Rwestfall, this is a dining guide, NOT a food guide. We already know how good their chicken is, lol.
El Pollo Loco is a restaurant chain serving a variety of food including grilled chicken, burritos, tacos, beans, rice, taquitos, churros, and much more. Stockdale's location has 1 dining room, 1 salsa bar, and a one way drive-thru.
In fairness, I should definitely say that their service here is pretty good. The workers are pretty nice, and very well-organized. Someone is always at the cashier, so waiting to place your order is never a problem.
The food accuracy is top-notch for the most part. I have never had something go wrong with my order. What I ordered is what I get, which is a good thing. They make for a somewhat reliable drive-thru store.
However, the food quality here needs alot of work... and I mean, ALOT. The salsa bar is pretty gross-looking, and looks like it needs some more cleaning. This is true even when I come in at opening hour, the salsa bar is still filthy. There's no excuse for not cleaning the salsa bar.
Same thing goes with the soda fountain. When I approach to get my soda cup filled, there's a foul stench that is fairly obscure. Maybe if the employees had actually CLEANED the salsa bar and soda fountain, I would have given them more stars. But this disaster of a mess is unacceptable!
The dining room's cleanliness is OK, but there are some things that they can improve on. For instance, there is a napkin dispenser at each table here at Stockdale's location. This style is similar to Carl's Jr fast-food joints. Wouldn't you expect them to be filled with napkins here at this El Pollo Loco? Wouldn't you expect this store to have a somewhat better quality than Carl's Jr? Well, it isn't better. In fact, it's worse! Some of the dispensers don't even have napkins in them, and this happens on every visit that I have given this place.
Now, on to the food. How does the food match up? The chicken is pretty good, plenty of moist and texture. However, their fries are dull and cold! They need to cook their fries longer! The beans were delicious, and were plenty hot. The salsas though are not fresh, and don't taste good at all. Maybe a cleaner salsa bar would have helped.
In conclusion, this restaurant is not bad. However, I recommend Stockdale's Carl's Jr over this one. They need more improvement, and the improvements are easy to fulfill.
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