Pollo Campero

I will NEVER again come here. The Customer Service here is horrible. I waited for 30 minutes and the lady came over and told me that their were no more breasts for the family deal so I only received 8 tiny legs instead. No extra legs or even money back since the meaty part are the white meat. The lady said we can not do that since we will have to do it to everyone else, and she was the manager as well. I used to work for Boston Market and we will bend backwards for our customer. I hope it wasn’t because I am Hispanic as well. I will talk to the General Manager about this, when I calm down. I would select no stars since my whole family was waiting for this meal, but now dinner is ruined. Thanks Pollo Campero and please provide name tags for your employers so that we can add the name to this excellent manager’s skills in dealing with people. Hispanics do know how to use Unilocal too.

I tried the current special. 7-​piece Camperitios with 2 sides (fries & coleslaw) and a drink for $ 6.99. The line was a little long, but I waited anyways. There seemed to be one young man who was doing everything and doing it as fast as he could. He clearly knew the ins and outs of the business. There were two other women working with him that didn’t seem to know everything as well as he did and seemed to slow the overall process down a bit. My food took about 10 minutes from waiting in line to order to in-​hand.
My initial reaction was that the portion seemed really small, but if you put their serving size into a smaller bucket/​holder like some of their competitors I bet the portions would seem exactly the same. The Camperitios were all white meat (which is so rare these days) and very hot and delicious. I asked to try some sauces and they let me try all of them. The chili dipping sauce and another light red dipping sauce were my favorite. The side serving of fries was massive (definitely enough for 2 – 3 people to share) and they had just made my fries so they were hot and crispy. I also tried the coleslaw as a side. It was made with fresh ingredients, but definitely needed a little salt and pepper — a little bland.
Honestly, everything was really good. Overall, I got a decent size meal with fresh ingredients for $ 7.00. I would go back again if I was craving crispy all white meat chicken, which I’m betting is soon now that I wrote this review.

I’d say it’s not too bad of a restaurant. I enjoyed a few stuff from here with my sister before going to therapy. This was a decent place in Lakeforest, I’ll admit that. I’d only go again if I’m hungry.

The fried chicken is good but…
Food
I got the 2 piece fried chicken here and the 5 piece camperitos. The way they fry the chicken is pretty good, the skin is very crispy. However, the food portions here are so tiny. I got a leg and thigh and the leg and thigh were definitely a lot smaller than what you would get at other fried chicken places (i.e. popeyes). The differences of their fried chicken is that they dont use a lot of flour tofry their chicken like popeyes & KFC. The chicken is moist. There is a sauce bar right next to the checkout, the sauces aren’t good at all. They are so plain and look unappetizing (I regret not taking a picture of it when I was there). The sauces looked like they have been there for a while.
The sauce that came with the camperitos is what I dipped my fried chicken in. It was a chipotle honey mustard which is good. The camperitos were decent, not your McDonalds chicken nuggets. It was real chicken and crispy.
Ambience
The restaurant was laid out nicely, no loud music and spacious.
Service
Food was quick the cashier just took out a plate and put on what I ordered onto the plate. No waiting time really. Fast food indeed.
Cost
Pretty pricey for a small thigh and leg, the camperitos cost $ 2.99 for 5 nugget sized and a chipotle honey mustard.
It was alright, but I will not come back.

Terrible experience. I lament that I cannot leave zero stars. My dad and I just stopped by tonight and ordered a family meal. I politely asked for the Peruvian Aji — readily available at other locations. I was ignored. She proceeded to turn around and speak to her co-​worker in Spanish. When I asked again, I was lied to and told that you do not carry any sauces and the only things available was the poorly stocked condiment bar. I pulled up the Pollo Campero website thinking that i did not clearly convey what I wanted and that the two servers did not understand what I was asking for. Again I was lied straight to my face that there was no such thing. All the meanwhile other Hispanic customers’ orders were being fulfilled with a bag of condiments from under the front counter and from a small fridge. I could even claim racism as the two servers so rudely attended to the non-​Hispanic customers. There were two black customers and an Asian mother and daughter who also received the same level of poor service and disrespect as my father and I received.
As we were leaving I asked for the name of the girl who took my order. She lied, telling me her name was Brenda. Poor thinking on her part as (1) I had taken note of her name on her badge and (2) her name is on the receipt: Yolanda.
Shame on you, Pollo Campero, and your ignorant servers. As a customer, there is a level of respect due. Not because I am entitled to it but because it is the right thing to do.

I really hate going to Lakeforest Mall but hubby needed to eat (we were across the road from Mall) and we figured Pollo Campero is right at the entrance of the mall so we really weren’t going into the mall.
The place was clean and packed. Purchased two 3 piece meals, one with rice the other with yucca. $ 20 + change!!! Are you serious? I’m not cheapskate but this was way too much for the meals.
Cashier had worse attitude I have ever encountered. You could barely hear the questions she was throwing at us drill Sargent style and was getting pissed at my husband because he had to keep asking her to repeat everything. She shoved two soda cups onto a tray and sighed for the next customer to order. You’re pushing chicken dear, not curing cancer so leave the snarky belligerent attitude at home.
We ordered in Spanish, husband is from Ecuador and I speak fluent Spanish also so there was no language barrier, she just had a rotten attitude. The only smiling nice employee was the manager who actually walked around the eatery asking everyone if everything was okay.
Expensive, but tasty chicken, yucca was soft and good, salsa bar is sad, hot and gross. Will not go back because of bad service and too high price.

I always seem to forget about this place when I’m thinking of fried chicken, but I absolutely love their food here. I know its considered fast-​food, but there is just something about the uniqueness of their seasoning that makes their chicken so darn tasty. It’s consistent & reasonably priced. I always get the dark meat combo’s w/​fries (always thin & crispy like I like them), campero rice, and tortilla. Try this whole thing with their jalapeño’s (on the side) for a kick. Yum!

I love fried chicken. I have been wanting to go to Pollo Campero for years, on purely the concept. But I never ever go to Lakeforest Mall. This weekend– I went to take my daughter to see the Chinese New Year celebration (with a sub context of finally seeing what the fuss was about with latin fried chicken.). I ordered the four piece chicken, it cost me $ 9. BUT it might as well have been 2 pieces because the two drumsticks were about the size of a buffalo wing. I am not kidding you. There were 2 sides– mashed potatoes and french fries (for my daughter). The mashed potatos were ice cold. The fries were so bad that my 2 yr old refused to eat them. The chicken was good– but again– I was still hungry because there was very little meat to them. I will never spend another dime in this joint. What a shame because all over the walls were pro-​latin america facts. PS: you can’t get ketchup for your fries, nor additional napkins.

I hate going into Lakeforest Mall. It’s the closest mall near me, and as a mall-​rat, I need to get my fix, but I try not to come here if I can ever help it. However, we had to run to JC Penny’s for something — and the nearest Penny’s was at Lakeforest, and thus, I found myself at the ghettoest mall in MoCo on a rainy Sunday afternoon.
We finished running our errands and found ourselves hungry. Heading to the disgusting food court, I spied the Pollo Campero across the way. Thinking that it was another Peruvian grilled chicken joint, I dragged my husband into the line. Once in line, I find out that this isn’t Peruvian chicken, but fried chicken — I became intrigued! I had always associated fried chicken with southern American food… it never occurred to me that another culture may have discovered the wonders of hot fatty oil with battered chicken!
We get a half chicken with two sides to share. The chicken was surprisingly good! The skin wasn’t so much battered as heavily seasoned then deep-​fried until crisp. I found it a little overly salty, with the skin on the wing leaning towards hard, rather then crispy, however, the chicken meat under the skin was incredibly juicy and tasty! The yuca was surprisingly soft and fluffy, and the biscuit and salad were both good — but nothing stellar.
At first I was excited and intrigued by the salsa sauce bar, however, upon inspection, I was horribly skeeved out. Although there were labels for 5 types of sauces, only 3 were available — and of the 3 sauces, they felt lukewarm rather then cold (which means it’s a bacterial swimming pool), and both the verde and roja salsas looked brownish and crusty. Don’t get me wrong — I still tried them… but I did it gingerly. The salsas were good, but not spectacular; both sauces could have stood for more spice and flavor. And perhaps a better cooling system to keep the sauces from getting skeevy.
As this was fried chicken, we fell upon our food with our hands and fingers — only to realize that Pollo Campero hordes napkins like it’s the water of life. After eating, our hands sticky, we had to go back up to the front counter, and wait for one of the cashiers to notice us, to ask for more napkins, where we then each received two napkins. There was also a lack of the handi-​wipes, which should be a standard supply in any joint that requires you to eat with your hands.
All in all, the chicken was delicious and worthy. However, the lukewarm salsa bar, the lack of napkins or handi-​wipes, plus an overall sense of… griminess forces me to downgrade them to 3 stars. But even with the 3 stars, Pollo Campero is definitely one of the highlights of Lakeforest Mall… which I think says more about the horrificness of the mall, more then the tastiness of Pollo Campero’s food.

I think this Spanish fried chicken place is my favorite out of the fast food fried chicken joints. It’s not as heavily breaded as KFC or Popeyes and has a nice, different flavor that I wasn’t used to with fried chicken. It’s still greasy, but who doesn’t want or expect the grease when eating fried chicken?
They have a nice selection of sides like fries, fried yuca, beans, mashed potatoes and also different breads that come with meal combos such as biscuits, rolls or tortilla. They also have flan in a little plastic to go container like pudding, that is honestly a little scary to me because I loooooove flan and I don’t like seeing it that way. I don’t know. Could be good.
They also have a few different sauces available. I got the chipotle sauce and dipped my chicken in with every bite. Yummy!
My only complaint is that the chicken pieces are super piddly sized! Maybe I’m just used to the monster sized portions that are supposed to be bad for us, but I also don’t want to have to eat 4 – 5 pieces to be full.
Try it!