El Pollo Loco — Restaurant in Simi Valley

Due to the pandemic, I feel like I’ve understood the situation and been a patient customer while El Pollo Loco has: significantly raised their prices; slightly to significantly reduced their portion sizes (depending on the item); reduced the quality of their food, particularly the stale, overcooked or day-old dry chicken now used in their tostadas, other salads and bowls; continued to keep control of the condiments behind the counter, and decline to move them back out into the restaurant, even though the restaurant is fully open to customers again for many months; and reduced the size of their condiment / salsa containers to roughly a third or a half of their original size, while still only filling them to about half (sometime even less) of their reduced size.

More specifically to this branch, they constantly ask how many salsas we want, my wife and I tell them, and then they always miscount the amount they put on our trays or in the to-go bag. Every single time, they sometimes give us more than what we requested but generally provide less. Then, we have to ask for more when they're missing, which they sometimes follow up with giving us more than what we're asking for. Why even ask us, and put it in their cashier system, if their employees can’t count or have a lack of attention?

Most recently, I went in and bought a seven-item family meal for us. These specific family meal tacos are fine. However, their burritos are always dry now, the quesadillas are always only half filled with cheese (leaving a dry tortilla to gnaw on), and the nachos always have plenty of chips but little cheese or other toppings. Additionally, their nacho cheese sauce is so runny that it just rolls off the chips and accumulates at the bottom of the ribbed container, where I can’t get to it with a chip (and the cheese sauce is kind of gross, if I’m being honest).

Therefore, I asked for 14 salsas (two per item, with the hope that I’d get 10, with the 2 tacos not needing any), because every single time they can’t count or don’t pay attention. Well, I got 6 (half filled) instead. I went up to who I believe is the weekend manager and asked for 8 more (knowing I would again be provided with an incorrect amount, but hoping I’d get at least 4 more).

In the past, this specific employee has always politely made it right, and even has come to briefly chat with us at our table. I don’t know if he was having a bad day (or didn’t recognize me because I was wearing a hat for the first time?), but the difference this time was his rude, mumbling behavior, and saying it just loud enough that I’d hear him, but not loud enough that other customers could hear what he’s saying.

So how many more did he end up giving me? He gave me 10 more, for a total of 16. Maybe he was embarrassed that he or another employee miscounted (again), and that caused his negative attitude? Whatever the situation, how much more patience is needed for increasingly poorly made fast food, that is...

normally el pollo loco is one of my family's favorite to go mexican food spot and i cant remember the last time if ever that we ever had a bad plate or experience. but tonight showed us a darker side of el pollo loco. my wife and i are regulars and order the same thing every time we come here. but tonight both our platters were loaded with more pico than weve ever had on any plate. it was almost like a joke. i called and was on hold for a while and got transferred between about 4 people and i asked the man in charge if i could bring my plate back and show him what i got and if he could replace at least just my plate as i literally only ate 1 bite. but he refused to acknowledge the problem with my food and was quite rude to say they could only give us a milder sauce "on the house" which im pretty sure are already free sauce that comes with chips. i was as polite as possible and even being treated the way i was i dont like to have angry confrontations because thats not how i was raised so i will just toss my plate and calll it a loss. im not even looking for a replacement anymore but i just wish they had better...

I would have 5 stars because the staff is always super friendly. The food is always perfectly cooked, ready quickly and hot! And there is always someone out cleaning the front seating and salsa bar whenever we're there. And there's always steady business. Only loss of one star because the pico is always more like salsa than pico. I know that doesn't sound like a huge deal, but if it's turned, I don't want to pay for it later. And when the mention of sugar being empty it was just packed with more equal. If you want hot fast Mexi chicken this is the place to go! Great flavors, options and prices! You get coupon and deals. Yesterday we had a 12 piece leg and thigh with 3 sides and chips for $20. It was fresh, hot...