Firehouse Subs El Torro — Restaurant in Laguna Woods

If you don’t speak English with native fluency or you don’t command the particular jargon of their menu, stay away from this place. A bunch of teenage cashiers will give you the hardest time if you dare to order a half-size sandwich instead of a medium, or a soda instead of a soft drink; they will save no effort to make you feel inadequate and out of place, only to go back to texting on their cell phones right in front of your face. I have felt bullied twice in this place by some kids who, not only ignore everything about synonyms and behave arrogantly in their ignorance, but also ignore everything about customer service. Starbucks for example uses some proprietary names for the size of their drinks, but if you order a large latte (instead of a Venti), they will just serve it displaying a smile, without making you feel bad or wrong. It feels (at least I’ve felt) that this place is promoting some kind of ‘All-American’ experience in which anyone not fitting is discouraged to come back. And don’t try talking to the owner either; I did, and he made me understand immediately where the problem lies. Much rather than listening (he probably could use some knowledge of the L-A-S-T model: Listen, Apologize, Solve, Thank), he spent the three minutes of our conversation telling me as many times as he could that I was wrong. “You are wrong, you are totally wrong, you are completely wrong, you are absolutely wrong”, probably thirty or more times. I guess he hasn’t heard either that “the customer is always right”. The area in which the restaurant is located is surrounded by a large retiree’s community, many of which are themselves non-native English speakers. I can’t help feeling for them, as they may fail using the right English words or the...

Honestly, the food was ok. asked for no onions but it has onions anyways which is easy to remove i guess but not fun to get a mouth full of when you take your first bite. My main issue was the manager Tony thought not so much the onions, a elder man had accidentally picked up the wrong order and started eating it, as this happens Tony decided to make the man and everyone else is the store know how upset he was that this man had made a simple mistake that now make Tony put in a little more effort to make a new one in replacement. The Older man apologized but that didn’t seem to help Tony at all and he ended up making rude comments the whole time i had been there. Very common issue when people accidentally grab the wrong order but as a manager this was no the way to handle it. The customer whose sandwich was taken...

I love the idea of Firehouse Subs donating to first responders. The sandwiches are great - far better quality meats and bread than Subway or Jersey Mikes. That being said - the service and attitude of those minimum wage workers is horrible. This is the second time we got our order home and there were no pickles. That really ticked me off. I called the store to ask if pickles were supposed to come with the sandwiches, or if you had to ask for them. I was told by the boy with the attitude "well, ya, they're supposed to come with them." I told him we didn't get ours - and this was the second time this has happed. His excuse was, well it could happen if we were getting ready to close. It was 7:15!!! The shop is supposed to be open till 9 pm. I will have to find a different location - I'm just done...