I haven't taken a bite of my burrito yet. Still trying to calm down from the worst experience of ordering for take out anywhere ever. Illegible overcrowded chalk board menus, impossible to make sense of in the 30 sec you get a look at it, poorly placed so you can't see them in line as it moves, pushy inconsiderate crowd in line who take your spot if you try to see the menu again, or move past if you stop to read it, or step over a foot to pick a drink from cooler. Then you get to the snotty rude cashier, who could care less about your questions or concerns.
After we ordered I took a quick look in the crowded loud dining room filled with creepy lowlife type people in a downright ugly and unappetizing room that makes you want to barf just looking in before being repelled and wanting bolt for the car without waiting for the food.
I don't care how awesome the food is, there is no justification for such a terribly designed, organized and run place.
The food did come up fast tho, so 1 star.
And the people, the patrons...(1st time out here) is this rudeness an Allentown thing or did I just run into an unusual bunch of assholes?
UPDATE post ingestion: So it was ok. just meat and cheese and rice and beans. not remotely Mexican. just bland, utterly bland, but nothing to complain about either, plenty of meat and it was nice and tender, but nothing else inside it. A burrito this thing is not. A basic plain no frills $3 meat wrap for 9 bucks. Can you say RIPOFF!
If my companion who had taken me there raving about the place hadn't showed me the tiny little salsa bar in the corner of the vast empty front room (in contrast to the small crowded LOUD and ugly dining room which I refused to sit in) I'd have left without anything to make my burrito resemble anything like Mexican.
Those chips that so many reviewers are raving about? I'm the world's least picky eater. They're awful, a food crime. WTF? Half of them were burnt, I fed all of them to my dog and felt bad about it.
It would have been nice if there had been time to figure out the options for ordering, if you could find them on the ridiculous confusing wall menu, and didn't have people pushing past you in line to order or if the aforementioned cashier was inclined to be helpful or informative rather than impatient. The stupid was strong with this place from the time I entered the door til the time we left.
That line. The never ending constantly growing line. Those people. I can't get past it. I've been in 1000s of fast food places from the big chains to the tiniest hole in the wall, in tiny hamlets to the biggest cities. From New York City bagel shops during morning rush, to Philly sub shops at lunch, to anywhere ever. Never. Never have I encountered people like that. So oblivious to other human beings. In my 65 years, I've always had a good time in line, people sharing, chatting, joking, making it a fun social experience at a favorite pit stop. Not here. Get up and order or get the F out of the way! Read some of the other reviews and see that I'm not alone in my reaction to the poor attitude of the workers there. I suspect that is directly proportional to the type of people they deal with all day long.
That big empty front room. you know instead of having a line run straight back and out the door, especially in cold weather, you might consider using it for queue corrals like every other fast food restaurant on the planet to manage lines...you know?
Atmosphere? It's a dump. Literally. Crap piled everywhere.
I read the print menu and web site versions of the Mission statement when I got home. Who are you kidding? Cali vibe? I lived and surfed in California for 23 years, loved it, this is not that. Not even close, not even on the same planet. BTW No one in CA calls it Cali, no one. Only posers and phony wannabes. This is like a nightmare version of people's (false) bad stereotype of New York in a dystopian future horror pic. Laid back? this is the opposite of that. It made me want to run away as far as I could get as fast as I could get. Cali vibe? Seriously? Maybe this is just Allentown? If it's Allentown, then it's one more reason to avoid that sh!thole.
FYI this is my first, and probably only, Yelp review. I've never had a bad thing to say about any place before. I've never had a bad dining experience before, not that I felt the need to complain about. I'm not the kind of guy who does apps that much, preferring human contact and word of mouth. But everything is wrong about this place, everything. Yet it's packed??? (and Trump is president, so much for people's discernment of quality) I have to warn people! I'd really like to meet the a--hole who claims he spent 10 years surfing in California and then opened this stupid and annoying place and called it Cali and let him know what I really think! He ruined my life forever. I will never forgive him. read more