Qdoba Mexican Grill

Chipotle & Qdoba are pretty much twins, and Qdoba is the good twin!
Hits:
* Service is stellar! — There was no wait and the cashier (wish I caught his name, he’s the extremely outgoing, tall, dark blonde young man) behind the service station greeted us and asked if we’d been here before. Since this was our first time here, he highly recommended the Queso Burrito, and immediately set two samples of the Queso sauce in front of us … I know I had a good experience with the employees at the Chipotle SLO location, but they were far from personal compared to this guy
* The burritos here are more massive than at many Chipotles I have visited — the Barstow and Chino Hills Chipotle’s have become more and more skimpy with their burritos and bowls
* Queso Burrito!
* The meat here are more juicy, tender, and marinated… the bf loooovvveeeddd his flat-​iron grilled steak, and I savored my chicken until the very last bite. the chicken is more lean and less dry than that at most Chipotle’s
* The spiciest salsa has a great kick to it. with a subtly sweet undertone
* Corn salsa!
* A tasty tostada bowl for my Chicken Taco Salad ($ 6.29) at no extra cost!
* With my BOGO entrees coupon. Not sure how he did it, but he charged us for the lesser expensive of our 2 entrees… so for 2 meals and an order of guac & chips. our total came out to $ 10 O_​o The cashier (same guy who greeted us) hooked us up!
* There housemade guac is creamy, yet light :)
Lessons Learned:
* If you order a burrito, request to have all the ingredients evenly spread throughout the burrito — that way you can get the rice and meat all in one bite, since the bf complained about his segregated burrito
* Skip their chips… we just ended up tearing apart my tostada bowl and dipping it in the derish salsa and guac
I was sold after my first experience here, and it won’t take a BOGO coupon for me to return next time!

Not many mexican places I don’t like but this is definitely one of them. I went twice now and ordered a pesto burrito and it had a weird flavor and pretty much threw it away. Second time I ordered the queso burrito and thought that would be a sure thing since I love cheese, wrong! Weird taste and just couldn’t stomach to finish it. Never going again.

Text Q to 50 500 a few minutes before you arrive for free chips and queso.
overpriced for what you get should be a buck or 2 cheaper Chipotle win this battle

Food is pretty bomb, there are some other places in the area that have better Mexican food but the student discount is always a great thing! GO BRONCOS! Anyway, their burritos are pretty good, on the same level as El Pollo Loco I would say. There is also a location at Cal Poly; equal quality which is nice to see consistency in the company. Staff was nice, always a plus :)

SHOW YOUR STUDENT ID for a $ 6 meal, including a free drink! This also applies for the workers within the Eastland center, as long as you go in your uniform they will only charge you $ 6+tax!
I usually get the craft 2 with naked burrito (pretty much the burrito bowl from Chipotle) and MEXICAN GUMBO!!! I love the mexican gumbo there, it’s so flavorful and enough to not make me feel like a fatass. I shared this meal with the boyfriend and he had the naked burrito and we were both very satisfied with our meal, especially since it costs less than $ 7 altogether with the drink too! They let you add whatever you like without an extra charge, like Chipotle, so I went a little crazy: P
They also have the rewards program where you can earn free chips&salsa or a free regular drink when you register. You can also text the number they have on the flyer for free chips&queso.

Good food, friendly service and freebies from their loyalty program earned them four stars.
They could get five from me by adding a salsa bar and plain club soda on their soda fountain.

Not too bad. I’m not really a fan of Chipotle either. Happy this place has nachos. Even though they are expensive. Salsas are good too.

Nothing pisses me off more than to be «nickel and dime» to death! Portions are small for the price they charge. $ 7.09 for a cheese quesadilla!!! Really?! Ordered a grilled chicken burrito and instead of sour cream I asked for a different salsa and told the would be $ 0.10 more! WTF!!! How about credit for the sour cream! Or a least a trade! Go some where else! Any where but here!

Okay, I’ve gotten over the queso craze. It’s still good, but I’m not raving over it anymore. However, I’m updating my review to five stars, as least for this location (well, it’s the only location I’ve been to, anyway, so that’s a moot point) because of the quality of the customer service provided here.
The most recent time I came, we were offered free nacho (chip + queso) samples which was cool since I’d never been offered one here any previous time I came, or at Chipotle either since we like to compare these two places.
They still have the foursquare deals, so if you haven’t downloaded foursquare on your iPhone/​Android/​other irrelevant smartphone (jk) shenanigans I don’t know if you just DON’T LIKE FREE FOOD or what but I disapprove.
Also, found out during this visit that if you present a student ID you get a free drink (RIGHT IN YO FACE, CHIPOTLE. I remember when Chipotle used to have this very same deal, but then they GOT RID OF IT and from then on I never liked going there very much…). So yeah, more free stuff, how can I say no?
But the important thing: my friend tried to use both the foursquare and free drink deal — without realizing you can’t use two deals at once. I think the cashier didn’t realize it either at the time, either, but the MACHINE did. So it charged him like 12 bucks, and we were like wtf.
But they went through the trouble to get it voided out instead of correcting our mistake of using two deals and came personally to our table after to give my friend his new receipt with the grand total of $ 7.93 — for a burrito, chips (A LOT OF CHIPS), queso, and a drink.
Qdoba, you are OFFICIALLY my new Chipotle. You win all day.

Deals? Foursquare?Queso?
No Way, Man. This Wanna-​be mexican food is Horrible. I don’t care if u get FREE
anything. It’s not worth it. Flavorless salsas and Chicken meat. Prices are a bit on
High-​end for this type of food. Stick to El Pollo Loco or Chipotle.

Ehhh. Chipotle is better.
Came here for a late lunch after shopping at IKEA. I have never been to a Qdoba before, but it seemed pretty familiar. It’s basically the same as Chipotle.
Cool thing is they have whole wheat tortillas, which Chipotle does not. But I prefer Chipotle on all other aspects. Qdoba’s chicken burrito was soooo bland. I didn’t even taste the chicken at all. There was no flavor in their salsas either. Quite a disappointment.
Skip it.

I’ve been a fan of Qdoba since I had it in Denver. Naturally, I was THRILLED to hear they were moving to California.
Even though the salsas aren’t self serve like Baja Fresh, they are AMAZING. The habanero salsa has just enough kick with great flavor. The portions for the Craft 2 combo is more than enough for a meal without breaking the bank. Plus if it’s your first visit, they’ll stamp your reciept so you can return for the same combo for only $ 5!
Everyone was very sweet and prepared my meal quickly. The restaurant is very clean and quiet in the evening.

Don’t go expecting this place to be an authentic Mexican restaurant! =)) I would definitely say that they serve a healthier, non-​authentic Mexican food that they just randomly come up with to serve people working or going to school around the area.
I got their fajita ranchera burrito and grilled chicken quesadilla. Both were quite bland that I basically had both of them bathe in hot sauce for a while to get something out of it. The burrito’s description stated that it had a «tangy» ranchera sauce… well, where was it? The amount of plain rice might have pushed the tangy-​ness aside.
Oh well, at least I know what this place is like now and I won’t be coming back.

This place is a knock off attempt of Chipotle [which I prefer over Qdoba] The décor and layout of the restaurant is cool, the staff was friendly and courteous, the food just didn’t taste good to me.
It’s a build your own burrito type of fare, it’s mission style burrito with lots of rice, again similar to Chiplotle. The gal behind the serving counter suggested the queso burrito as [in her opinion] is delicious, I didn’t like it. It seemed like nacho cheese food product poured into a burrito. Also tried chips and salsa… eh! I doubt I will be going back again.
It doesn’t mean anything, but as a trivia tid bit, Qdoba is owned by Jack in The Box, which I like better than Qdoba

I’d like to give them 4 stars for the queso. I guess it doesn’t make sense not to compare it to Chipotle. So:
Cheese sauce having-​ness: advantage Qdoba
Qdoba steams tortillas; Chipotle grills: advantage Chipotle
Both have Cilantro Lime Rice: Chipotle’s is less clumpy
Qdoba has the Craft-​2 thing; a person can get 2 tacos and meat-​and-​goodies topped nachos with queso: double advantage Qdoba
Qdoba charges extra for fajita veggies: bummer!
Chipotle does the whole ethics and quality thing: advantage Chipotle
Overall, it’s probably a wash. They each bring something to the table. And that thing is a taco, or a burrito. Or in Qdoba’s case, nachos. So that’s awesome.

Tried it for the first time and It wasn’t good. The staff loaded my burrito up with so much salsa that you couldn’t taste anything else. It over powered the food. My friend who was with me had the same issue.
This kind of reminds of taco bell, when you load the food up with tons of hot sauce but unfortunately this place cost way more then taco bell.
I will try this place one more time to give them benefit of doubt.

My fiancé and I just had our first visit to this qdoba, and we both agree that it was less than satisfactory. We have been to one inside the Fox Hills mall and it was great. But I have to say I will NOT be going back to this one here on barranca. The service was horrible. The servers had to ask what our order was atleast 3 times. They put items in the burrito before we could say we did not want them. And they over pushed there $ 14 meal deal. They asked us atleast 5 times after we repeatedly said no. And every single «extra» such as veggies and guacamole cost more. Not even chipotle charges for those things. We ended up paying $ 19 for only 2 burritos! The burritos were no where near worth that much. Bad first and last experience.

Nice place. 2.5 stars
A little rushy to get you through the line to get your food
So ya gotta know your stuff before ya git up there.
Know your sauces, know the other junk too.
They don’t have raw cut up onions to put on my burrito.
N O R A W O N I O N S? ? ?
They cook their onions mixed in with veggies or peppers
Or whatever they were.
Then they were picking through mixture to find me extra onions
There wasn’t enough onions in there for my burrito.
They do have a lotta rice that they packed in the burrito
So, my burrito was kinda average with a lightly spicey sauce.
I wanted hot n spicey, but that’s all they had.
Now I ordered a chicken taco to go for my mom.
This huge round black circular plastic enclosed container arrives.
It has a large see thru huge plastic lid on top.
So, I peek through the lid
and see this teeny weeney baby chicken taco.
Aaaaw…so tiny… so cute…
With wittle strands of cheese put on it
and a few small pieces of lettuce.
I’d say, it was half the size of a taco at Del Taco
The whopping price was $ 7.95.
But my mom is a light eater… so I took it to go.
Had it been my taco, I would have rushed it back.
I spun the wheel outside and got a buy one get one free.
But the next day I got the same coupon in the mail.

I was strolling through the West Covina mall and saw some Qdoba BOGO coupons on a stand next to the escalator (ps. they expire 11/​30/​2011 so go find em). I was like yay a Qdoba nearby, sounds like dinner! There were a lot of Qdoba first-​timers ahead of me (since it just open 2 weeks prior) and thus it took forever to be helped. I got one chicken and one shredded beef bowl with tortillas on the side so they wouldn’t get soggy on the way home. The shredded beef is way more flavorful than the chicken, so I will stick to the beef in the future.
If you’ve ever been to Chipotle then Qdoba is the same concept, I just happen to prefer Qdoba of the two.
Staff was very nice, still in training but for sure an A+ for courtesy and effort.
With the coupon I had dinner and lunch the next day for $ 7 – can’t beat that!

Just spent $ 7 bucks to «win» a BOGO coupon for a place that I don’t like very much…
My brother decided that he *needed* to go to the grand opening for the new Qdoba in West Covina because you could spin a wheel and win prizes. When we arrived they had the wheel set up outside, but the manager said to go inside buy dinner and then we could spin the wheel when we left.
If you have been to Qdoba before then you know what this place looks like. And, this restaurant offers the same bland mexican food as the rest of the chain. I ordered the grilled chicken taco salad ($ 6.59). The woman taking my order was friendly and quickly put my salad together. Guacamole is an extra $ 1-​something so I passed on her offer to add some. The taco salad was okay — some lettuce, black beans, corn, cheese and a fair amount of chicken. It didn’t have much flavor to it even though I asked for the hottest salsa they had plus extra pico de gallo which supposedly had onions and cilantro.
My brother ordered a steak burrito which he thought was also nothing special (basically a steak and rice burrito).
As we left, I spun the wheel and landed on a buy one entrée get one entrée free coupon. However, I am not planning on using this coupon any time soon.