El Pollo Loco — Restaurant in Lake Forest

This location is normally my go to place . I haven't come back since the pandemic started and restaurant bussines were close . But now that state is re opening . Places like pollo loco were trusted to open and handle food professionally. But they are failing . I showed up today to order my standards order . THE COOK WAS coming out of the back . And went straight to the kitchen to start flipping chicken . Didn't do hand wash . Didn't wear gloves . I canceled my order right away and tried to coach the manager . Since I'm also in the same industry . And she seems not to understand the severity of how she's managing that place . Her respond was.. mm okay . After I said her employee ( COOK ) wasn't following basic standards . How can you trust this place to feed you and your family . ....... corporate or franchise owner should invest money in training . You can't expect your manager not to be clueless and not to be careless if you don't invest in them . Or at least hire someone skilled enough to take this seriously. There is already cooks tested positive in Dennys and ihop . Based on rumors I heard from old colleagues.

BE SAFE EVERYONE , try to avoid this place . This could be your last meal .

Don't come back until this people take...

I went in today at 11:38 ordered 3 piece breast and wing extra well done with two loco salads. They gave me my chicken 20 min later not we’ll done and especially not extra well done I asked he manager to give me extra well done she said if I wanted extra well done I have to call it in and she didn’t want to give me we’ll done even after waiting 20 minutes for my meal she returned my money to me with a bad attitude and not even an apology and completely rude. I will never go there again if they can’t provide well done they should have said that from the beginning and not make me wait 20 minutes to tell me and walk away when I’m talking to her... Adela was the managers name short Mexican Lady with burgundy hair and badly done eyebrows.. she was supposedly the manager but it’s clear she should be stripped of her title no customer service skills whatsoever... I called corporate and reported her and had to drive to the other pollo loco where I waited 5 min and got my chicken well done off of El Toro road. Stray away from this location poor customer service even from the the lady calling the numbers and the man cooking...

First time reviewing this place after coming for 3 years straight. The only reason I'm reviewing is because they recently changed their salsa, and I think this was a major screw-up. I thought perhaps they messed it up the first time I tried it, so I decided to take a break from this place for about 3 weeks so they can get their salsa in order. Ordered again 3 weeks later and it looks like it's become permanent. It really doesn't taste good, and for those wondering which salsa it's the red fiery salsa. Very unfortunate... this place was my daily for lunch time. Staff is great, service is great, but they really messed up the salsa. 😭

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