El Pollo Rey — Restaurant in Seaside

This place is amazing! They hooked me on the chicken and then they started doing carne asada and that is our new favorite!

Definitely get the meals, they are an amazing value (come with beans, rice, tortillas, pickled onions--my favorite, grilled peppers and whole onions, and salsa--I recommend the dark red). While I absolutely love the refried beans (they are awesome to dip chips in!), their charro beans are sooo good too.

Every time we go, we also get the guacamole, which is awesome (we order no jalapeños in it). I have also tried their cactus salads and rice dessert and love both of those as well.

When family is in town, we order the full steak and whole chicken meals, and always have left overs (feeds the four adults and lots of kids or probably 6-8 adults with the two meals--but you may want to order a few extra tortillas).

One thing to remember, this place does get quite busy (because it is so good), so if you are ordering in prime dinner time, try to order at least 30 minutes before you want to pick it up. You could probably also call in earlier and tell them what time you want it ready, haven't tried that.

I can't believe anyone ever wrote a negative review, this place is a Seaside local's favorite!

As you can see from my review two years ago, the food here is amazing, but ever since the girl at the front who was there the first few years left, the service, particularly answering the phones and taking orders has been atrocious.

We used to go here weekly until they stopped picking up the phone. Tonight I was actually able to get through and was on hold 8 mins, clearly hearing everything going on in the restaurant only to be hung up on after 8 minutes holding.

Great place to go in, order in person and pick up. But DO NOT EVER TRY CALLING IN FOR A TAKEOUT ORDER DURING DINNER HOURS, YOU WILL JUST END UP HUNGRY...

Super authentic restaurant for amazing-smelling grill, roasting chilies, onions, chicken and carne asada.

Expectations: 5 stars Chicken: may be 4-5 stars My personal service experience and carne asada experience: 3 stars

Around 4 pm I walked in and waves of amazing roasting chilies and onions came my way.

There were many half chickens roasting and looking really great.

Prices for burritos look very fair, so when it came time to order the combo meal, my expectations were it would be a value.

I ordered carne asada (1lb), and it came with beans, rice, tortillas roasted onions and chilies with a few small containers of 2 different salsas. $32.99! The counter person advised I order an additional pound if eating for two.

The carne asada was inedible in parts. Much of it was incredibly difficult to pull apart, some of the fat being too tough and hard to even cut or chew.

The beans and rice were tasty, as were the roasted chilies and onions.

I cannot imagine how, though, the meal combo and extra 1lb of extraordinarily tough carne asada could cost over $70.

Additionally, I added a tip. Unfortunately, when I came back in to pick up my order that was on the counter, the lady that rang me up was gone and another lady said she would be with me and took a while to return. She ended up unpacking my whole order, went through it, and repacked it before she gave it back to me. She said she didn’t know what was in it or if it was mine and I showed her my receipt.

So, I would definitely never have tipped for such an experience.

I would think about returning for a chicken burrito- but NO combo meals and NO...

Would have been great busines practice for them to remake my dinner order since THEY GAVE IT TO THE WRONG PERSON. Instead they just cancelled it, leaving me and my family without dinner. Thank God for ramen. Will NOT support a busines that doesn't value it's customers. Too bad, especially since I will certainly share my experience with everyone I can.

So in response to not being pleased with the lack of customer service I received a suggestion that it was somehow either my Dasher or my fault that THEY gave my order to the wrong Dasher BEFORE mine arrived. Now exactly how should I take it up with him? He got there and YOU had not done your due diligence to make sure it was the right driver. Honestly I really was VERY excited to try your place out and give you a great review and frankly had you handled the situation with more care I would be doing just that. Anyone can make a mistake but to blame the victim and take absolutely no accountability is just not the way to develop good rapport with the community you serve. BTW I almost NEVER write bad reviews and would have happily given another chance had the response from El Pollo Rey...