ish for most pints, with half-price pints during happy hour. Margaritas might be a better deal here but I can’t pass up good beer.

Great draft beer selection and great happy hour, but the food is not very good in my opinion, sorry I don’t know enough to know what I don’t like about the food, I just know that when I eat it I’m usually dissapointed.

Great selection of beers on tap; pretty exotic ones too. Too bad the douche bag contingent is in full effect on weekends past 8pm. Great food. Vegetarian/Vegan friendly without catering to them.

(Visited 08/2006): Mad Mex is one of the establishments in the newly-sanitized South Campus Gateway area on High Street near OSU campus. Parking is plentiful thanks to a garage. Be careful with street parking as a lot of it is permit only.

The restaurant looks similar to other Tex-Mex chain restaurants. In other words, carefully decorated to look authentic. This is not to say it’s bad, just kind of predictable. The garage door-enclosed patio is pretty cool. The bar is toward the center of the restaurant, and there is upstairs seating as well.

The beer selection is pretty good. There are around 25 taps with goodies from Rogue, Thirsty Dog, Shiner, Bell’s, DFH and more. There are 40 or so bottles too with Great Lakes, Rogue, Stone, and many more represented.

The service here is pretty good. Our waiter was knowledgable about the available beers and made recommendations.

The food at Mad Mex is pricey but pretty good. It would never touch some of the mom-n-pop type places in town but it is tasty and the portions have plenty for lunch the next day.

All in all Mad Mex is a worthwhile visit in the OSU campus area. I wish Eddie George Grill #27 had put the same effort into variety in beer selection that Mad Mex did.

Very surprising seeing a mexican restaurant with a pretty big tap list which definitely had something for everyone. Didn’t eat here but they still give you chips ’n salsa at the bar which is nice. Service was very good, they even have tv’s for the games and the food menu did look pretty tasty. Good time

Located on the Ohio State Campus this newly opened Mexican restaurant holds a surprising number of tap handles. I think there were around 20 on tap and many more local choices available in bottles. The food was pretty solid as well. I had the spicy chicken fajitas and they were great. Decor is somewhat southwest with lots of indian masks, drawings and sculptures on the wall. The place was actually pretty quiet but there was some music playing. The waitress was right there when my glass ran dry and was courteous and very responsive. There is a parking garage located directly behind it. It was reasonable.. $1 for the time it took me to eat and drink 2 brews. The bar is surrounded with TVs so I gathered that this wouldn’t be a bad spot to take in the game either.

This place is actually pretty solid for being a restaurant near a college campus. Most people in Columbus probably wouldn’t even check it out because it is located so close to OSU. The food here is pretty solid for mexican althought it is a little expensive. I usually go during their happy hours where almost everything is half off. Their beer selection is great for a chain restaurant. They had dreadnaught, stone, rogue, chimay, allagash, siberian night, dogfish head, bells, victory, great divide, sierra nevada, and others. This is actually the place that got be into craft beer because it is one of the only restaurant/bars near OSU that sells it. If you are in Columbus, check out the website and see what beers they have it may be worth a stop.

They had a surprisningly good selection. Robert the Bruce, Great Lakes Blackout, Great Divide Titan IPA, Stoney Creek Vanilla Porter, Goose Island Christmas, Sierra Nevada Celebration and many more. I was quite pleased, also an above average bottle selection, Arrogant Bastard, some Chimay. They also offer a carryout 6-pack of 12oz bottles, with things like Rogue Uber Pils and the like $12 for the carryout doesn’t seem like a bad deal at all. It worked out to 20+ drafts, and close to 40 bottles. Though their prices on some of the bottles are quite obscene. $21 for a 22oz Dreadnaught when I can buy it in a store for $10. Hmm. That said I can’t wait to go back when I’m sober. Didn’t get a chance to try the food on this trip. Edit: Finally ordered some food there. Nothing special, but not bad. I would stay away from the burritos, for $8-9 they aren’t worth it. I did get a free beer out of it when my food was late coming to the table.