El Pollo Loco - Pasadena

My chicken in the burrito was extremely salty and the cheese was supposed to be melted cheese and I got cold shredded cheese. My tacos were carelessly wrapped and half of my taco filling was all over the bag.. Never gave me my salsa, and gave me stale chips. The person at the window seemed to be in a bad mood or stressed but there wasn't a line behind me and i was as polite as I can be for the lack of that being returned back to me...so I'm not sure what's going on at this particular spot. I stopped going for a long time because of how bad the customer service was but decided to give a second chance today and was convinced this is a really bad el pollo loco location...

Unacceptable operation. Friendly employees working their butts off, but the store is totally understaffed. 30 minutes between ordering and food being ready. After 30 minutes wait I was told that the chicken I ordered was not ready. A substitute was offered and accepted. Drink machine only had salt water. Took 30 minutes to fix since the employees were overwhelmed. Food was good.

I don 't know what 's with the 2-stars 1-star reviews, but it seemed passable to me. But hey, what do I know about good Mexican food? Besides, it 's fast food... ¯ (ツ) ¯ I did ask for dine-in, but takeout box was ok. I only had to wait 13 minutes from order to receiving my food. The cup lids were placed away from the drink fountain, which doesn 't make sense. PRO-tip: DO NOT enter off Mountainview Ave. That parking is for Di-No computers, and they set up a plastic chain barrier to prevent El Pollo Loco customers parking on their side. If you 're trying to access the Drive-Thru, just move up a bit closer to the El Pollo Loco entrance, and you 're good.

Saw some other reviews saying they close early. Went once on Thursday 2022-12-08 and can confirm they really do close early. Not sure what the issue is but judging from the timing of reviews, it doesn't seem like management is interested in fixing the problem either. Save yourself the trouble and don't bother wasting gas to come here.

This location has to be the worst El pollo loco I've been at. They seem to mess up our orders. They didn't give us our iced tea, our chicken was burned, no salsa, etc. The employees were not attentive to our special changes made. The floor is sticky and it's just a mess in general.