They're understaffed. Wouldn't pick up the phone when I called multiple times over the course of an hour. Arrived and they made me wait about 10 mins to take my order even though I was the first in line. I love Rubio's, please improve customer service and hire some more people!
Since the closing of the Livermore store, I’ve had to drive to Tracy and Pleasant Hill for Rubio’s. The customer service at Pleasant Hill is noticeably better than that of Tracy’s. The food was also prepared much faster. I always get the Shrimp Trio, so I noticed right away that Pleasant Hill’s wasn’t as good. I dug up the photos and added them to this post. One is from Pleasant Hill and the other is from Tracy - you can judge for yourself.
The food quality has gone downhill for sure. I've been going to Rubio's since College and while I don't expect the quality to live up to the times before they were a bigger chain, what this location is putting out is sub-par.Biggest issue right now is that are so short staffed (probably part of the quality issue) that they aren't always open when when their website says they are open.We ordered last night at 530 only to arrive and find out they closed at 5 yet the online system was still taking orders.
They sell delicious seafood tacos and many other seafood options with reasonable prices.The seafood is sustainably caught.
Coastal trio, so yummy and great combo for when you can't decided what to eat. Paid 1 dollar extra for chips and beans
The food quality has gone down big time and it's not because of the pandemic, it's because people are lazy. I ordered chicken tacos and my taco had hardly any meat on it, when I went in to show them to get more the guy just said "that's how it comes" and then asked "if I ate any of the taco" .............. ? No. $37 worth of food that was NOT worth it. Plus my avocados were hard as rocks and I ended up throwing them away.
Associate (young lady) working the register was also packaging food to go. We were waiting to place our order but as soon as she finished taking the order in front of us she walked away and started packaging food. No eye contact with us what so ever. Tip: people understand if they have to wait a few more minutes - but an acknowledgement goes a long way - "I'll be with you in a minute." "Busy" is understandable, not acknowledging one's presence screams "we don't need your business."
The cashier and server’s gloves had salsa all over and they served us the food and drink with lots of salsa stain on the cups and food containers. Very unsanitary. Garbage containers are also full and untidy.
I dont want to give it too bad of a review because i know its getting hard to staff places with employees. But there was only 3 people working on a busy sunday and none of them were working with any urgency. There was 1 person cooking, 1 person prepping and cleaning tablea and stuff and only 1 girl taking orders even though the line was really long. Also, as nice as the girl taking orders was, (Jasmine) her way is TOO friendly. People ahead of us would order their meals and then she would go through it and then basically suggest other items to them or different ways to order them so that they could get a better deal or something. This is fine if you can be quick about it. But this was in addition to her constantly saying "all food is taking an extra 25 -30 minutes" and she would spend too much time going through the final orders and making comments "oh yeah churros. Nice. Yeah get you some churros. Eat some sugar." Etc etc but she wouldnt be closing out the order yet. So it hasnt been sent to the kitchen and its not paid for yet so the customers cant leave (therefore new customers cant come up to order). She was nice but a little tooo friendly.Also, they were out of medium and large cups for some reason and this isnt the 1st restaurant ive come across thats been out of larger sized cups. I always get Small meals so it doesnt bother me, but the frequency is making me concerned about why establishments keep opening back up if they arent stocked, staffed and prepared.Once I finally got my food (about 34 minutes after it finally went through), after all that wait, it wasnt good. I normally love Rubios but my rice was a mushy mess (I get California Bowls) and i got virtually no green salsa and the salmon looked like they intended to give me a whole piece and then decided it was too big and broke it up and gave me half (you could see the piece was grilled/blackened and then broken up because instead of being charred all around, the side was full salmon pink.
Friendly staff looks like they were short staffed as all we saw was two people working. The order taker guy was really hustling. He delivered our food to the table and asked if we needed any sauces or anything else. A great guy in a tough situation. The trash was overflowing but it was close to closing time so it was almost over for the team of two. The food was pretty good and cooked well. The guacamole was good with chips and didn't have any onions or extra seasoning to mess with the guac flavor it should have. Hope they have more staff in the future. We'll be back.