El Pollo Loco

This may be one of the most consistently bad restaurants I've been to. We like El Pollo Loco historically, and keep giving this location a chance, but they always let us down. The food is poorly made, it's glacially slow even when empty and our orders have been messed up each time. The food tastes right, but things are always wrong.

El pollo loco has some remarkably delicious roast chicken, quality complimentary salsas, and they'll roll it into a straight forward bean and rice burrito if you prefer. The staff at this location are quite friendly, and the premises are relatively clean. There is a nice out door patio area available which overlooks state street, but is well protected by a concrete wall, and set well back from the road making noise and smell fairly nominal.

Stay away from this Pollo loco! I ordered a 14 peice and I only got 2 salsas which is not even enough for each person when I request 1 more the association asked me to pay $6 for salsa and out of pride I paid it then I asked plates amd they didn't even wanna give me plates or utensils worst service I've had in my life

This store recently changed management and went way down hill. The owners are aggressive and boarder line rude. I watched a lady get yelled at for trying to use a coupon after she had just paid. The food quality has also diminished. My chicken seemed old and rubbery,idk what it was, but something was definitely wrong . It's to bad, I used to eat here all the time. O'well, thankfully the SB Chicken Ranch is right up the road.

We normally love El Pollo Loco, so I’m sorry to have to share such a poor experience. We stopped at this location while passing through Santa Barbara. The first thing we noticed was how dirty the floor and tables were. There were 4 employees working, two were sitting on break. The other two had their back to the register and were talking to each other. We felt ignored. The counter clerk acknowledged us after about 60 seconds of standing at the register, but he was friendly and took our order. The food took an abnormally long time to prepare. My husband’s chicken lacked any flavor, like it hadn’t been marinated at all. My burrito - ordered straight from the menu, was missing ingredients and had way too much sauce - it was dripping everywhere. One of the reasons you visit a chain restaurant, is for consistency. This was not like any El Pollo Loco we have been to before. There is another location in Goleta that prepares the dishes as you would expect and keeps their restaurant clean.