Pollo Tropical

So I’ve been back a couple of times out of necessity, and I have to say, things have improved. I don’t know if there’s been any change in management, or if the staff has just got their act together, but lately things have been so much better.
I don’t know if anyone associated with PT reads this (I would highly recommend doing it if you don’t,) but Jennifer is an awesome employee. Very friendly and helpful.
Keep it up guys, hopefully you can become the restaurant I thought you would be when you opened.

Worst drive through experience ever. Waited over 30 minutes. Sat by ordering screen forever until someone finally responded to take my order. They only had white meat this time, sometimes they only have dark meat. The only reason they get two stars from me is cause the chicken is good. That’s what happens when the food is good, service sucks. No reason whatsoever I should wait as long as I did at 3pm. It’s not even a rush hour. Manager should be canned.

I’m going 3 stars, but this is for drive thru service and food only. The reviews before me say that is not nice inside, but going through the drive thru was nice for me. I ordered a family chicken meal with plantains and yuca as a an extra side. I got cilantro garlic sauce and pineapple rum sauce for my chicken. Man! That pineapple rum sauce is the business!!! Wow! I loved it! The rolls that came with my meal were stale I think and I didn’t like the plantains at all, and the fact that they charge almost 2.50 for a single size drink is atrocious. AND they were out of calypso beef :(I will say though, that it was a breath of fresh air as far as grabbing a quick dinner goes. It was different and delicious and we will visit again soon.

I’ve tried to give this place chance after chance, being that the food is good. But the horrible service and the constant wait time, make it that I’ll never return. For the 3^rd I have waited for more than 40 minutes for food. Trying to get a refund takes just as long. Your better off skipping this place.

Great location. Wonderful food. Stevie provides excellent customer service in the drive through. Wish he worked all the time!

Should’ve taken a pic.
I’m usually gracious about the reviews I write and when I like you, I’ll send all the business that I can. This place, however, won’t be on the repeat list and won’t be on any other list.
For starters, great location. Easy in and out with a quick service. Chicken was REAL good BUT everything else about my lunch here was bad.
I like charcoal chicken so this place has me excited. Ordered a half chicken and a side of corn. Chicken was juicy and flavorful and cooked just right. They just didn’t include the thigh. Guess they forgot what a half was. And they prob couldn’t tell either bc the pieces I got were decimated. If you’re a chicken place you better know how to butcher a chicken. The corn was straight out of a can. Fancy name, bad side dish. The roll was stale and cold and laughable. You had an awesome side bar of unique sauces BUT two of them were full. Most had lids on them as if you didn’t even really offer them and one was totally empty.
I hate that you suck at everything but chicken. It’d be worth it for me but I can get great chicken at a lot of places. Step your game up and I’ll be your biggest fan.

Once again visited this new location and once again not surprised how filthy this place was. FILTHY! Totally amazed how a fairly new place could be consistently trashed. Must say the food has been pretty good to warrant continued returns, but maybe only thru the drive thru for the future. Ordered two CYO Tropichops both with the same ingredients. While waiting to pick up food, went to the salsa bar for several salsas to compliment the meal. The salsa bar appeared to have not been attended by an employee for care since they opened 9 hours ago. The sneeze guard was so dirty and covered with smeared fingerprints one could hardly see thru the glass. While ducking thru the filth guard, three of the most popular salsa choices were not available guessing by the holes in the buffet. I asked the nice lady behind the counter if they had anymore of the missing items…“No, what we have is what you see.” Well that was to the point, no need for any follow up questions.
Finally got my order and went home. Once home more surprises to be had. Both meals were ordered with same sides and both were completely different. The lettuce was disgusting, it appeared the lettuce was left overs from the previous night… it was all white leafs, no green anywhere. Rabbits wouldn’t even eat this nastiness.
Overall, after discarding the leftover lettuce, the rest of the meal was pretty good. What really is disturbing is the food is good, service is slow, restaurant is always trashed and this is a fairly new place.
Too bad, there are other competitors nearby to allow this place to close either by patrons not returning or by the health department! Bön appetite!

When you pull up to this place your expectations are high. It’s brightly colored clean outside, looks like something straight from the Caribbean… That’s where the positive experience stops. You are greeted by lackadaisical employees more interested in their phones than explaining the menus, no attention to detail whatsoever on there part. «May I take your order (check phone), thank you that will be 12 dollars, (check phone) here is your number» (check phone), hands incorrect change.
Now 12 bucks seems pretty good for 2 people right? Wrong… We shared a meal! We ordered the triple adobo or something… Pork, beef, chicken. Beans and Caesar salad… The brought it to the table… One plate, one set of silverware, one cup… Really? Oh and no napkins on the table or condiments.
So the food… Pork… Bland, nothing to write home about, (isn’t this supposed to be Jamaican?) beef… Out of a bag! Tasted like dinty more chunks out of the can. The chicken was ok… But again nothing spectacular. Nothing I couldn’t do at home. Beans were good though…
The ONLY reason I’d return to this place is for their sauces. Curry mayo, Jamaican rub and some kind of garlic sauce that I’d love to bring home… And cook with… But they aren’t for sale in bulk.
Sorry pollo tropical. We won’t be back… It’s a burger king service, with a fast food feel at dine in prices. Nice try though!

Ok first time here. The news is good and bad. First the food was pretty good. We tried the pork– good. The chicken was moist and good. Plantains were terrific. The black beans and rice were ok.
Unfortunately, the place was filthy. Half of the tables hadn’t been wiped down and several of those were still piles with dirty dishes. The floor was sticky and needed to be swept and the bathrooms left me wondering about the cleanliness level of the kitchen. This was 7 pm on a Saturday. The staff was having a good time— not busy and not focused so much on the sauce bar– which also needed a serious cleanup. I don’t know where the manager was, but they weren’t on duty. We’ll give them another shot– I hope it’s better next time!

Small pieces of grilled chicken… A stale dinner roll. Some tasteless black beans and a cup of rice… They have 8 – 10 sauces to choose from… I tried the garlic cilantro… Mayonnaise with cilantro, yuck. Go to cabana or chicken express… Skip this place.

They are extremely inconsistent.
You can always count on a long wait, food of questionable quality, and hit-​or-​miss staff.
The first time I went, I waited almost an hour after placing my order without being served. I was treated rudely by the manager.
I was so mad that I stayed in the parking lot deterring other customers.
I called corporate and received four meal coupons.
I have tried them a few times since and again, it’s sporadic. The best experience was with a cashier whose name I believe was Stevie. He was amazing. He explained the wait, set expectations accordingly, and even checked on our large party to ensure that all was well. Please clone him!
They are perpetually out of things, especially chicken, and the rice in a take-​out order was so hard that I was wondering what I ordered that would crunch like that.
The guava cheesecake is consistently awesome.
I know they are new but I cannot foresee them continuing at this rate.

First time visit so this may be an unfair review but here are the pros and cons IMO:
CONS:
1. Parts of floor were very slippery while other parts were sticky.
2. Too bright (but I am light sensitive)
3. Inside fans turned off and it is 95 degrees outside.
4. Crowded, but MANY tables needing to be bussed.
5. Person bringing our food out had an angry, hateful look on her face… very unfriendly.
PRO: We both had wraps and enjoyed them, however the chicken was a bit dry. As long as I had a coupon I would try it again. Maybe it will be better next time.

I love the food here. I hate the service. The ppl always screw up order and they always run out of SOMETHING. I went there at night about an hour before close and they ran out of pork. Wtf. I saw stacks of pork sitting near the grill, cooked!!!
The ppl taking orders need more training and they need to quit goofing off. They are always screaming and laughing and not paying attention, which is why they screw up orders. Bc they screw up, orders take twice as long to process. The girl that was taking my order was way too busy yakking it up and laughing loudly to even take my order correctly. I don’t know how many freaking time she could ask me ‘what do you want again?’
I chalked it up to the location being new. Then it took 30 min to process our order. About 20 min into my wait, she came over and told me they ran out of rice. Ok fine. Then she forgot after we told her multiple times that it was a to-​go order. More time to pack up the food with grumbling.
They need to train their ppl better!!! I ran into similar poor service at another location nearby. So apparently the idiots that take orders are all trained to act this way.

Mediocre food and the service that matches. We tried three dishes and none of them really were exceptional. The best of the bunch was the chicken Caesar wrap, which was about the same average rap is a McDonald’s with a little bit tangier sauce. The pita was toasted, and as you can see from the picture they included good size pieces of chicken. The other item was a grilled chicken salad which the chicken was OK, but the salad had no dressing the lettuce was wilted and the minced carrots add nothing to the flavor or texture. The best part of the salad was the fruit that was added to it. Price point wise there your average fast food fair 5 to 7 dollar plates.
Going through the drive-​through is one of my best ways to see how they treat customers. The first reception was not bad as they greeted us at the menu board within a few moments. The next interactions were far less quality. First they had us repeat the order multiple times, then instead of saying they don’t accept discover they said my credit card was declined, and then finally I had to honk my horn four times to get them to come back and bring a drink to us which was part of the meal.
As it was a fast food restaurant and late at night I’m including two stars, and may give them another shot as this is a type of food that I enjoy. The overall look of the places that it should be fresh Latin style cuisine. The result was anything but.

Pollo Tropical is very new to us, this is our first experiences with what they have to offer. So at this point we have technically been here twice. The first time though we had to flat walk out because there was no where to sit and the line was out the door at 745/​8pm on a weeknight & we needed to eat quickly to get the kids home after my daughters class.
We tried again when we didn’t have our oldest. I quickly darted to a table that was being cleaned and sat down with my youngest. Then went and ordered when my husband came in from parking the car.
They were very busy for most of the time that we were there, lucky to find a table again this time around my guess. They did seem to be on top of cleaning tables & sweeping because of the crowd so that they could have tables clean for people to sit down at. As well as attempting to get food out quickly. I had noticed when looking at Unilocal while waiting on my food others had posted about slowness of food getting out & lack of bussing. Fist bump to pollo’s management for listening, and fist bump to my fellow Unilocalers for constructive criticism!
I’m still not sure what I think about the food though. My husband enjoyed it well enough and it wasn’t bad by any stretch of the imagination, just isn’t something that we would go out of our way for. We’ve gotten some coupons for there so as long as we continue to get some reasonable coupon deals we will go back for a little something different though.
They are still going thru some of the growing thru some growing pains, so hopefully everything can continue to go up for them from here!

Oooo now Hurst residents can choose between Pollo Regio or Pollo Tropical! Apples to oranges maybe, but the comparison just seems natural because they’re fast food restaurants with a drive through, have Latin flair (Mexican vs. Caribbean), and they have two-​word names including the word «Pollo.»
Pollo Tropical is fairly new to me; I’ve only been three times. I usually get a family meal of chicken + sides. I need to explore the dessert menu in particular because of the tres leches on there.
Anyways… M’kay, the chicken isn’t as good as Regio. My toddler seems to agree– she’ll wolf Regio chicken but prefers all of the sides at Tropical. Buuut the sides and sauces more than make up for it (corn soufflé is my baby’s favorite side and the curry mustard sauce is my favorite sauce). They get plus points for letting you use the sauce bar vs. Pollo Regio who only allows it for dine-​in guests. The fried plantains are great for palate cleansing in between the sauce samplin’. The calypso beef is tender beef with salty gravy and onions. Idk what’s up with the rolls. You think they’d be on par with King’s Hawaiian but they’re more like King’s Hawaiian’s sorry stale knock-​off, Pauper’s Week-​Old Hawaiian.

Yikes. First of all, the food is pretty bad in terms of taste. And what on earth is the idea and concept behind Pollo Tropical? Since the place is called Pollo Tropical, I guess they’re trying to go for tropical flavors and whatever the idea of «tropical» seems to entail, and even in that regard it doesn’t make any sense – it’s just a bunch of foods and flavors that don’t seem to match.
A friend and I came here the other day; the area is surrounded by the likes of Potbelly, In-​N-​Out, Dairy Queen, etc., and so we wanted to try Pollo Tropical since we had never heard of it before.
We ordered the TROPICHOP since it was the first thing on their menu. I ordered mine with chicken, yellow rice and vegetables, all the toppings. The yellow rice was pretty dry, the vegetables were pretty much peas and carrots that you could get from the frozen section of the grocery store. My friend ordered his with steak and mashed potatoes (how this is tropical, i don’t know). Either way, he also didn’t care for his. Again, the flavors and the combinations of food just didn’t make any sense. Pollo Tropical is just a strange place…

First let me say I’ve read other reviews and it seems maybe they started off on the wrong foot so PLEASE give them a chance now! I went through the drive thru and the lady there was super helpful and nice, she was patient even though they were swamped and she offered to help if I had questions. Everything was amazing even to my 7 year old picky eater! The chicken was moist and the seasonings were delicious, the corn soufflé and yuca reminded me of the actual dishes I’ve had in the Caribbean. Their plantain was also very delicious! Excellent price for all 3 of us to eat also! Definitely coming back!

I have never ever reviewed on here but today I felt the need.
Waste of time. Been there twice. First time I waited 30 minutes for carry out and got a citrus salad that didn’t come with any dressing. So I paid $ 8 for lettuce and chicken. I chalked it up as they just opened and are fixing things.
Second time around today. Waited 15 minutes in the drive through to get a chicken quesadilla salad. This time, still no dressing. $ 8 for lettuce and chicken again. Beyond frustrating. Don’t waste your time here for a quick lunch. You are better off running somewhere else if time is an issue. And I’d stray away from salads, I guess you have to pay extra for dressing?

I’m a Pollo Tropical fan from my visits to Puerto Rico. I have visited these new locations in the Fort Worth area. They do improve with time.
Came in and they were really busy. For their first day, they had their act together. Ordered the half chicken meal. It took a bit to arrive. The chicken is much better than anything grilled you’d get at KFC. They also have Caribbean sides. The yellow rice and black beans were great.
4 stars due it taking a while. Give them time. They will work it out.