La Unica — Restaurant in Santa Maria

I hope the owner’s read this review because we won’t be going back to La Unica. Please pay attention to the date of this post 04/14/25, to determine who it was taking orders the register (name unknown) at approximately 5:40pm. The guy taking orders must have been having a bad day and was just short and rude. Maybe he just didn’t want to be there today.

When we got home it was like they purposely screwed up our order. We ordered asada tots and they were absolutely plain, no meat. We ordered 3 pastor tacos with no onions and all of them had a handful of onions each. We ordered a tri-tip burrito with extra onions and no cilantro and it came with no onions and extra cilantro. How is it possible they screwed up on everything? I get that sometimes mistakes are made, but what are the chances that everything is wrong. The only thing I can think of is that it was done on purpose. Even with the cashier being short and rude, I still left a couple bucks in the tip jar. What made me write this review is the fact that they literally screwed us on everything we ordered. There’s just no way it could be an accident.

With so many good Mexican restaurants in the Santa Maria Valley you would think service and food quality would be a top priority. Especially with so much competition, oh not to mention the 20-30 food trucks with no overhead (and the City of Santa Maria not regulating them). It’s hard enough for you brick and mortar restaurants to survive. To the owners who just happened to not be there tonight, pay attention to your staff, they’re going to lose you...

Do not eat at this restaurant!!! If I could give it a zero, I would! My husband ordered a tri-tip burrito while I was not impressed about what the back-stock bathroom area looked like so I went next door to Baan Thai which is amazingly professional and clean!!! He ate there around 2:30PM on 7/22/21 and when we came home at 7:00PM, he started getting very nauseous and dizzy! I was unable to bring him to Cottage ER myself because he kept vomiting until he passed out! This was the only meal he ate besides a light healthy fruit bowl for breakfast and some dried snacks until we were done gardening. I had to call an ambulance and they gave him intravenous fluids and anti-nausea meds to keep him from vomiting non-stop. My husband is extremely healthy and the ER doctor confirmed that he had serious food poisoning caused by this beef burrito he ate before that. We do not want anyone to get sick like this and hopefully our review will make you consider eating at this place. There are several more reviews where other customers also got very sick in their stomach after and you can find them under 1 Star while scrolling down. My husband spent 6 hours in the ER and we got home this morning @ 2:30AM. He still cannot eat or drink like he used to because his stomach got really messed up from...

The menu says for the vegetarian burrito that is only has rice, beans, cheese, sour cream, onions, cilantro, and salsa... it did NOT say lettuce and tomatoes, or I would have removed them from the burrito. Not making what someone paid for per your own advertisement is super freaking lame and it is one of the most irritating things on the bleeping planet....it is NOT HARD to simply make what the menu says you will be getting without adding things it clearly does not state it has in it, oh and btw if you want to spend 10 min picking almost half the meat out of your asada taco that is actually disgusting gristle (which you discovered by biting down on it gag!) and fat pieces then this is the place for you....but if you don't want to spend time wondering which part seemed like a bigger waste, deciding what to be disappointed with for your order or picking the inedible parts out of aforementioned order then this is the...