El Pollo Loco — Restaurant in Manhattan Beach

The El Pollo Loco Restaurant chain is hit or miss when it comes to service and/or food quality. The Manhattan Beach location is a difinitive miss when it comes to both service and food quality. I am not basing this review on a single experience, but rather on several visits to this particular location. I am not sure if the associates or the management are to blame, but one or both needs to change. My most recent visit was May 26, 2021 about 3:30pm. My girlfriend and I came into the restaurant with an empty front counter, nobody (except the cook) in sight for almost 5 minutes. When the associate finally showed up from the back, we placed our order and decided to dine in. Our order was certainly prompt, but was hardly appealing. My girlfriend's double chicken tostada order was woefully lacking in chicken (about 6 small cubed pieces) which my girlfriend brought to the front counter associates attention. He took it back to the cook who then added what probably should have been the correct amount of chicken. My girlfriend was further disappointed by the lack of beans she had requested in place of rice in her order. The avocado slicess in the tostada were brown and off-flavor (probably because the avocado was going bad). My 3 piece chicken (leg&thigh) meal contained chicken that was both old and dried out. I believe it was the remnants from the 12:00 lunch crowd. Nasty!! My girlfriend and I were in agreement not to frequent this El Pollo Loco Restaurant location ever again unless some serious renovations in service and food quality...

We have been patrons of El Pollo Loco in Manhattan Beach for 20 or even more years. We always liked the fare which typically was superior to the other fast-food restaurants nearby. We also liked the experience and interaction with the staff, some of whom over time had become familiar faces. Unfortunately, this El Pollo Loco location has deteriorated badly, for starters they now close weekdays for dine-in customers already at 5:00pm, whereas most clients would want to enjoy a dine-in experience between around 5 pm and 7:30 pm. Regretfully these limited restaurant hours for dine-in customers is a great inconvenience, particularly for the many loyal local patrons. In addition, the quality of the fare is getting poor. The pieces of chicken we got yesterday were still raw at the bone but scorched on the outside. This was not the first time. OK, once it can happen, that an under-cooked piece ends up getting slipped in, but not repeatedly. Not wanting to get sick we had to discard them. Also, even though explicitly asking for the salsas, none were furnished and having a plastic bag handed over through the car window one of course does not readily think that is is necessary to check. We are very disappointed – seemingly the owners of this location do not care. We also noticed that the staff is not particularly friendly, the reasons about which one can only guess. Regretfully and with quite sad sentiments we decided that we will no longer patronize this El Pollo Loco...

We arrived around 9pm, the place was fairly dirty. Food was fine but the service, left a lot to be desired. The young man taking our order was new but he was polite, we asked the young man if they served coffee and out of nowhere, a heavy set lady (whom I can only assume was the sole representation of a supervisor or manager) working in the back shot back in a very rude manner and tone of voice: "We don't serve coffee here!!!" Mind you, we weren't even talking to her but she didn't allow the young man to respond to our questions, which were met with the same rudeness. Needless to say, we won't go back there on the count of that lady's rude demeanor. Any restaurant that offers decent food or better and does not match that with "excellent" customer service, does not deserve my business, nor anyone else's. If you value respect and your hard earned money, then don't patronize this Pollo...