El Pollo Loco — Restaurant in Los Angeles

The El Pollo Loco (EPL) on La Cienega Blvd (La Cienega Plaza) is probably the worst restaurant establishment with regards to customer service I've ever encountered. I went through so many bad restaurants and the type of service provided at this El Pollo Loco restaurant tops it by ten fold.

I enjoy eating at El Pollo Loco. I think it's a great company. The chicken, the limited time offers, the sauces, the mobile app, but the La Cienega Plaza EPL location, which is near the 10 freeway (which I take to work), has massive issues with regards to their staff.

For the last several years when I've been using the mobile app, I would want to go to their drive thru to pick up my food, but management was persistent about picking up my order at the store. They claimed "policy". I called corporate about it, and there was no such policy. I confronted them about this, and ultimately they had it fixed.

Great - but I'm not done.

The mobile order would tell you (after completing the transaction) what time your food will be ready. I would sometimes wait outside of the restaurant, or be a couple of minutes late to pick up my food. Staff would always use excuses like:

"Sorry, but we're very, very busy - as you can see"

"We can drop it off at the curbside. Go to the curbside and we'll come to you."

I never wanted to pick up at curbside, but when I did that one time, for my very first time, it took an exact 10 minutes and I know it's been 10 or more minutes because I was watching a TV show on my phone when I've been waiting for them to drop off my food, and frankly, couldn't believe it took them this long to get my food to me.

Curbside problem, lateness of food preparedness, inconvenience of coming into the store to pick up food after placing mobile order. It gets worst... and it doesn't stop.

Below, is what crossed the red line and confirmed that this El Pollo Loco restaurant is a deplorable, shameful establishment.

Eventually, I would tell them NO curbside pick up and NO in store pick up. This is where the disrespect comes in. Staff, especially the person by the drive thru collecting money/handing the food and the manager showed rude and disrespectful behavior and made shocking, unprofessional, impolite remarks. Managers vary on a day by day basis, but it's the same attitude, and so is the staff by the drive thru.

Today, 12/29/22 - I felt disrespected and humiliated by the manager. Over the years, they've apologized, corporate has apologized, but to no avail. Corporate has done NOTHING to get this fixed.

I honestly felt that their disrespect today could've caused negligence in the way they've handled my food. I had an unnerving feeling the way they handed me my order.

If you're reading this and you continue going to this restaurant, I would highly advise to take your business elsewhere. The type of arrogance and nasty behavior from the manager and staff shouldn't be accepted in society. As a customer, I expected good, convenient and friendly customer service and this El Pollo Loco establishment did not...

While El Pollo Loco was never gourmet cooking it was always a good place for decent heart friendly chicken dinners at affordable prices. But there are times in life when one needs simpler things than a messy chicken piece dinner--things such as salads, which Pollo Loco has become pretty sloppy with. They discontinued pretty much all their salads and now offer only like 2 or 3 salad choices with basically the same thing in them. I used to like the Mango Salad, but lo and behold, it just aint there no more! What we get instead is a choice of 3 salads that are the same bull$#!t all offering double chicken! Oh wow! What a great gift to get so much chicken, right? Wrong!!! Half the pieces of chicken are inedible and I'm spending a good portion of my eating time throwing significant chunks of unchewable chicken pieces in the trash! And who really needs double chicken anyway? Especially when the chicken quality aint so good. They could also refrain from putting gooey sauces in their tacos, but i guess that's just knitpicking. But, bring back the Mango Salad, Please!!! And the Pollo Loco at the La Cienega Plaza location where they just built another useless Target store, because there arent enough Targets already in Ellay to make us all wanna puke, really needs to get off that generic oldies fettish. Like every time I go there, they're always playing like the same type of stupid repetitive oldies tunes that I already got sick of before I even finished high school. I'm only in that place for a short time and wanna throw up, but I can only imagine what it must be like for the workers there, having to listen to that puke music for hours and hours. But ultimately, if they're gonna close Pollo Loco locations right and left, can the Pollo Loco chain try to compensate in quality for what they lack in quantity? That aint asking...

Pollo Loco food is amazing but when they hire the wrong people that provide the worst customer service reflects badly on them as a whole company. I was waiting at the curbside spot (keep in mind I’m handicap) for about 30 minutes after my estimated food will be brought out time and I tried honking and getting someone’s attention and after no success I had to figure out how to get off my vehicle to go inside. Once I was inside I saw the man get my order off the counter and hand it to me. I asked if my salsas were all in there along with my creamy cilantro dressings that I was charged for he looked me dead in the eyes and told me yes they’re all in there. I understand how overwhelming working in the food industry can be and they can’t even say that they were short staffed or anything there was at least 8 people working there. Anyways my food was cold and my salads were soggy and chicken was dry as heck. I’m very disappointed in this Pollo Loco. I know it means nothing to them but I will never come back to this...