El Pollo Loco — Restaurant in Phoenix

I love visiting the El Pollo Locos location in Arizona.

I finally had a chance to stop at the Bell Ave today and purchased a vegetarian burrito. Actually they don’t have a vegetarian on their menus. (Hint to corporate) The client is required to subtract the meat at a higher cost. It’s worth it for their burritos are awesome!!! They should consider adding a vegan line of foods to attract a different clientele.

Let’s unpack my review:

At the register to take my order was Yvette who was very friendly and tried to unravel placing a veggie order. I give her all thumb up!!! Very nice and sweet!

The location: Nice appointments for anyone wanting to eat inside. The place had a few customers eating before lunch break. Everyone behind the countertop was very nice as they setup for the rush of hungry customers.

Food The food is good but not great! I love the country club location the best so far (yummy!) but if you don’t know the difference the bell location’s food is awesome food!

My recommendations:

Restroom: There is a pronounce urine odor that hits you like a freight train. It raised my awareness not to touch anything while washing my hands. Yucky!!!

SOLUTION: The odor can be fix by changing the deodorant and deep scrubbing the urinals and toilets. Change the disinfectant every 4months and you will keep odors to a minimum.

Floors: The floors have a sticky residue throughout the restaurant due to using an improper cleaner and improper mopping technique.

SOLUTION: I recommend that your team mop the restrooms with an alkaline based cleaner and rinse. Apply a floor sanitizer to kill the odor at the source.

Main floor: Be sure to mop the main floors and change the mop bucket “often” to removing the obvious streaking you can see on the tile.

Stainless steel: Most of the stainless steel has streaks on them. Dirty towels with oils may be the culprit. Purchase some sheila shine (oil based) and it will improve the appearance.

Concrete: Hire a power washing company to clean up the dirty concrete. It gives the impression the place is dirty and will cut down on possible slip and fall accident.

Overall,

The location works at providing their customer with a great eating experience. Focus more on keeping the place clean and you can up your satisfaction score...

I sent my nephew to get pollo loco at this location and he was turned away because he is hard of hearing. He is medically disabled due to his poor hearing and when at the Drive through he was told to just come inside to place the order because they were having a hard time communicating (the speaker of the drive through is extremely low volume). When he went inside the store manager Joseph told him to leave because he was now closing his lobby and that he needed to go through the drive through, when my nephew explained to him that he couldn't hear via the drive through and that he just needed to place the order and he could go around to pick up the food he was told to go through the drive through like a "Normal person" or to leave elsewhere. This is very disappointing. Nobody should be treated this way. This was 100% discrimination of a DISABLED paying customer. When I called to place the complaint it just so happened that Joseph was the one to take the call and he was trying to defend his actions by saying he "knows the law" and rules if his store and that he was closing the lobby and everyone needs to order through the drive through. I told him I was very upset and disappointed at the lack of emphathy and accommodation of a disabled 19 year old. He was very defensive and went on saying he didn't do anything wrong not even making the smallest effort to apologize. Disabled people have it hard as it is I think that they need to make better accomodations and definitely train their employees on the different obstacles that people with disabilities face and how even doing something simple can be...

Be CAREFULL if you order from this location for delivery.

My order was $40.86 back in March. I order at 9am to be delivered at 12pm. I never received the order. I call at 2pm to check with them, they say they would check the status of the order and they would call me back. 4:30pm and nothing, so I was tired, hungry and angry without money to buy something else. I give them a call back and manager Joseph said he had to do more investigation because they don’t have their own drivers, the drivers come from corporate and they did the order correct at the store. He was going to give me a call back. I called on 2 days later, the manager was not there and the employees didn’t know anything. I called again and the didn’t answer. Desired to go in person and I have to give him all the information again. He said he was going to give me a call back, 2 days later and nothing. I called and they called me Maria, and the manager couldn’t pick up the phone. I went in person again and they were still giving me excuses.

Well, I learn my lesson. I just want to advice everyone else to think twice about ordering from them. They don’t take responsibility for the deliveries but they do...