Chellas Arepa Kitchen — Restaurant in Lancaster

I’ll preface this review by saying I am born and raised Venezuelan, moved to the US when I was 18 yo. After visiting Chella’s, I was thoroughly impressed with this quaint joint serving Venezuelan-inspired meals. I tried the Lomo Saltado Arepa (added plantain), the Pulled Pork Arepa (added avocado), and a Strip Steak Bowl. I was pleased with all the flavors, the meat seasonings, and the mild/spicy sauces.

For people saying it’s not true Venezuelan: you are correct. However, they are not claiming to be 100% Venezuelan, rather Venezuelan-inspired with a Peruvian twist. For comparison, we don’t normally fill arepas with other starchy carbs, so a “true” Venezuelan Lomo Saltado arepa wouldn’t have the Yucca bites. Also, our traditional staple dish, Pabellon Criollo is essentially all the fillings in their Pulled Pork arepa, except with shredded beef instead of pulled pork.

However all this said, I loved their take of Arepas! It does remind me a lot of homemade food. I am also glad people from Lancaster can experience this cuisine which is not easy to find in the US. For being such a small eatery, they’ve sure pulled a huge fan base. I was there for lunch on a Saturday, and then for Dinner. Sometimes parking is hard to come by in their lot. Don’t be discouraged by this! You can park at the bank in front of Chella’s and cross the street.

I 100% recommend this place, and if you want to try a more authentic take on Venezuelan in Philadelphia, I recommend Autana in Ardmore and Puyero Venezuelan Flavor in...

It’s time for my review of Chellas for this location only. Chellas has good food and it’s a well frequented spot for many in this area. But about $38.00 worth of food and was disappointing in the portion of the dinner/lunch main dish ordered which was the grilled steak and rice. The food is flavored well maybe a little too heavy on the salt but the portion they give in the to go paper container is ridiculous for the amount of money you are paying. I ordered the same thing on two different days just to see if it was just an error. On both orders there was hardly any of the rice in the container. The arepas are nice and hot and toasty but there is no taste to them and I’ve had some arepas else where that just kept me going back. The to go container in which your food is served in is so flimsy that by the time you get to your destination it’s either crushed or falling apart. The chimichurri served on the side in the plastic container leaks out which they don’t wrap it in anything else to avoid leaking. So putting together the flimsy container that feels like paper together with a leaking chimichurri and you an annoying mess by the time you are ready to eat. The order of plaintains is in a aluminum container but the sweet plantains looked like there is water at the bottom of the container and not sure why there would be that much water. Cost of the dinner $16.98 (rice and steak). The staff is really nice...

Extremely Disappointed – Will Not Be Returning I don’t normally leave negative reviews, but my experience at Chellas was genuinely terrible from start to finish. First of all, the wait was ridiculous. We were told 20-30 min and ended up waiting nearly an hour for our food. There was zero communication from the staff, No apology, no updates — just standing around wondering what was going on and how much longer we would have to wait. When the food finally came I wish it hadn’t. Everything we ordered was bland, poorly cooked, and looked like it had been sitting out for a while. My wife is Venezuelan (home of the arepa, idc what Colombia has to say ) so I have a lot of experience and high expectations when it comes to arepas. The arepa I had here was NOT even close to good. It didn’t have flavor, didn’t taste fresh (felt like food was sitting before we got it ) and it was honestly hard to tell it was even an arepa. For the prices they charge, the quality was laughably bad. To top it all off, the atmosphere was ehhh, small parking lot, dirty tables , bugs and no one seemed to care that customers were clearly unhappy. Chellas was a total letdown. Between the insanely long wait, terrible communication, subpar food, and lackluster service, this was one of the worst dining experiences I’ve had in a long time. Definitely do yourself a favor and eat...