Pollo Loco - Torrance

Sat in the buddy drive through line for about 15 minutes. Ordered the family meal. We picked it up without a glitch. When we got home, the food was okay except the chicken?the main reason for going here, right? The chicken drumsticks and thighs looked like they had been cooked several hours earlier and sat under heat lamps ever after. The pieces were shriveled. The skin was very dark and dehydrated almost like leather. The meat was very dry. Disgusting. I?ll never go back.

Used to be great a few years back. I?ve never had such bad customer service like this. The person who took the order sounded like she didn?t even want to work. She was very annoyed of everything. Served my food sideways and ended up spilling the oils from the chicken into the bag. Even a few of the salsa packets were spilling out. What happened? If she had a bad day, go home. Why tf you working and making other people miserable?

The chicken is just as amazing as I remembered. I hadn’t visited this location in nearly a decade, but unfortunately, the service was terrible. Although their website and front doors say they open at 10 a.m., they didn’t actually open until after 11 a.m. The staff seemed completely unfazed by the delay and didn’t offer any apologies. They were busy working on the drive-thru menu signs, even though the drive-thru wasn’t open, and it still wasn’t operational when we left after our meal.

For two consecutive years, I have ordered catering from this location, and both times, when I arrived to pick up my order, they had no record of it and hadn't even started preparing it. This year, the manager glanced at my receipt and casually remarked, "Oh, I guess we should start making that." I pointed out that I was supposed to pick it up at 5:15, and it was already 5:19. I will never come back here again.

We ended up with an excess of hot sauce containers, but we could have used more of the green goddess sauce—where can we find that? We also ordered large horchatas, but they were incredibly bland and watered down, leaving us quite disappointed.