Pollo Campero

I loved it. I’ve had both the grilled and the fried and they are both delicious.
The beans Yumm! The rice was also amazing, and the fried plantain is just delicious!
But the cole slaw is just cabbage and mayo and Not good at all.
Oh the chipotle sauce is also really good.
Giving only 4 stars because the parking lot is so trashy and there was broken glass everywhere.

Grilled or fried, either way, the chicken is awesome. This place is a favorite for our whole office. Nobody can stop eating it! And the empanadas are killer, too. These guys know how to take care of a crowd. I haven’t ever eaten in the restaurant, but I hear that makes for an interesting experience, as well. For now, I will make due with eating it in our office.

Love the Latin style fried chicken, campero rice and beans… AWESOME! A little more expensive but probably up there with popeyes prices but definitely a competitor

Woo Hoo! Pollo Campero came to Austin! Now if they could get out of a gas station and into their own store it would get five stars! It is the best fried chicken on the planet. The sides are great also. we went with the Campero Beans and Yuca Fries. My wife is obsessed with the sauces for the empanadas. Did I mention the empanadas? They’re fantastic! The location is a little weird inside a gas station, but don’t let that scare you away from the best fried chicken on the planet!

First, let’s talk about location. My fellow partner-​in-​pollo said that «It seems like each of these places is trying to one-​up each other on who can come up with the most ridiculous location». Too true. This location shares a building with a convenience store/​laundromat combination. Wacky.
Got here around 9pm and they didn’t have any grilled chicken so I got fried chicken. I’d say it was on par with KFC, which is fine, I guess.
The campero beans were delicious, however. Among Campero, Regio, and Rico, Campero’s beans are the clear winner.
I want to come back and try the grilled chicken but, until then, this place is just average and I’d skip the fried chicken.
Update — went back today around 630pm (as in 21 hours after my previous review) and, fortunately (er, sort of) they had grilled chicken ready to serve.
Let’s cover some key differences between Campero and Regio/​Rico. Campero charges 49 cents less but also doesn’t give you awesome green sauce or rice. The rice I can live without but the green sauce is a problem. Campero takes credit cards, though, so that’s a plus.
Additionally, the citrus-​grilled chicken at Campero is a little too true to its name, for my taste. Your palette is overwhelmed with salt and citrus. I like citrus as much as the next guy, just as long as the next guy isn’t a cook at Campero, evidently.
Campero does score some points for how juicy the breast meat was. Although the flavor wasn’t as good, the breast was much less dry than Campero’s peers.
Overall, my 3-​star rating remains unchanged. El Reggio serves a superior product but I think that Campero might be slightly better than Pollo Rico. It does have the best beans of the three, though.

We tried the grilled chicken and the fried chicken — both were great! The yuca fries are worth getting also (try the Campero sauce with them — it’s seems to be their version of mayoketchup). We’ve tried some of the new fried chicken places in Austin (more along the hipster scene) and none of them make fried chicken as good as this. Like the previous person said — the grilled chicken has an interesting spice rub, along with a very nice citrus flavor. The chicken empanadas are worth getting — nicely moist and mildly spicy. I’ve been there twice in the last week — the second time to get a whole grilled chicken and try the empanadas. We didn’t like the other sides as much as the yuca — the beans and the rice were OK, a bit on the dry side, and the cole slaw had a nice flavor but too heavy on the mayo. Even though the place is in a combination convenience store, laundromat, and bus station, there are a couple of places to eat there: a couple of tables outside and more tables in a separate room inside. Don’t let this description dissuade you — if you like fried chicken, check this place out! Get it to go — it’s still delicious after it’s a cooled down a bit.

Pollo Campero is a chicken joint that started in Guatemala, and I can see why it’s spreading. Their grilled chicken is along the lines of Regio – wonderfully moist with a very interesting spice rub. They serve it by the quarter, half, or full chicken. I just brought home a quarter and am fighting the temptation to go get the remaining three-​fourths! The Campero beans are also good. Like Regio and similar places, they serve it up with tortillas and a lime slice, but they have a wider selection of sides.
They also serve fried chicken, empanadas, and bowls. They even have yucca fries, which I can’t wait to try. Their online menu lists possible allergens in their food. It’s rare to find a place that tells you upfront which items have MSG – which makes me really sick, so I appreciate the heads-​up! The fried chicken looked really tempting, but since it’s listed as having MSG, the rest of you will have to taste it for me.
The counter is inside a convenience store on St John east of 35. There’s even a laundromat attached, and apparently, a flea market on the weekends.