Baja Fresh

Unfortunately THEY ARE NOW CLOSED! As of Dec 8^th 2009

Considering it’s fast food, considering it’s cheap, and considering it’s a chain:
It’s pretty damn good fast food from a chain and for this price.
Plus the salsas are fresh and they have some unique flavors.
Love the fish tacos. I never ever somehow leave with just getting one. I always have to get another one.
Ruins my diet though.

I have not been here in ages. Managed to talk The Mother into going here instead of McDonalds. Given a choice between the two, this place is healthier. As long as you know how to maneuver the menu and you know exactly what you want, you should be just fine.
The gentleman who took our order was very kind to The Mother and me. He asked us to let him know when we were ready to place our order. The Mother appreciated that.
Sorry to hear others have had a bad experience with this place.. .I will be here sporadically. Hope the concerns were called to their corporate office. If I were in their shoes, I would call corporate regarding their experiences.

Extra cheese? Yes. Enchillado style? Of course.
I like the veggie burrito. And the baja salsa is really really good.
The tostada salad is OK. The salad holder is edible and really crunchy but sometimes when I go, the lettuce is not very fresh.

I’ve never had Baja Fresh until yesterday. My colleague and I went to pick up 12 burritos for a meeting and I was stunned by what I saw.
While the manager treated my white colleague with a lot of respect by having her to skip the line, handing her a bunch of napkins, asking questions to assure her satisfaction, he was also completely rude and condescending to the African American customers in the store. His tone and use of language was completely the opposite and unacceptable. Furthermore, he wouldn’t acknowledge that he had make a mistake for charging one of them $ 16 for one burrito and two drinks. According to the customer, the order was supposed to be two burritos, and that sounded more accurate when you put the math together. However, the manager responded by telling the customer that he had to pay in order to get another burrito.
While this is happening, my colleague took out an old receipt that no one can read what’s on it anymore, and pointed to the manager that he had forgotten to include guacamole in the last order. His reply was, «How many containers would you like, one or two?»
My colleague then told him that he had previously promised a 50% discount for this purchase, and he immediately took her word for it even though it was not stated on her previous receipt.
Food wise, I had the ultimo chicken burrito and thought it was a bit dry. It definitely needed salsa and guacamole to make it worth while. I must say that their salsa is very flavorful and fresh, but the brown sauce that was given to us was too salty and needed a hint of smoke.
Definitely not going back to support this business and I’m going to tell others to do the same.

The Good: The food here is fast and affordable and they don’t use MSG! Service is friendly as well. Good variety of fresh salsas, including a new (mild) Mango Salsa with chunks of sweet mango!
The Bad: Last time I came here (tonight), I was reminded of why I used to not really like «Mexican» food. I had two Americano tacos – one Chicken and one Pork Carnitas, and I have to say… they tasted kind of funny! Chipotle’s tacos are so much better and fresher :/​
The flavoring for the meat was just not good. The sauce on the Pork Carnitas was so strong and funky tasting that I ended up removing it from my taco… couldn’t take it anymore after a few bites.
Also, Baja Fresh needs to go Green. I had «For here» and everything was served on paper, and there was no recycling bin.
Props to Baja Fresh for having their Nutritional Information online though. That is brave. Especially considering that their Cheese Quesadilla contains 1200 calories (1430 for Charbroiled Steak Quesadilla). Yikes.

I go to Baja Fresh way more often than I would like to admit in good company. In some respects it’s an embarrassing secret.
Here’s the thing about it though. When you make a purchase at Baja Fresh, there is a little print out on the bottom of the coupon to save $ 2 off on your next purchase. Here’s how it works. You take the receipt. You have 30 days to go to this website and take a short multiple choice survey about your experience. You get a 5 digit code. You write that code down on the receipt. Based on experimentation that I have done, this code is a monotonic increasing sequence, so if you’ve filled out a survey recently you can just add a hundred or so to the last code you got and you’ll be reasonably close to the correct number (and it’s not like the people there check the code closely anyway).
The deal is for $ 2 off a purchase of $ 8 or more but in my experience they don’t really care as long as you’ve spent more than $ 5 or so (also, I believe the deal used to be $ 2 off a purchase of $ 5 or so, so maybe no one noticed when they changed the fine print). So basically that makes Baja Fresh about the cheapest Mexican food you can get. You come in, get a $ 6 burrito, knock off $ 2, and repeat.
Now, there’s a price you pay for this. Specifically, this particular location seems to be a magnet for homeless people and the deranged. Almost every time I come here at night a homeless person will come in and start haggling with the cashiers or try to get change from the patrons. And on a recent visit a pimp with two high school looking girls was being loud and obnoxious, arguing with the staff about who knows what, loudly telling everyone not to tell the cops he was there, and generally causing a nuisance. And so on. So if that’s not really your scene you should skip out on this Baja Fresh (at least this location). But if you want to eat cheaply, Baja Fresh is a good option.

This place gave me bad doo doo

It’s not rubios.

I used to like Baja Fresh until one day I came to this one that changed my mind.
The nachos were gross and my boyfriend’s burrito was bland. I could’ve made it at home (put some nachos on a plate, slather with cheese, microwave, add really dry chicken, tomatoes, beans, sour cream and guac) and for the price he paid, we should’ve gone down the street to Razan’s Organic Kitchen.
Slow service, too!

This is exactly the same as every other Baja Fresh: Awesome.
A little crowded at lunch time but you can still get your food pretty quickly. There’s just not a lot of room to stand while you wait.
If you haven’t been to a Baja Fresh, GO! You’re wasting your life away, you pathetic recluse.
If you have been, GO AGAIN!
I don’t know why I’m feeling so totalitarian right now. Maybe my awesome Baja Burrito con carnitas empowered me.

After a lifetime of effortless thin, based on a combination of lucky genes and an early career in ballet, so much so that at the age of 39 I had to intentionally GAIN weight to make it easier to get pregnant, I have suddenly had my comeuppance. A couple of years ago I began to expand while so much as LOOKING at food, and even a diet of lettuce leaves and lemon juice leaves me a pound or two heavier each month.
Fortunately, I used to wear my clothes very loose, which means that some of them are still wearable, although now skin tight. Given that I really can’t afford a whole new wardrobe, I am on a new campaign to only eat crappy food, so that I’m not tempted to overindulge.
This would be an excellent place to start.
Whatever passes for a tortilla here tastes more like stale pita. Perhaps it was my own fault for trying to choose something somewhat healthy (while on foot, with only 10 minutes in which to eat), and therefore opting for something called the Chicken Caesar Salad Burrito. sigh. What was I thinking?
The garlic powder they used made my poor co-​workers and young charges blanch when I breathed their way later that day. It was just on the edge of a hold-​your-​nose-​while-​you-​scarf-​it-​down-​experience. It’s enough to make you miss the downtown Taco Bell.
ugh.
There — now you can’t say I only give 4 & 5 star reviews.

If you’re stranded in Berkley like I was yesterday, they offer plenty of food for a reasonable price. It was just under 20 bucks for 2 people to eat (we ordered waters so that was free).
The spicy burrito was spicy enough but not hot. It was plenty big. Their chips were ok.
They accepted credit cards and had a salsa bar that was confusing at first. Great for groups and a large location with tons of seating.
Their restrooms required a key so you’ll have to ask of that.

You guys know how much I dread coming to downtown Berkeley — it’s so depressing — though the new Cody’s may bring some positive mojo, let’s hope and pray.
Anyway, whenever I have to be here for any reason and I need to get my grub on, I always hit Baja Fresh and get the tasty fish taco platter and a side of hot nacho cheese.
Their salsas are good, the other customers aren’t too freaky, and the prices are very affordable. I never regret coming here, put it that way.
Oh and sometimes on your receipt there is a code to get $ 2 off your next meal by filling out a web survey. Check that out.

Sloppy, sloppy, sloppy. Expect random chunks of meat, beans, or cheese in your order. This is disastrous if you’ve got any sort of dietary restrictions (dairy free? vegan? got an allergy to beans? watch out!) on these items. Food was ok, but I’m never going back after repeated instances of this. Who knows what other sorts of unsanitary practices go on here.
Luckily, around the corner is delicious Cancun (the salsas!), a few blocks down Shattuck is High Tech Burrito, and if you head up to Telegraph you’ve got Chipotle and La Burrita nearby. There’s plenty of Mexican in Berkeley. Stay away from Baja Fresh.
Oh, and the company doesn’t seem to care. I’ve mentioned it to a blank stare from a cashier and never gotten a response to a comment via their website’s form.

What is wrong with me? I like Boston Market AND Baja Fresh — does that mean I need help?
Hell with it, I like what I like. The sad thing is that Berkeley has such crappy Mexican food, that I was actually driven to try Baja Fresh to begin with. They get one demerit because their carnitas suck donkeys, but I honestly crave their steak burritos. More places should grill their tortillas instead of steaming them, it makes the burrito so much tastier.
Not authentic, duh, but still satisfies when I need a fix o’ salty Cal-​Mex.

I like Baja Fresh.
It’s way better than LaBurrita, which is it’s only competition in my book.
You kinda have to know what to order but this is a nice, clean, consistent, reliable place to get some nachos and/​or a burrito.
They give me coupons just about every time I get something. I like that.
It’s nothing fancy, but it’s a decent place to get some lunch when you are on the go. Plus, I like the mango salsa.

I find Baja Fresh a convenient place to eat in downtown Berkeley. Not authentic but decent enough. There aren’t a lot of veggie choices but you can get a veggie burrito, quesadilla or salad, as well as guacamole and chips.
They seem to change their menu often; not necessarily new and improved. (Some veggie favorites have disappeared forever).
Their HIGH stools and HIGH tables drive me nuts. I’ve never liked having to climb UP to sit DOWN. They only have a few regular tables that are usually full. (Okay, maybe only stumpy 5’2″ gals like me complain about this kind of furniture).
The staff who works here always seems to be friendly. I appreciate that! It is one of the few non-​fancy places in downtown that has bathrooms! Thank you!
They just added chocolate chip cookies and churros to their menu.
(Now that IS new and improved). They made the churros fresh so they were hot and crunchy and sweet. Yum!

I used to go here from time to time, grabbing their burrito ultimo. I thought it wasn’t bad, that it sure beats La Burrita. Then, I began to notice that their quality is inconsistent. There was one time when their carne asada was extremely dried up; which I’m guessing that they were using leftover scrap meat because they ran out. That shit wasn’t fresh.
I gave it one more chance and the next time I went late at night, they gave me another horrible burrito: excessive cheese, no sour cream. Damn gross.

I’ll venture to say that Baja Fresh is some of the best-​tasting corporate fast food in America. The Burrito Ultimo, with roasted peppers and onions is very tasty, as is the vegetarian burrito. The salsa Baja is great and so is the hot red. But their advantage over almost every Bay Area burrito shops is they know to heat the tortilla on the grill for a toasty flavor and not steam it into a mushy glob of gushing gluten.
I must agree with other reviewers, Baja Fresh IS getting a little pricey and the white and back tile décor is too stark and clean. But the food is always good.