Mendocino Farms — Restaurant in Los Angeles

Although I like their food, their inability to have food ready within even 15 minutes of the pickup time is very frustrating. They are consistently late, and I should know as I order my lunch from there 8-10 times per month.

After today, I'm done with Mendocino Farms (at least this San Vicente location). Most of us are very busy and cannot afford to wait 30 minutes after our estimated completion time, especially for something as simple as a sandwich.

They definitely need process improvements. I ordered online at 12:53 pm and was informed my sandwich would be ready at 1:45 pm. Then, upon arrival at 1:43 pm, like always, I have to "check in."

First, one should not have to check in. They should simply have the order ready at the pickup table at the time it's supposed to be ready. I don't believe they even start most of the orders until people check-in, even though I ordered 52 minutes in advance. It's very frustrating.

Second, the "check-in" process is very disorganized, as everyone is elbowing each other to try to grab the attention of someone behind the counter so we can shout out our names. After checking in today, I waited exactly 30 minutes before I was given my sandwich. And, I had to request it multiple times.

The guy (tall guy) behind the counter just threw the bag down towards me and it fell on its side on the counter. No apologies for being late and no "thank you for your patience."

When I asked why they require a check-in when one orders online and is given a pick-up time, they blamed it on their "untrustworthy system." They've had this same system for at least the 2 years, and it's not working. However, nobody seems to care.

I enjoyed the food, but I'm done with the chaos that is the Mendocino Farms lunch rush. Picking up an online order should be stress-free without the necessity to elbow other patrons out of the way to get the attention of frantic employees. Do better...

I met the founder of Mendocino Farms, Mario, many years ago when he first started out. He is a great guy. I have been a huge fan of Mendocino Farms for years and have been well over 50 times at different locations. But, I feel I had to write this review. Today I had lunch at your Brentwood location. The food was really terrible. I returned the first salad because it tasted spoiled and the salad's replacement your avocado and quinoa salad had brown lettuce and tasted really bad as well. Hardly any dressing too. My order came out 15 minutes before my friend's order. My friend went to the counter to ask where her food was and the server said he didn't know. The wine that I ordered with my meal came 5 minutes after my entree was served. The glass was still warm since apparently it had just been cleaned, so the cold chardonnay was now lukewarm. The glass was only a quarter full when served. Lastly construction is still going on at this location which is disruptive. This experience was really a bad one and I will not go back to Brentwood. I'll try another Mendocino Farm one more time and if the same thing happens, that's...

Update - quality control has deteriorated too. Besides vegetables that have turned yellow and even brown, they can’t honor customer request very well either. When people ask for no scallions no cilantro they mean it…please be careful. And when a vegan ask to sub tofu please dont just grab meat out of a bowl and put tofu in when you forgot the first time. Just start over. How you did it (twice) was gross and disrespectful.

Similar to another recent review, my complaint is about how slow this place is, and my office orders from here 10-15x a month. For delivery, it’s just the same kind of slow as pickup orders. This place takes 90-100 minutes to prepare simple salads during lunch time. Although it’s rush hours, something is definitely wrong with the process, as no other restaurants are THIS SLOW! Dropping a few ingredients in a box should not take that long. Or maybe the restaurant is taking so many orders that it can’t handle. If that’s the case that you have so many orders, why do you still have vegetables that seem expired? Yellow romaine…rotten spinach…etc. Can’t...