El Pollo Loco — Restaurant in Los Angeles

Your whole team needs to be replaced. Plain and simple if I was there GM they would all be fired. And the general manager that's hiring those people he should be fired as well and replaced with somebody who actually knows how to run an establishment. Your staff's customer service is absolutely horrendous. This is not the only time that I've been there where the customer service was terrible this is my third time now and every time it's literally the same! I understand and I believe in giving young people a chance to thrive and establish themselves in an adult world but they do not deserve an adult job if they want to sit around and socialize and not do what's asked of them like take people's orders and cook the food prepare the salsas or clean. I looked in there was about 10-12 people standing around. I'm starting to think that you guys discriminate against people that have EBT cards. So you're telling me you got 11 to 12 people working and you can't take 5 seconds to go over to machine the same machine that you would take a debit card to and charge an EBT card through a drive-thru the SAME WAY SAME PROCEDURE that you would charge a debit card. Just doesn't make any sense to me it is literally the same exact thing. And it's like every time you pull out your EBT card they have an attitude they roll their eyes or they scuff underneath their breath or they just simply say we can't take that okay but everybody knows you take EBT. And then you have your manager who does not know how to be a manager. I'm telling her that her employee or one of her employees actually three different one of her employees already used my card at the drive-thru when it's EBT and on the same process that everybody else does everywhere else that accepts EBT band she's telling me oh well we can't do it just a simple we can't do it but it's funny because del Taco Carl's Jr Wendy's McDonald's they all do it because it's literally the same thing as a damn debit card. Overweight and looks like that she doesn't care about her personal appearance so is so lazy that she cannot walk over to machine and swipe a card come back and ask me to put my pin in. Do not accept EBT if you do not have the proper machine to do it through a drive-thru people don't want to have their kids in the car and have to get out of the car leave their kids in the car to come inside because you can't walk five steps Not to mention it takes them 10 minutes to order some food through a drive-thru because they're not responding and then when they do respond they have an absolute horrendous attitude. And then to top it off your food is overcooked dry chicken with way too much salt and seasonings. first you say that you don't have an item then you say that oh no we we have the item we just discontinued the shrimp. You discontinue shrimp ?ok fine so you don't have shrimp ok so then you say we don't have tostada's then you say oh no we have tostadas but we only have chicken so if you're going to take people's orders you need to give them another option to order not just simply say we don't have it. Why is your staff mean to people that pay their way so they're able to have employment. News flash it's a circle,the economic system is a circle if we stop going to your establishment then you're not going to make money and then you're not going to have money to pay your employees and your employees are going to be out of a job. So you take the one thing that was really good at El Pollo loco their shrimp tostada like come on and then you raise your prices so high it's like we might as well just make our food at home. Never returning Edit: literally right after, I went to the El Pollo loco on Van Nuys blvd and not only did they have the chicken and shrimp tostada because it's not discontinued that girl straight lied to my face but I also had way better service I wasn't given an attitude when I gave them my EBT card as form of payment I was treated with smiles and respect the chicken wasn't dry and salty they had all the salsas and the environment was way cleaner! Avoid the...

I won't be going back. I tried to order the Baja shrimp salad and the employee said "we don't have shrimp here, only chicken". I don't know that's entirely true..? I would understand something like 'we don't have shrimp right now' or 'that was a limited time only item'. But I see it on the El Pollo Loco website as an option and it doesn't say limited time only. Either way I ordered another item. This same employee also didn't sound very happy taking my order, almost like she was bored or upset. We pull up to the window and the other employee only spoke once to tell me my total. I didn't wait too long for my food and I asked the employee kind of surprisingly "is this everything?" and he didn't reply, he just kinda awkwardly smiled. So I said thanks and he still hadn't said anything else and we left. I noticed I was missing my side salad (we only ordered a tostada salad & two side items) so we had to drive back around to the drive thru window. As we're pulling up the same employee had his hand out the window holding the missing side salad. I said "great thanks!" and he STILL didn't say anything, he just had that same awkward smile. By the way, when we're at the window and I could see all the employees, none of them looked happy to be there. All the employees here need a course in learning basic proper and professional communication skills! As for the food, the side salad definitely wasn't fresh, but the side mac & cheese was good. I was told the chicken tostada salad isn't ever worth going back for. I think this location could use an Undercover Boss episode to figure out what's going on with the workers and to teach them updated menu item info and what to explain/how to communicate...

I've had many bad experiences at El Pollo Loco restaurants but this location by far, has been the worst yet. Order took about 25-30 min to receive. Some customers waited even longer. The customer ahead of me asked for salsa and the young man behind the counter replied with "we don't have any" then turned and walked away. NO SALSA?! What the heck? Then another employee opened a fridge and took out a few cups of pico de gallo and placed them in a bag for a drive thru order. Those if us at the counter were angry. I asked about that and the young man from before said "oh that's not salsa that's pico de gallo do you want some of that?" ..i said yes and asked when the green avocado salsa works be available and a female employee said "10 min they are making it". All the while the store manager was at another register acting as if he doesn't see the disorder in the store, conveniently not making eye contact with anyone. 10 min later I went back up to the counter to ask if the avocado salsa was ready and the same young man said "we don't have any" I told him that someone was making it 10 min ago and he said "umm no we're not gunna have any today, were short staffed". Mind you, I counted 7 kitchen employees and 1 supervisor , who by then had disappeared into the back somewhere, instead of making salsa. I was furious and couldn't believe the lack of customer service. They could of told us there was no salsa before we ordered. And the unprofessionalism and lack of leadership and care from the supervisor was shocking. Oh and the pico de gallo I was given was nothing more that a whole tomato in a lil plastic salsa cup. I will never ever go to the Pollo loco on Roscoe and Van...