We were first curious about Pollo Campero because of the numerous ads scattered throughout the city. They're everywhere, from buses to Muni stops. Pollo Campero is a great place to grab lunch up until a late dinner in the Mission. It's comparable to El Pollo Loco, seeing as they're both casual family restaurants featuring grillled and fried chicken. Their fried chicken is worth 4.5/5 on its own. If you like Popeye's and/or KFC, it has the taste of KFC's original with the texture of Popeye's breading. This creates a perfect blend between the two, which really makes it the best of the three if we're comparing. Not a whole of kick, but make sure to ask for their spicy salsa (a generous portion of which was provided to us free of charge). Their grilled chicken had crispy skin while being juicy and fresh, topped with a tangy seasoning of citrus and herbs. Rice and beans for sides were pretty good. We were disappointed that they ran out of tortillas but their bread was good, and the portion sizes are generous. We had some communication errors when they didn't add a grilled chicken addition to the salad we ordered, but we were quite impressed with how quickly and professionally it was resolved by management. Seriously, mad props for service here. Pollo Campero has a solid bang for your buck, but be sure to check in on Yelp for 10% off! read more

Honestly it's the only franchise here in the Bay Area and I commute from San Pablo to Daly City just for this amazing food. No regrets ever time I go there, even during this pandemic they manage to run their business in a professional way. read more

Good fried chicken. Doesn't compare to say... Front Porch, but there's no sense in comparing a fast food restaurant to a place known for a quality kitchen. It is a chain. It was started in Guatemala. They have grown to about 350 restaurants worldwide. I can't understand why people say a restaurant "is pretty good", but then knock it because it may be a chain. So what?! In-N-Out is a chain and they're great. I'm not saying this is a chicken version of In-N-Out...but it's a solid fast food option if you're in the Mission and not feeling a burrito. Would probably go with 3.5 Star. Rounding up because everyone was friendly. I'm definitely a fan! read more

It's good fried chicken. That's all you need to know. It's spicy and delicious without being too crispy. Mix and Match deals are confusing but I guess you just gotta figure it out. read more

Though not the same as what you'd get in Guate or El Salvador, this does give you the fix you desperately seek. Unfortunately, prices seem a bit too high for the average working class family, but that SF business for you. No fault of their own. read more

This place has very good food but the people working there are quite rude. reccomend for the food not for the service. read more

Came here for dinner time for take out. I ordered the 3 piece meal. 2 legs & 1 Thigh with French fries and mashed potatoes. The chicken though is awesome! Tastes very juicy and mouthwatering! The line was long but the server, Evelyn was able to get the order to me within 5 minutes along with the other 7 people in line. Kudos to Evelyn and her prompt service! PS: Check-in with Yelp and you get 10% off your order! I'm definitely coming back! read more

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Love.. love this chicken!!! The service is amazing, their customer service is so efficient and helpful. I had an issue with a coupon today so I sent a complaint about it thru their App. I couldn't believe has fast they responded! The main company from L.A called me and reimburse me for the amount of the coupon. WOW! read more

Well I went today insight that location and place my order the chicken was great it's just that I did not get what I order they gave me the order wrong I live two hours away from Pollo Campero it wasn't worth coming back to the restaurant!!! read more

Online order is really slow I ordered a family meal it said it will arrive in 35 minutes but it ended up to be an hour late when I called. They got a slow service read more

Always Excellent I wish we had one in Sacramento! But now every time we go to SF we bring home a bucket!

Probably the best fried chicken I've ever had. Juicy and flavourful, worlds apart of any other fast food chicken places I've been to at least. Really appreciated their guava drink as well, tangy and refreshing which really helped me work to stuff down 26 pieces of chicken between me and two other friends. (which I do not recommend you do, as I had my regrets after!) read more

There's is no parking we never eat in the restaurant. We always order ahead and someone stays in the car while the other runs in to grab it. If you need plates/utensils you HAVE to ask at the window or they won't hand them out. Fried chicken fries and some rice and tortillas with homemade chips and guac and beans call for a great picnic at the park the chicken is HELLA good read more

My order was really good, the pieces of chicken are juicy and crispy. I order a coleslaw and a rice both sides where fresh and delicious also the sides were full. I definitely order again for this place read more

We came across this place while in The Mission District. The food looked good in the window so we decided to give it a try! Glad we did! The chicken was very good, I enjoyed the fried more than the rotisserie, but both were full of flavor. The beans were the best side. The coleslaw was average and the rice was a bit bland, but still decent. The service was great and we were allowed to take advantage of the check in discount without any issues! My mom's favorite was the plantains! read more

Pollo Campero - Latin American Near Me - San Francisco, California

Best JUICY EVER! They got some fire taste! Waaaay better than Popeyes and KFC. I don't care if they don't speak any languages. Just give me the damn fry and grilled chicken. Highly recommended and will definitely come back again. When are you going to open in South Bay? Looking forward read more

great very nice employees , clean place always full bu, fast service absolutely recommend

UPDATE: We've given this place more tries. We really like the citrus Peruvian grilled flavor so I've added a couple of stars for that. HOWEVER, they always seem to get my order wrong--missing items, wrong chicken flavor, etc...--so always check before you leave. Previous review: This place was over-hyped with long lines and security guards when it first opened. I'm glad I didn't wait almost an hour and a half to try it. The food is a bit drab. Fries are dry and bland. They leave like a bitter aftertaste. Mashed potatoes as well. Overall food quality and presentation is horrible. The quality of food does not fit the price range. Frankly, Popeye's is a little better than this place. Their "call for take-out" process is no use at all. When you get there they still send you to the line to wait and repeat your order. There's no point in calling it in. Some of the staff are also misinformed when it comes to the menu. Seating is not too bad. The place is well-kept and the noise level is pretty loud. Nothing fancy or out of the ordinary. Perhaps, you're better off checking the place out during late night munchies. Oh and what's up with the doors? The front door is all taped up. Meh. read more

My family and I came here today, Wednesday, at around 12:30pm and there was already a long line! There are 2 different lines, one line is meant for eat in and the other line is for to-go orders so just ask people around you so you don't look like a fool and wait in the wrong line. ;-) While we were waiting in line, the "hostess" came out and took our names in order to be seated because it was super packed! We didn't wait too long, it was only at 25min wait. I was expecting the wait to be longer because of previous reviews but maybe we just got lucky. We were seated and our servers name was Elsy. She was super nice and attentive as she could be. She handed us our menus and explained where the bathrooms were right away which was nice because you don't feel as lost if in case you do need to go. We waited about 10mins for her to come back and take our order, which was not a big deal because we could see how super busy she and the other servers were. We ordered our food and Elsy was kind enough to let us know that our order would take 10mins to come out. I appreciated the fact that she let us know so we can prepared to "wait". We hardly felt the time go by. We were people watching and all the food people were getting looked great! We got our order and everything was delicious! The chicken was just as I remembered it and the beans had a great flavorful taste to them! The plantains were super delicious and sweet and the family size order was enough for the 4 of us. Our waitress did the best she could with all the tables she had and I noticed that she was nice and attentive with all the other tables. She always had a smile on her face and was nice to all the patrons that didnt speak Spanish. The bus boys were very quick at cleaning tables and clearing all the dishes. There was one guy, Arnold, was very nice and when another table asked him if they could get a coffee, he was super nice and did so very quickly. He was also helping a server hand out orders to a table which just showed that he was willing to help out other people. I just like seeing small things like that because it just means that a company got it right when hiring people! I saw previous reviews for El Pollo Campero and people were complaining about the wait and the inattentiveness of the waitresses, but I never experienced or saw any of that happen when I went. Just take into consideration that this place JUST OPENED!! Give them some slack!!! They have a few days to get it right and settle into the motion of things.....Overall, go and give it a try!! ALSO, THEY ARE OPEN FROM 10AM-10PM! read more

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Hipsters your not welcome here, it's for normal people, you have plenty of restaurants serving food on square plates thru out the mission, go there instead. By far the best fried chicken experience. The price is right, the food is hot and fresh. The service is fast and friendly. The atmosphere is relaxed and unpretentious unlike most of the restaurants in the mission. read more

I love the fried chicken here. We brought some home and everyone happily ate the whole box. We went this past week while we were in the area and tried the grilled chicken. My husband and I both agreed that there was too much citrus on the chicken. My 2y/o who normally will clean her plate would not touch the chicken. Maybe we went on a bad day.... read more

Pollo Campero was just as I remember it! Crispy and yummy. Perhaps I am a bit biased since I have been eating it since I was a child, but it is definitely chicken I would recommend others to try! The take out line was almost out the door, but it was moving surprisingly fast, and it wasn't even 5 minutes that we got our order after ordering. High 5 to the take out team! And the fast cooks! read more

Man, I don't really know what I can say about this place. My friend and I decided to come here cause we didn't want to wait for El Farolito, but I think we ended up waiting longer for this. We went to the to-go side and we were 3rd in line, but it took about 40 minutes to get our food. Least to say, we were very irritated. The first lady in line took about 5-10 minutes to order, then the next 2 guys took about 15-20 minutes to order, and we took about 2 minutes to order. I don't know exactly what happened, but if a restaurant with to go can't open another register or have people order while 1 party is getting taken care of, they will lose a lot of business. The line grew to maybe 10-15 people while waiting. Then after ordering, it took them another 10-15 minutes to package the food, even though everything was already cooked?? We saw the kitchen and it looked like a kfc where everything was already cooked, why did it take so long to just put our food in a box? The food was mediocre, honestly, if the food was quick, I might consider coming back, but the 40 min wait was just way too long. Either way, I wouldn't recommend this place because of the poor service. Please open another register if you know 1 party will take forever to fix. read more

Guatemalan's in the mission rejoice! We no longer have to wait for our relative or a visiting abuelitos visit us and bring us a box! We have it right here. Pollo Campero chicken is uniquely flavored and stylistically chapin. I love the platanos and creme and the rice and beans. I would pass on the fries and instead go for some corn or mashed potatoes. Also of note, there are two separate lines. Use the hallway to make to go orders. It may look long, but trust that it moves fairly quickly. We started out about half way down the hallway and were out in about 15 minutes. I still haven't seen the patio area but hope to visit soon. Any gentrified mission neighbors can chill with their protests, this is a community staple in Central America and LA. We're here, we're hungry, get use to it. read more

This place is overhype and the food is not good. I rather remain loyal to Popeyes. The whole setup of one line for take out and dining is riduculous. First you have the security guard who tries to manage the lines but sucks at it. Then you have people in front of you waiting and then seven of their relatives show up and make the line longer. The chicken is dry and the not moist or juicy. TOTALLY OVERRATED read more

3 1/2 - 4 stars Let me start by saying, I LOVE THIS PLACE. I love the fried chicken (the only annoying thing is how oily it is, but hey, its deep fried), and my mom loves the yucca fries and plaintains. Parking is a pain and occasionally lines are long when waiting to be seated. But overall, my orders have been accurate and servers are kind. read more

This is my second time eating here and I swear the chicken gets darker and darker. I have a pretty good reason why... They don't change the oil often. I know this because I worked at KFC in highschool and the chef would have chicken as dark as this- it's because he didn't change the oil everyday. Just a theory. Overall service and fried chicken 3stars. It's kinda like jollibee but in mission. read more

Refreshing fast food. Now that's an oxymoron! It was an unusually hot warm night in San Francisco, so the boyfriend and I decided to take a walk to Pollo Campero to get some takeout to eat at the parklett on Valencia. I haven't tried the fried chicken so I can't attest to that, but the marinaded chicken thigh was quite flavorful and moist. The grilled corn and campero rice were well seasoned, and the fried plantains weren't quite what I expected but it was still delicious as a side dish. I like my fried plantains really crispy on the outside and just slightly mushy on the inside, but the ones here were a little bit too soft for my liking. Also, the people who work here are extremely nice and polite, not something you usually find at a fast food chain! read more

Like everyone said.. the Chicken was good..I had the Fried version and my Wife had the lime. the fried version is much better than KFC or Popeyes the next block over. the side was just okay.. nothing special.. .. we got corn and i ordered Campero Rice.. but i got beans.. not sure if that was correct. anyways.. the service was fantastic.. the manager came out and made sure we didn't have any complaints.. was customer service. was hoping this place was better.. but got disappointed. . read more

The chicken was very delicious and juicy despite the fact that it was fried. I got a 3 piece breast leg & thigh with fries and a side salad . The salad was really good it had this tasty cheese tomatoes and ranch simple but so refreshing with the chicken and fries the bread is simple but good as well read more

Chicken is ok. Ordering for pick up is a waste of time. They asked me how long will take me to get there, I don't know why! I arrived a couple minutes later than I estimated, and I had to wait another 15 minutes. Do they know how hard and expensive parking is in SF? Never trust this people when ordering ahead! read more

I wish there were more chicken restaurants like this one, they really know how to do things right. First off, I like that this place has a security guard that kicks out homeless people as soon as they enter,there isn't anything that I hate more than being hassled by bums while I'm eating with my family. Secondly, the dining area and restrooms are always very clean, I spent about an hour here and saw at least 3 different employees tidying up during my visit; just the way it should be. Thirdly, and probably the most important thing about this place is the quality, everything from the quality of food to the customer service to the prices are spot on. I'd suggest something to try here, but everything is just so D*** good, it's all freshly made and always has that flavor that will take you back to Central America :) Make this your go to chicken joint, you'll be glad that you did read more

The fried chicken really wasn't as good as people made it seem to be. It was fried to a nice golden brown, with a slight crunch but the white meat was just too dry for me. I made a bad choice of ordering the roasted corn which basically tasted like corn from a can that was roasted until some of it turned black lol weak! The tortilla chips that came out before our meal was pretty good and crunch, but the salsa was a bit too spicy. I also didn't understand why this place needs waiter service, when it's basically fast food. It would just make more sense to go up to a counter, order the food and wait with a number or something. I couldn't get over how odd it was to have a server take our order and all that, plus they were incredibly slow with getting our food out. Sticking to Popeyes everyone! read more

You know. I was CRAVING fried chicken one day, like just some juicy fried chicken thighs, and right off Bart, I see that there's a place just down the block with some pretty good fried chicken, or so yelp says. It seems fairly cheap, photos look pretty good, and hey, walking through you'll just ooze deep fried smells after only a couple seconds in the place. Just what I needed after a long grueling day at work :) I really wanted good 'ole like Popeyes or something (no judge) and I figured this place seemed legit and the closest thing I'd find in my part of the mission at that very moment. I stepped in and whipped out my yelp check in for the 10% offer. The place is serviced in the front and if you walk to the back, you'll see a little "to-go" window where you can place an order. A pain in the butt is that there are NO menus around where you can look at the food ahead of time (at least not in the pick up line...). Just one at the counter where you can point to your order and the nice cashier will put it through. Okay okay, fair enough.... I'll use the website. Oups, no prices there.... no worries. After only 2 people but what seemed to be a pretty long wait since everyone figures out what they're gonna get at the window, it was my turn and I breeze as fast as I can through the multi page menu. I just wanted, like, 2 thighs and I'd be good but there's no a la carte option or anything. Kids meal maybe? Arf, I guess I'm getting "too old" for that. I settled on a the smallest option, 3 piece combo, which came with 2 sides (I took Street Corn Salad and Fries). You can also choose between Corn Tortilla or Dinner rolls, which I did the tortilla. I asked for all thighs plz. but unfortunately they did give me one leg (ok, fair, keep things even and whatnot :P) The food came out within a couple of minutes or so, pretty fast and the people working there were very nice :) I took the food home in the rain to avoid smelling overly greasbally after being inside. The chicken, as many people are describing it, is very greas/er juicy. Its kind of a mix of both. Super moist chicken, but definitely had a solid amount of oil seeped into it. Should've gotten a mix of the Campero fried chicken and the peruvian grilled, which people are saying is pretty good (shucks.) The fries were fries. I had the corn salad inside the tortilla the next day and that stuff was really tasty! A perfect mini meal compared to my gorging on those pieces of chicken the night before! $10ish, even with the 10% off coupon on yelp. Overall, not terrible but I probably won't go there again. Unless they let me buy chicken a la carte, in which I'll definitely try the peruvian grilled style! read more

Since the Popeyes burned down, this is now the closest place for fried chicken, unfortunately, it cannot compare to the Popeyes on 24th. When you walk in, it feels like a restaurant, and it is, a sign tells you to wait to be seated. However, both times I've went, I had to wait 1 min for the servers to come and just pick a seat for me(something I could've done myself) The menu is simple if you just want a chicken meal, pick how many pieces and your two sides. Fried chicken: Juicy, flavorful, but small. For the price, I would assume much bigger pieces, but I guess it's SF. Grilled Chicken: Also very juicy and flavorful, one of the best grilled chickens I've had in a long time, however, once again, the leg piece was very small. The breast piece also seemed to have a lot more bones than other breasts I've had. Coleslaw: Nothing special, think KFC coleslaw Mashed Potato: Very normal, a little better than KFC's. Overall, for $15 (3 piece, 2 sides, dinner roll/tortilla, drink, and tip) it's not really worth a trip, but if you really wanted fried chicken and you're in the mission, this is one of the most convenient places. read more

So when you go into the new, fancy Peruvian restaurants in San Francisco, grilled chicken runs $17-$22 for an entree. So, I can only indulge my craving for that grilled, slightly citrus tinged deliciousness every so often. We were taking BART to a performance at the Mission Cultural Center and needed a quick bite to eat. While I love those 2 pound burrito bombs, my daughter does not. So when walked past Pollo Campero and saw all the happy families eating there we decided to give it a try. Sparkling clean with friendly waitstaff, the food came out quickly and was perfect for a quick bite before the show. Much like KFC, you order 2-5 pieces of either the fried chicken or the grilled Peruvian chicken. You choose 2 sides, a big variety, some that come to mind are grilled corn, cole slaw, tomato baked beans, french fries, mashed potatoes and more. Loved the corn and the grilled chicken. The flavor was great and juicy, not overcooked. Daughter was happy with her fried chicken although didn't seem different from KFC. Fun place, felt like a fast food restaurant in Mexico City and the price was less than $10 per person. I am looking forward to going again. read more

I've been looking for a good chicken sandwich in the mission, and finally stumbled into Pollo Campero. Great chicken breast sandwich, great fries, great price. Will definitely repeat and recommend! read more

Nice and inviting from the exterior, not so inviting when you try to find the entrance. The exit door is actually the entrance, has no handle, and you must be let in by a security guard. Very posh for this part of mission I guess. The food was average, really nothing special. Fairly priced and decent sized portions. The service was the highlight of this place, as the waitress was very friendly and attentive. Slight mess-up with my order scored me some free flan without having to ask. For fried chicken this place is decent, but if you are not dead set on fried chicken I would look into other food options in the area. read more

I just tried this place over the weekend and definitely will be coming back! I got the two leg and one thigh individual meal. I have to say everything was on point for fast food. This is my new go to place in the neighborhood for fried chicken. The sides I got were french fries and cole slaw. Although my sides were great, I must get the YUCA FRIES next time after trying one from my friend. I'm looking forward to coming back to try their other sides and their tortilla as I got the dinner roll this time. So why did I give four stars and not five? The service was really slow for us to get our check. Believe me I'm patient and it was not just our table! The main reason I had to take out a star was because the area near the restrooms and where you order to go was REALLY slippery. It felt very greasy like there was oil spilled. This is just to give the heads up when using the restroom! I would still recommend everyone to give this place a try. read more

This is really a waste of investment capital. To bring some business from the south (LA) and make this really tasteless chicken is embarrassing. The chicken has not taste at all. And people make lines because is a food that is from their country and since over there i found out is pricey, here they are able to afford it. But the chicken really is not a big deal. I can recommend other places that make a delicious chicken. But anyways, go ahead and try it yourself. You will be spending at least $15-$20 dollars for something tasteless...And the security at the door??? read more