El Pollo Loco — Restaurant in Bakersfield

They decided to close the dining room an hour early. They do this almost every night but there is no sign letting customers know this. I live across the street and decided to walk over there because I had been drinking and when I got there the door was locked. I had already paid online so I knocked on the door/window. A woman came and yelled through the window, "The dining room is closed. You have to go through the drive-thru." I tried explaining that I had already ordered online and paid but she just shook her head "no" and walked away. I knocked on the window again and she finally came over and opened the door a tiny bit, peeked her head through the gap and said, very rudely, "I told you you'll have to go through the drive-thru!" Again, I tried to explain that I already paid online, live across the street and walked over to pick up my food. She sighed, rolled her eyes, and said, "Fine. What's the name on the order?" I gave her my name and asked for some lemons and two roja sauces with my order. As I was asking for the lemons/sauce she closed the door before I could finish asking.

When she came back and shoved the bag of food into my chest I asked if she had included the roja sauce since that was the main reason I wanted El Pollo Loco; the spicy roja sauce is so delicious! She said, "The salsa's in the bag," and shut the door quickly. Of course, there was no roja sauce in the bag, and no lemons, just avocado sauce and the chunky, mild red salsa (pico de gallo maybe?).

I have had many issues with the employees here over the years. Rude, unprofessional attitudes seem to be commonplace amongst the staff here. The only reason I kept going back is because I can literally see it from my apartment so it's a short walk. However, I have decided that I will never return to El Pollo Loco if this is how they train their employees to behave.

Seriously, the management here needs to get their...

Maybe plastic gloves should be explained to the staff. They aren’t to keep the employees hands clean, they are to protect the customers food from contamination. While visiting 6/3, 7:15 PM, I witnessed 2 employees with gloved hands, touch EVERYTHING in sight to include the phone, the access door, the kitchen counters and proceed to continue to create the food orders either the same gloves on. One chicken order was completed by touching each piece with same gloved hands described above. Another order, chicken burrito was made with gloved hands that touched every thing then placed on top of the chicken pieces to smash ingredients into the tortilla. Maybe the health department needs to...

This place is convenient for me and my family to come to since we moved to the area. My main issue is that they consistently get my order wrong. For example, I order the Grande chicken avocado bowl. They forget the avocado. Or I'll order anything on the menu and ask for no sour cream, no onions. And they get it wrong. Once or twice is not a big deal, but it is every single time we come to this location they just can't seem to get any of our orders right. And it's ridiculous when you're paying for extra ingredients and you're not getting it or vice-versa. Also, their churros have devolved into just fried bread with no cinnamon on them. Find a...