El Pollo Loco

After waiting almost 15 minutes in the drivethru I finally get to the ordering spot only to be told that it’s a 20 – 25 minute wait for chicken. It’s 6:45 pm so help me understand how a chicken restaurant runs out of chicken?!?
Obviously I couldn’t order any dinner to take home and I’m still stuck in this drivethru. I wish I could say this was the first time they’ve run out of chicken but I think this is now the 4^th time. By the time I get thru this drivethru the chicken may actually be ready.
I have to ask again, how on earth does a chicken restaurant regularly run out of chicken?!? Wow!

It was football Sunday and I wanted to order some chicken. Walked in and looked straight to the family meals. I wanted enough chicken for about 6 of us so I decided to order the 16 piece family meal which came with 16 pieces (duh) and 3 large sides. I wanted an additional 8 piece meal chicken only so the total was 24 pieces of chicken. They informed me it would be a 20 min wait after I paid since they didn’t have that much chicken cooking on the grill. I agreed to it since I was craving El Pollo Loco and that I already had paid. You would think they have a good amount of chicken already on the grill. As other customers entered the building while I waited for my food, they also wanted a family meal. They were told even longer time since they had to fulfill my order first. You can see the trend here… orders and wait time will stack up due to not enough chicken on the grill. I actually waited about 30 min for my food to come.
This El Pollo Loco seems fairly new. The building looks very modern with big rectangle windows and the building itself has no curves. Salsa bar is right near the cashiers while sodas are on the other side of the wall facing the tables. It feels like a weird floor plan.
The food was delicious and the staff was great so no complains there. Just the wait time for food and hardly any chicken on the grill. You have been warned.

O boy, what can I say.
Came in by myself on a Thursday afternoon around 1pm. No one in line, restaurant was about a ¼ full, and when I was done ordering one person later ordered.
One of the reasons why I decided to go to El Pollo Loco was to try their pollo combo bowls which only cost $ 5. Nothing wrong with El Pollo Loco, food tasted great.
My comment had to be their portions and wait times. I felt like their bowls did not have enough meat. I will give them the benefit of the doubt that the bowl is smaller, but I felt like they could have piled more chicken. Also the wait time was a little long. It was just a bowl and compared to a family meal I believe it should be easier to prepare, but it took about 10+ minutes. However the workers were very nice. As soon as I arrived and no one was in line I was greeted and help was offered. One of them was cleaning but noticed that I was waiting for some time and ask if I ordered, so positive for them for being aware of their customers. Also it was a pretty modern El Pollo Loco. Their order call used those vibrating/​flashing pagers.
Overall not bad, but wait time was a little long.
Compared to the one on Mack Road it is bigger in terms of size, but unfortunately for a fast food type of place not quite up to par in the speed.

If I could I would give this location a big fat 0
It’s the 4^th of the month and dinner time I order the 16 peace family meal leg and thy and the cashier tells me that I would have to wait 45 min to get my order so I ask her how many pieces can she give me and she says y have four of each ok the so I tell her give me the family meal of 8 peace legs&thy and she says sorry I can’t do that what kind of faking restaurant is this .
Your number one item is chicken and I have
To wait 45 min OMG.
So I end up going to KFC down the street got 16 pc meal grilled legs and thy with out wating 45 faking minutes.

I love el pollo loco and was happy to hear that we had one in Elk Grove. This meant I didn’t have to drive to the hood for chicken. The service here sucks! We have been going once a week for the past couple of weeks and I think the word has spread about the service. It looks like the cashier has to do the serving and keep up the front and it doesn’t work out so great when you have a packed house. I thought maybe they didn’t have enough workers but today there wasn’t many customers and the place wasn’t picked up when we arrived and about an hour later the cashier finally made her rounds to clean up.

Worst experience ever, never going back again! Ordered avocado chicken burrito combo, shrimp tostada & ultimate double chicken avocado tostada from drive thru. Pulled up to paid, the cashier was rude had no eye contact, took our payment but never gave us the receipt. While waiting for our we witness all the employees were HANDLING FOOD WITHOUT GLOVES!!! I find it gross especially the one handling the tortilla because when she realize we’re looking at her, she went and put one glove on and continue packing the tortillas. Ewww gross, one glove what good would that do!!! We finally got our but not our drink. Closed the window on us so hubby knocked on the window & clearly employees saw us but ignored us. Hubby had to honk the horn & knocked the windows again. An employee opened the window and handed us the receipt without asking us how can he help us. Told him we didn’t get our soda. So the cashier who took our money said oh their drink is there. Got our soda but while we were driving off realized the drink with no ice. Told hubby pointless to go back and deal with unprofessional & ignorant people. But I did decide to look into the bag and there was no forks & no napkins provided. I’m surprised that we were even salsa as careless as they are. With that being said, we had to come home to eat our food. Both the chicken & shrimp was extremely salty to a point which I can say its bitter. On top of that the chicken was a very small amount considering its double chicken and also it was dry, tasted like a day old chicken/​leftover from the night before. Oh yea forgot to say we went there at 11:30am so maybe the meat was from previous day. My advice is not to go to this location unless you want to waste your money or eat salty food!

7:30 pm on a Monday night and once AGAIN they are out of chicken breast. Was told I could pull forward in the parking lot in my car and wait for 20 mins while they cook the chicken… why do I keep coming back???
I don’t understand why they can’t keep enough chicken Breasts? Why do they continue to run out? And is it just my luck that I come RIGHT when they just put some more on the grill???
I wish there was another restaurant in the area so that I wouldn’t have to keep coming back to this location! Last time, they told me it was late (9:30pm) and close to closing and that is why they ran out — what’s the excuse today???
I think I need to switch to fish instead of chicken for this diet. VERY frustrated at El pollo loco.

Customer service is great. It’s nice to have a cashier greet you when you walk in. Cashier Jeffery was nice & even offered to wipe down a specific booth my daughter wanted to sit at, right after other customers had just left that booth. Food is real tasty & they’re very quick. I would definitely go here again & I would definitely recommend it.

I was a little worried to come here after all the negative reviews but I decided to give it a try anyway since I have never had it before and it’s very close to my house. We had the 4pc dinner for two and were very satisfied with our choice. The chicken was well seasoned and very moist. The sides were good and there side salad was very well made. Also there service was friendly and fast. I just wish they would have given us some silverware and napkins. I would recommend this place and would visit again.

Got inn before it got busy… so service was fast. a lot to choose from menu .chicken taste really good. Taking a break from KFC .lol.

Slow service. Line is long inside and only one register open. Ordered 10 piece, gave me more legs than thigh. Legs weren’t meaty at all. Manager was rude. He just handed me my food and left. No thank you or smile or anything. How rude.

I have been seeing this advertisement everywhere well after ordering the 8 piece meal, all i can say is .its a let down I’ll stick with kfc they also forgot my tortillas so i paid for down near nothing at kfc i would of got more food i feel gyped! food has no flavor