PONKO Chicken Athens — Restaurant in Athens-Clarke County Unified Government

I was very excited to try Ponko for the first time because I had heard great things since they opened in Athens. While the staff is great and friendly, I'm sad to report that the food is bland and overhyped.

My husband and I both got the Ponko Plate; he ordered fries and a salad and I got the brown rice and island vegetables.

The chicken was decent. It was slightly over-fried but the texture and flavor was good. The fries had a good texture but lacked salt; the salad dressing (ranch) was runny and my husband said it tasted weird; the brown rice was flavorless and adding sauce did not do much to improve it.

The only redeeming part of my meal was the "island vegetables," which were cooked perfectly and had a great balance of flavors.

As much as I wanted to like Ponko, I did not, and will likely not return anytime soon.

On another note, management should relocate the tablet behind the register closer to the card reader so that it's more obvious and great staff can get more tips. I initially didn't tip because I didn't see the tablet. When I noticed it, I bought an additional drink so that I could leave a tip and then discovered you cannot leave a tip worth more than the value of the product, which is unfortunate in this case. A guest should be able to tip the wonderful staff as much as...

We've eaten here a few times and the tenders and fries are out of this world. The tenders are perfectly crunchy on the outside and soft and juicy on the inside. I would recommend these to anyone. The salad with tenders is a great option as well.

So, why the 3 stars? We tried branching out today and ordered a pickup order with a hotdog meal and grilled chicken salad. We weren't impressed by either. Despite eating within 4 minutes of them packaging our food, the hotdog was barely warm on the inside, batter wasn't crunchy, and they didn't give us any slaw to put on top. The grilled chicken had good flavor, but was a little dry and the portion-size seemed smaller than the salad with tenders.

So, we strongly recommend for the tenders and fries, but we do not recommend the hotdog or...

I usually love Ponko's food, the location in Atlanta is consistently good. I was super excited to eat at the Ponko in Athens. :( This location in Athens is consistently inconsistent, and unfortunately manages to be bad more frequently than it manages to be good. Tonight, we ordered a spicy chicken salad and a 5 finger plate. The salad dressing was unusually bitter, making the salad completely inedible. The rice side was undercooked in some parts and super overcooked in others. That's difficult to achieve, but......they managed. All in all, a massive fail. For how expensive the food is, you expect to be...