Pollo Picante: Thornton Colorado's Newest Restaurant

Pollo Picante is Thornton's newest restaurant. Located at 8858 North Washington, in the almost empty and outdated Thornton Center Mall, this restaurant will have a tough go of it at best. But if it continues to deliver the same quality of service and food that it is now, it will have a very short run.

Specializing in Mexican BBQ Chicken, they lack not only quality and appearance in the food, but the staff is displaying the attitude of a crew that knows they are going down with the ship. Many entrees on the menu have the taste and appearance of being prepared well ahead of time, if not re-heated from a previous serving. And as if that were not bad enough, many items on the menu were "not available" at the time I was there. Poor quality food is bad enough, so it seems this restaurant only wants to subject you to a limited choice of poor quality food as well.

The staff is lacking for enthusiasm and seems to be going through the motions of customer service. Though not rude, they just seem to be more concerned with their next job interview than working at customer service.

It seems that there is major problems at Pollo Picante and the entire staff seem to know it. First, the location is about as bad as you could find. Located in the Thornton Center Mall was a major mistake. This is one of the original strip malls in Thornton, and has little in the way of improvements since it was built. Almost empty not, it is home to the U.S. Post Office, a cigarette store, rundown bar, Laundromat and a bus stop for casino buses, it is 80% vacant. Nothing would bring in any customers except a wrong turn. Location, location, location is the first rule of a good restaurant, and Pollo Picante missed out.

It is sad to see something that someone has put so much hard work and money into fail as they are doing, but it looks like the lack of capitol is killing this dream. A bad location is going to be difficult enough to overcome, but they need to get their name out to the public as well and in a big way since there is going to be little in the way of drive by traffic generated by the mall. I have yet to see anything in the way of advertising since their opening on May 1^st. I look for this to become another empty storefront in the Thornton Center Mall I the very near future.