Wahoo’s Fish Taco made a quiet opening yesterday at UCI’s food court at the student center. For those who aren’t familiar with Wahoo’s, its a casual restaurant with a “Mexican/Brazilian/Asian” inspired menu. Expect tacos, enchiladas, burritos, bowls, and excellent fries and onion rings.

Here’s my favorite combo, a taco with rice and beans topped with fresh salsa.

Their locations are usually vibrant–splattered with surf/skate/apparel/boarding decals and actual sporting goods on the walls. Since this new restaurant is in a food court, this vibe is limited to their booth.

Another piss-poor mexican food restaurant was in this location last year. I couldn’t understand how such a restaurant serving low-turnover, low-quality, flavor-lacking food lasted so long. No one was ever in line, so my guess is that some legal documents were keeping it alive.

Someone in their marketing department thought it would be cool to have the workers wear shirts with clever blurbs on them such as, “We’re not trying to be fresh, but our salsa is” and “How to beat the recession” by purchasing Wahoo’s food.

This isn’t Chipotle! Get it together!

I came during lunch hour and Wahoo’s had all the restaurants beat in terms of customers at least threefold. There were an insane amount of workers in the back and on the floor promoting the opening.

I bet they’re just kicking themselves for not being able to open at the start of the school year like Panda Express was able to do. But now I live within walking distance of Wahoo’s–my favorite healthy fast-food alternative.