Restaurant Review – Boloco
by jandrews on Mar.28, 2009, under Restaurants
Before my trip to see MvA I decided I wanted lunch, and after seeing a few twitter posts from the Boloco CEO – John Pepper, it sounded like a good idea. Now I am not new to Boloco. The Givvy office was strategically placed in Framingham so that all 3 cofounders were of relative equal distance to the office. It just so happened that there was a Boloco restaurant conveniently located near the office, and it was often an easy place to get lunch.
Today I visited the store near The Boston Common. I walk in, at first it takes me a second to figure out which direction I have to walk to place my order. The store is laid out in such a way to maximize seating capacity for the location which like most places in the inner city is relatively small. A little signage would probably alleviated my moment confusion, but I’m a big boy, so no big deal. The line wasn’t very big and there were plenty of seats open when I walked in, I get up to the cashier an order a “build my own”. Now I do this mostly because I am a picky eater. I don’t generally eat a lot of vegetables and I limit what food I put cheese on. I start telling the cashier what I want, and when I say “that’s it” she goes oh that’s a classic, and instead of just leaving the thing in the system as a BYO, she goes back changes it to a classic and then removes everything I don’t want on it. Which in my mind seems like a HUGE waste of her time, but whatever I wasn’t going to argue with her about it as long as I got what I wanted. I watched carefully as my burrito was made. This is what I LOVE about most burrito restaurants is they make it in front of you, so you can see when they screw up, and Boloco has nice open view, so you just have to keep track of the number of burritos in front of you. One aspect I really like about Boloco is they ask you for your name at the counter. Why? Well, when you get to the pick up point the person says your name, and you don’t have to keep track of a number. Also, “Is that for her or to go James?”, “Don you need this James?”. In my mind it’s just nice to be a name to the employee and not a piece of paper with a number.
In the end I got the burrito I ordered. I still think it would have been easier for the cashier to just take my order as I gave it, but whatever water under the bridge. The Boston Common location is nice, it’s easy to find. They’ve got recycling set up so you can separate the recyclables from the non-recyclables. The signage was a little weird, I was trying to figure out what the item on the far right of the sign was (the tin foil wrapper). Wouldn’t hurt to have the word under what the items are (even though the other 2 were easily identifiable). I got a Boloco card, and was told I was only going to get it if I registered online (which I agreed to do). Not sure what that was about, but whichever.
The food is good, and service was good overall. I feel the chicken could use a little more flavoring, but I am sure the lack of vegetables has a lot to do with my perception. As long as they don’t spice it up like “Chipotle Grill’s” chicken, which tastes too much like texmex BBQ than a Latin flavored Burrito I’ll be happy. The price was $5.24 (really? you need to bring it down to the 24 and not just give it the 25? I never understood that). Which is $.25 more than what I was paying in Framingham. You also get considerably more burrito at other places for the same price or less, but in all honesty burritos from other places are usually more food than I can handle, so for me it’s no big deal, others might disagree. I’ll give it 3 out of 5 burritos. While I wouldn’t go out of my way to get food there, I also wouldn’t snuff it as a food option. Pretty much what I expected.
On a different note. Their website is not iPhone friendly as it uses Flash for the entire thing, which in my opinion as a professional web developer is bad. Unfortunately there is no alternative. It also places sounds as you navigate which can be annoying in a professional work setting, especially since there is no way to turn it off. I rate the website pretty poorly. Hope John has the marketing team fix it because it’d be nice to be able to a map to a local store if I wanted one while I was AFK.
March 28th, 2009 on 5:25 pm
James,
Thanks for the review. We get a lot of them. Some make us feel like world champs, some make us feel like closing down. But all mean that at least someone’s paying attention… and that’s never bad. And more importantly, we learn about ourselves… and that’s an awesome thing.
The $5.24 (and 6.19, etc.) is because when you add tax it comes out to an even $5.50 (and 6.50). Same with all of our prices. That said, because people don’t figure this out and seem to complain about it (since 1999 when we adopted it), its likely going to change in the coming months… maybe we can even adopt the classic end everything with a “9″ strategy… like gas stations!
Don’t know what was up with redoing the BYO… it was a waste of time to re-ring it, you are right (unless it saved you $, which it doesn’t appear that it did). And you don’t have to register your Boloco card… it’s just smart too. You miss out on too much stuff when you don’t register. It’s like giving up free.
We’re about 70% done with our new website, and our designers are all Iphone users… no worries. It will be super duper cool.
Thanks for the review. And do go again… there is a “5″ of 5 there for you… unless you don’t like top quality ingredients put together any way you choose. The stuff we buy really is the good stuff… you just have to get the concoction right when you do BYO. My wife is a pro, and pickier than hell (and grew up on Mission District burritos) so i know it can be done
Cheers,
John
PS. Send me that Boloco Card # and i’ll load one on there… we really do appreciate the feedback… helps more than you know (the restaurant already has it)
March 28th, 2009 on 7:54 pm
Hi John,
Thanks for the reply. The whole $5.24 thing totally makes sense now! I just needed someone to explain it. Maybe changing the signs to say that the price includes the tax and just make the price $5.50 on the signage. Just a thought.
You should probably know a little about my rating system. I almost never give anything a 5 of 5 or 10 of 10. I took a photography class (2hr one time seminar thing) through the Boston photography group. I gave it a 4 out of 5, and the BPG admin asked me “why only 4 why not 5?” I told her essentially if I just started handing out 5 of 5s to every thing that I enjoyed then there would be no way to say that I was “WOW”ed by something. 5s are strictly reserved for things that really wow me. Think of it this way 1 and 2 are below average and 3 an 4 are above average, and 5 is OMG! Which for me are rare. I have pretty high expectations.
I am extremely happy to hear that there is a new website on the way. I’ll keep my eye out for the announcement that it’s up!
I did register my card, I would have anyway, but I wouldn’t have known too if she hadn’t said something. No worries.
I also sent you my Boloco Card # via DM on twitter as “thenetimp” (which is my persona on most networks).
Thanks,
James
PS. Thanks for the reply and retweet, trying to get readers to the blog when the WWW is full of them is going to be a difficult task, but I am sure I will shine!
March 28th, 2009 on 7:57 pm
John,
Why do you feel the need to stalk people? I’ve noticed you have the need to stick your nose in everyone’s business. Everyone doesn’t need to like Boloco, or need to hear your feedback.
March 29th, 2009 on 1:38 am
Well to be fair I did kind of make it his business when I wrote the review. I didn’t say I didn’t like Boloco, I just had some opinions about it, and when someone in power has the chance to read my opinions and possibly act on them to make my experience better in the future it’s a win for everyone in my opinion. It’s also nice to see a CEO of a company actually take an active interest in what people think about there company. A lot of CEOs these days don’t seem to care what the little guy thinks, so it’s nice too see he cares what people think. Don’t be too hard on him, he’s only trying to do what’s right for business and I can respect that.
James
March 29th, 2009 on 4:47 am
Hey guys,
James, thanks for the responses and the support on this last note.
Michelle, James has it right. I appreciated what he wrote, because if a CEO can’t respond to feedback, then we are all in big trouble. If you can imagine this, i am the CEO of only one of the thousands of companies I, as a consumer, have to interact with at any given time. Most of my time is spent just like you and everyone else… being a customer. As a customer, i know how terrible or non-existent, in general, responses can be from customers when a mediocre or terrible (or even great) experience has been had… I just decided many years ago to make sure Boloco wasn’t one of those.
I hear your point, though. And if others read this blog, i would love to get some feedback on whether they believe we (CEOs and other company reps who actually care about their company and their customers) should actively engage in conversation or whether we should just watch from the sidelines and say nothing. I think you’d be amazed at the response
Cheers,
John
March 29th, 2009 on 4:48 am
woops, typo.
“customers” should say “companies”
i know how terrible or non-existent, in general, responses can be from COMPANIES when a mediocre or terrible (or even great) experience has been had… I just decided many years ago to make sure Boloco wasn’t one of those.
March 29th, 2009 on 1:14 pm
As much as I really don’t like Boloco’s food, I much prefer Chipotle, I must agree with John. He has every right to respond to comments, as our right to leave them.
March 30th, 2009 on 12:56 am
See I have an entirely different look at chipotle. While I love the fact they season their chicken. I don’t care that it tastes like Old Elpaso taco mix. I live at the lower end of Winter Hill near Sullivan station. It is Latin central. Taco Loco down the street, Mexican Grill, and a couple other Taquerias. I know what an authentic burrito should taste like (I eat a lot of them). Chipotle does not even come close.
March 30th, 2009 on 10:39 am
The problem I have with Boloco is they don’t really know what they want to be. Chipotle isn’t Mexican, it’s Tex/Mex, and really good T/M at that! I’m actually a big fan of Taco Loco! Have you ever tried Tacos Lupita?
March 30th, 2009 on 3:19 pm
I have not tried Tacos Lupita, is that the one over near Somerville Ave in Porter square?
April 1st, 2009 on 3:14 pm
I guess I’m not the only one bothered by Boloco’s outreach.
http://twitter.com/kymacdonald/status/1432277217
April 3rd, 2009 on 11:19 am
Yes! It’s just beyond Porter Square. I think you’ll really like it.