Hot Head Burritos — Restaurant in Washington Township

I've been going to this location for many years, and in the last few you can really see the continuous decline in quality and value that Hot Head used to excel at. This store seems to always be dirty and have a musty odor in the last few years and I guess it got so bad that they completely ripped up the carpet. The problem now is that they've had an unfinished concrete floor for months with dirty maintenance equipment stored in the dining room. I asked them today when they planned on getting a floor put in, and the two employees that were present both said "I don't know" in a defeated manner. I'd be depressed too if I had to stare at an unpresentable, ripped up dining room every day knowing how embarrassing it was that this was the dining room you expected customers to use. There have been several management changes in the last few years and it just seems to keep getting worse. If I was the owner of this franchise I'd be ashamed.

In general, portion sizes have been getting smaller, the prices have been going up (even compared to similar local competitors), the new "rewards" system is a joke, and they upcharge for EVERYTHING now. More rice? Upcharge. More beans? Upcharge. Do you want an extra squirt of sauce on your burrito? Oh yeah, that's an upcharge too. It would be understandable if these were actually extra portions, but you have to get extra stuff just to barely equal what their standard portion sizes USED to be.

I get that it's not the employee's fault that they have to follow these changes, but that still doesn't make me want to continue to tolerate a declining business's practice of price gouging me and steadily taking away services they used to provide in a desperate attempt to make an extra dime.

All of this really is a shame because when it's done right the food really is good and I think they have the best sauce selection of any fast casual dining place. Still, if I were you I'd keep driving down the road to...

If you're already by the mall please trust me on this and skip Hot Head all together or just throw your money out the window. Drive to Chipotle - it's just down the street. Why do I say that? First the burritos at both places are the same price, but at Chipotle you get MUCH more food. I've been to Hot Head several times and the first couple I got these tiny burritos but thought it was a fluke, but on maybe my third visit I asked for more rice (when I felt they weren't really putting enough on) and they said you're only allowed this much. They didn't measure it, so how do they know it's enough? But the other big thing is the QUALITY - Hot Head just doesn't measure up. Their chicken is overcooked, their taco meat doesn't have much flavor and while their claim to fame is all of these "sauces" you're only allowed a small amount of two of them and if you ask for more or extra they charge you an extra 60 cents! I'm thinking an extra 60 cents for what amounts to a squirt of ketchup? You got to be kidding.

So seriously - skip this place and go to Chipotle, Qdoba or heck - check out some of the real mexican restaurants by the mall. You'll be...

The food here is abysmal. The meat is so dry and tasteless it could pass as puppy chow. The guacamole was more brown than green, the small bits of lettuce that weren’t wilted were essentially translucent. The cheese tasted like it had been picked off the floor of a Taco Bell. Salsa must have been frozen and thawed out because it was freezing when I took a bite. I was going to complain about the insane amount of rice they give you (so they can skimp on everything else) but honestly? The rice was the only halfway decent part of the whole bowl because you can’t mess up rice. I swear, the only reason Hothead offers you so many sauce choices is because they hope it will mask how bland, underwhelming, and downright disgusting the rest of the food actually is. The two people behind the counter couldn’t even care about the customers. HARD PASS. Save yourself the disappointment and go to...