This Mexican restaurant located on Airlie Beach's
Esplanade seems to be quite popular with the crowds. The first time we
tried to eat here, right after our late arrival in Airlie Beach we were
told there's a 40 minutes wait. We were quite famished after the drive from
Townsville so we moved our business elsewhere. The second time we were
sitted immediately but it took some time until we actually got to order.
Service was a bit slow throughout the night but we blamed that on the late
hour (It was nearly 9 o'clock at night :) which seemed quite late for Airlie
Beach) and on the fact that we got sited right after a group of about 10
people. Cactus Jack's is a Tex-Mex chain and as such you know what you get:
casual atmosphere, average food, big portions, reasonable prices. I had the
Hillbilly Deluxe burger and my companions went for stakes. A word of advice
if you order stakes in Australia: they tend to dial it down a notch; if your
stake is ordered medium what you'll get is the medium to well done US
equivalent. If you want to see some pink on the meat try ordering medium-rare.
