Mendocino Farms — Restaurant in San Diego

Oh gosh this place gives me mixed feelings. I went there for lunch and the line was out the door, which is usually a good thing but not in this instance. After waiting in line forever, I got to order which was strange since the employees seemed overly-enthusiastic about the food. Anyways, I get to the cashier and the food seemed expensive, but at the time, I didn't mind since this place came highly recommended by a friend of mine. Now this is where things go downhill. Thing number one, there is no seating. As I was walking away from the cashier I look upon the tables and see that none of them were open. So I had to stand around awkwardly holding my drink and I got in the way of the other people there since there is no convenient place to stand and wait for a table. There were no staff members trying to help me find a place to eat which really sucked. Thing number two, the experience was awful. I guess this restaurant wants to try to attract kids to their restaurant for some reason. I don't know why since the menu definitely is not designed for children. I mean clearly this place would be mainly for health conscious adults, so one would think that they would focus on marketing themselves as a healthy alternative to other options. Well to my surprise, the store was throwing a free kids party on the outdoor seating area of the restaurant along with a promotion that children eat free. I don't know if they thought this one through since the children made it truly miserable to be there. And of course with my luck, the only open table in the restaurant just so happened to be outdoors next to the loud, violent, rampaging kids who, for the love of God, could not stop screaming. I can not stress how horrible this made the experience. My ear dums were bleeding by the time I got my food, which was a long time, and it was impossible to talk to anyone. Thing number three, the food is expensive. The bill for me and the three other people I was with totaled $60! In addition to that the food portions are extremely small and definitely not enough if you are hungry. And finally, thing number four, the food wasn't anything spectacular. It just tasted like a regular sandwich, it didn't blow me away but it didn't make me want to spit it out. It was so unspectacular that I actually am going to recommend that if you are considering eating here, pass up on it until they can fix all of their problems. If you are looking for alternatives, I highly suggest going to Urban Plates, which is right down the street from this place, or going into whole foods, which is in the same shopping center, and getting something there. These two places are similar in price but offer more and better food in an environment that is actually pleasant to be in.

In summary: -The seating situation is extremely poor when it's crowded -It was a horrible experience for my ears -The food is overpriced -There are better places to eat for a similar or less...

This was my first time at this location and definitely my last! All I ordered was one crispy chicken sandwich. No modifications to the order and nothing else was ordered. Just 1 simple chicken sandwich. The restaurant wasn’t even that busy inside. I probably would’ve had to wait an hour since I initially placed the order FOR ONE CRISPY CHICKEN SANDWICH!

This was by far the worst customer service experience EVER personally! Literally, no one that I talked to cared other than a nonchalant apology from the last person I talked to. They even seemed happy that I wanted to cancel my order. How sad is that! On top of that, I never got a refund for my order, so they never even cancelled it officially! I had to go through my credit card company and promptly got credited from the credit card company for this fiasco!

Here is the timeline of events on 6/6/21 in PDT: 2:18pm – Order placed via the Mendocino app 2:38pm – Order ready for curbside pickup 2:41pm – I arrived at the curbside spot for pickup and phoned the restaurant to bring out the order and was told it was not ready yet by the girl who answered the phone. 2:47pm – I called the restaurant again and was told again the order was still not ready by the same girl who answered the first time I called. 2:58pm – I called the restaurant for the 3rd and final time and was told by a guy this time that the order was still not ready. I told him to just cancel the order because I cannot wait any longer as our baby was screaming and wanting to go home and feed. I asked him to speak to the manager and was told the manager was too busy and that the manager would call me back, so they took my name and phone number down.

The manager never called me back to this date. Can’t say I’m surprised that the call never occurred.

If you plan on trying this location out and ordering curbside, DON’T. You will be left hungry, angry, disappointed, and extremely let down. Instead, go to the Del Mar location. After this horrific experience, we went to the Del Mar location (the only location we’ve frequented until today) on the way home to get the chicken sandwich and it was done at the promised time.

Seriously, if someone, especially me, took all of the time and effort to write this detailed and long of a review (because I don’t have the time to do this often at all), then definitely look the other way when considering this Mendocino Farms location in La Jolla. Good luck if you do and don’t say you weren’t warned if you read...

Worst experience I had with service in such a long time. It made me write this review.

I ordered lunch for my colleague and I for pick up. Tried to time it so that I can go pick up between meetings and patients and time to get back to eat the lunch. When I placed my order online it said ready by 1pm. I was a bit late picking up because of the parking situation. I get in and look at the online order section and was not able to find my order. There were a ton of people and they all looked unhappy and dissatisfied waiting for their orders also. I was finally able to get one of the employees attention. I asked him if he can check on my order since it was 20 minutes pass when it should have been ready. He came back each time saying they couldn’t find my order. Long story short, after many back and forth of how he can try to pull up my order and mind you atleast 45 minutes later, he was finally able to find my order and returned to tell me that they printed it and that he asked to get it placed at the front. When I asked him if it’d be done in 10min since I’ve been out for almost an hour his response was that “as you can see we’re so busy and so I don’t think so”. I guess my time as a customer is not that important or valuable since I didn’t appear to be busy waiting close to an hour pass the time they said it should have been ready for pick up. Anyways I was so frustrated I asked for a refund and even then there was no urgency and I had to ask him to give me some sort of guarantee that I would get a refund since they couldn’t do it right then and there. Unbelievable, he tells me to come back when it’s not so busy and look for their manager who he pointed at the back of the counter saying “it’s the guy with the dreadlocks”.

I am so dissatisfied, and the funny thing is I still haven’t gotten the refund or a call to confirm it was refunded. I left mad because I didn’t want to loose my job waiting for a $40 lunch.

Talk about...