Phoenix Grille

This place is the campus equivalent of a tourist trap. I only come here out of desperation in times of academic overload for the simple sake of not starving to death. I haven’t gotten a single thing here that has been truly delicious nor of any sort of acceptable quality. The breads are stale, the meat tastes old, and the vegetables for salads, burgers, and the Mexican food seem expired. It’s also understaffed and the employees that are there are very poorly trained, so you’ll be like one of two customers and you’ll still wait 10 minutes. The employees behind the counter sometimes see you and turn their back on you and continue to do their own thing. Other employees don’t seem to know how to multitask, so they won’t start to fire up another burger until the one from the previous customer is completely finished and out the door. It’s just so frustrating because they charge outrageous prices for the lack of service and taste-​less foods they provide. The only good way to describe this place is a rip off.

The taco salad is acceptable… It’s campus food. The A/​C is always turned too low (as in it gets warm) or something, the building has a lot of glass which, when combined with sunlight, seems to create a bit of a greenhouse effect. Must just be me, though, no one seems to complain about it.

Man so many wrongs in this place. This is the first one star I’ve ever given but the ordering is awkward, the workers are unprofessional and confused, and the food quality is not good. The only up side is a nice atmosphere to study but even then… The burger was worse than brandywine burgers. Cmon guys I paid good money for this. Overall it will leave you disappointed

Phoenix grille is currently operating like a government service that doesn’t really give a shit about whether or not they have your business, and only exists to do the bare minimum.
The last time I was there, the employee working at the grille took about 8 consecutive orders and then went on break without starting any of them. It took about 5 – 10 minutes for the rest of the staff to realize nothing was getting made, followed by a mad scramble in which the food got made in a random order — which really sucked for me because I was that front of that line. About 20 – 25 min later I finally got my cheesesteak with 0 apology whatsoever. Any decent competitive business would be throwing free stuff at you left and right after shenanigans like that, but that clearly is not what we are dealing with here.
Icing on the cake was that the cheesesteak was so gross and soggy that I had to bust out a knife and fork so I wouldn’t be shoveling handfuls of beef into my mouth.
Bottom line is that even if you’re already on campus, it’s worth the 10 extra minutes round trip to get to any of the businesses at UTC instead.

Average bland food. Pricing isn’t the most student friendly, but still a good option if utc is too far.

Decent food on campus, better than the cafeteria fast food that is for sure! The mexican food is better than most as well.

PROS:
— The sandwiches are OK.
— They have cold ready-​made food if you don’t have time to wait.
CONS:
— It is located on the UCI campus so it is not convenient if you’re not a student here. You have to pay to park in the structure.

I’ve been eating at this place here and there for the last three years when I have no time to go eat somewhere else. Let me tell you, this place is the most crappy eating establishment in Irvine. The only reason why I visit this place is because I’m usually so freaking hungry I absolutely have to or else I will faint.
Let me tell you should never eat at this place:
1) The food is not fresh at all, here’s how I imagine they run their stock room: They buy the produce, put it in a fridge for a month until it goes bad, takes it out, then cooks it. You know they can actually advertise everything here as «AGED». I once found mold growing on the fruit cup that I bought.
2) There is absolutely no uniqueness to the food. It’s just your everyday American cafeteria food. Which would be OK, but everything here tastes like poop. How can you mess up fries? I don’t know, but they do. How can you mess up a taco salad? I don’t know, but they do. How do you mess up hamburgers? I don’t know, but they do.
3) The price is ridiculous, absolutely ridiculous. $ 2 for a bottle of water? $ 10 for some machine made «sushi»? $ 8 for a crappy salad?
4) The service here is the worst. Slow, rude, and empty-​headed. They have messed up my order 90% of the time. Don’t want your sandwich cut? Too bad. Don’t want onions? Too bad. Running late for class? Too bad, wait 15 minutes for them to cook a freaking hamburger.
OK so basically you get my drift. Just never ever ever ever eat here.

I frequent the Phoenix (3 – 4 times a week!) because it’s conveniently located, the Student Center is usually too crowded at lunch time, and the eateries at the UTC are quite a walk.
The food at Phoenix usually does the job — Mexican is decent (though I’d prefer my onions/​peppers sauteed a little and not raw and my guac a little more on the avocado-​y side and not so much on the additives, thanks!), the burger place seems popular (though not my thing), and the salad joint has some nice options. I almost always get the wrap there and the woman who is usually there around lunch time can roll you a big ol’ stuffed wrap like nobody’s business. Every time I think, «There’s no way she’s going to make that work,» and she does! Awesome lady.
I also grab some sushi now and then. Sure it’s pre-​made, but as long as you stick to the right options it’s okay (and cheap).
My one real irritation with Phoenix is Einstein’s. Every time I’ve ordered there the service has been slow or nonexistent. I’ve even stood around, in plain sight and looking impatient, while the employees and/​or manager chit-​chatted. I’m also not a fan of the food. It usually seems manufactured and is put together sloppily by the staff. I made the mistake of getting a breakfast bagel sandwich once and, not only did they get my order wrong, it seemed as if the egg was microwaved. Gross. Thankfully there are better places to eat in Phoenix!

Phoenix grill is actually one of my favorite places to eat on campus :)
During my last four years at UC Irvine, I have came here to study, hang out, and wait out for traffic… ohhhh! and to eat! of course :) hahaha
Phoenix has a great variety of foods to choose from:
— Einstein Bros: awesome bagels. I even like their bagel thin sandwiches. I especially like the bagel sandwich on asiago, or asiago thin, with egg, swiss and mushroom OR egg, swiss, and asparagus. however sometimes they run out of asparagus and substitute it for spinach. and their workers are bipolar
–Tortilla Fresca: so to me this place is like a mexican food bar… it has breakfast sandwiches, sometimes tacos, sometimes burrito bowl… add whatever you like to it! what can go wrong :)
— Grill Works: burgers freshly made with whatever you want in the middle. my favorite is the bacon, mushroom and swiss burger :) with lettuce, tomatoes, and pickles. no onion! haha… and they also have fries, onion rings, and other sandwiches…
— Salad bar: regular salad or pasta salad, hand tossed! yummmyy! throw in whatever you want :)
— Others: they have a fridge on the side: it has sandwiches, sushi, etc…
And they also have a variety of beverages… Soda, juice, energy drinks, icee, etc … even those ‘asian drinks’ like the aloe stuff and calpico

Oh Phoenix grille.
I don’t blame you for your glorious mediocrity. I imagine that any excellence you might show is immediately squeezed from you by the combination of the campus concessions monopoly and the relative budget tightness of recent years.
The employees here are not to blame — they do the best job they can under the rigid pricing structure and oversight of the campus. It’s tough to make mass processed Mexican food exciting when you are massively overcharging for it.
I’d love to give you an alternate campus dining option that surpasses Phoenix but this is the sad reality… there is none better. Time for another trek to the university center. Who wants In n Out?

One of my favorite places to eat at UCI. It does get pretty busy and packed during peak hours, so the wait for the grill could be longer, but the food is pretty worth it. usually anything at the grill is great. Always get a traditional cheeseburger and fries. Also, their tacos and tacos combo at the Mexican food place is really good and well priced, in terms of UCI. The salads are alright I like the pasta place in the student center more. And Einstein’s bagels, while not quite up to par as a regular store, still pretty good for breakfast.
Everyone should try this place. Just not all at the same time, like at lunch or something. I don’t want to wait that long.

Tortilla Fresca’s breakfast burrito makes me sick once, shame on it.
Tortilla Fresca’s breakfast burrito makes me sick twice, shame on me.
Tortilla Fresca’s breakfast burrito makes me sick three times… WHY AM I STILL COMING HERE?!
Einstein Brothers serves watery sugar instead of hot chocolate once, shame on it.
Einstein Brothers serves watery sugar… you get the picture.
Burger from Grille Works tastes, feels and looks like a hockey puck once… OK, OK.
You know what? Just skip it.

I come here for one thing only: the taco salad
One autumn night during my freshman year, I strolled over to Phoenix Grill from Middle Earth with three friends. For most of us, it was our first time to this place and once arriving, we immediately knew what we wanted to get: taco salads. This is one of my favorite mexican dishes and I found it incredibly delicious! Since the first time I’ve had a taco salad here (which was the first time I ate a taco salad period), this has been my place to go whenever I wanted to grab a guilty snack, something that I could eat whenever I was having a bad day and it always made me feel better. A drug, but nonetheless a good drug :]
An inexpensive price and plenty of seats. I just wish the service was a little brighter and vibrant. but its understandable. we can forgive it :]

Okay, honestly I feel like Phoenix Grill’s hours are always so awkward and change way too often.
There are 2 – 3 main kinds of food you can get here, as well as foods (prepackaged) that you find at Zot-​n-​Go, etc.
The problem though? They don’t have enough employees working.
.So what happens?
Go at lunchtime and you willl be stuck there waiting for quite some while.
The veggies of the salad bar aren’t as fresh as those at the student center, neither. It is just because there is less of a people flow and the veggies don’t get replenished as fast.

A better place for studying. The food here, at least when I was in school here, was just similar to that of Pippin… or maybe a step or two above.
Either way — cafeteria style food with unenthusiastic workers — which I get. I read that the workers contracted for these jobs are just paid terribly and are non-​unionized or something… either way, I empathize for them!
Good place to study, but terrible operating hours.

My rating here is relative to other places to eat on campus at UC Irvine… so that’s saying a lot if this place is substandard to those other places. The food here is outrageously priced, and not very good to boot. They have «Einstein Bros. Bagels» here that taste like they were baked a week ago. The burgers are decent, and the pizza is dripping with cholesterol. The Mexican food could use some serious work.
I rarely come here anymore… I actually prefer the grill at BC’s (
) to this place.

Back in the day before they finished building the new Student Center, this place and BC’s Cavern on the Green were the ONLY places to eat besides the dorms. No Panda, no Wendy’s no Wahoo’s…nothing. Since I lived in Middle Earth, it only took me a couple of minutes to walk down here to grab something to eat. It was dead at nighttime, so it was a great place to avoid the dinner crowds at Brandywine and Pippin. Better yet, they accepted the Zot Bucks that came with my meal plan so I didn’t have to pay anything.
I’d usually a burger or a chicken sandwich here. They have some combo meals that make it a better deal now, but this place is still a little overpriced for what you get. They made an attempt at carne asada fries one time that turned out pretty distastrous, but I guess at least they tried. There’s also an Einstein Bros. bagels here that sells regular bagels w/​cream cheese and other bagel sandwiches. My favorite was always the smoked salmon (lox) bagel.
Good place to study in between classes if you’re a Social Science major, but it does get crowded and sometimes it’s hard to find an outlet for your laptop. They’re not the most efficient here when it gets busy either… I’ve had to wait a good 20 – 25 minutes just to get a burger here. Now that there’s so many other options to choose from on campus I suppose this place would be less appealing, but I’m thankful that I had this place as an option while I lived in the dorms!

Sooo… writing this review while sitting in here actually.
This place was the BEST place to go freshman year when we were SICk of Pips and Brandywine. grilled cheese is only appetizing for so long…
This was before the days of the student center, so phoenix grille was a godsend. zotbucks were accepted so i would get my bad fast food sushi fix and greasy burrito fix here.
HOWEVER, after revisiting today, three years later, i must say it’s not that great anymore. It’s lost the special lure that it had freshman year, and everything is just so-​so greasy campus food. The «burrito» is just a greasy mess, and the burgers are your average burger. Although, i must say the chicken fingers on a good day are especially juicy and tasty, and the curly fries when extra fresh can be delicious.
Overall, if you’re stuck on campus and need a quiet place to get homework done, or kill some time while grabbing a bite, it’s a good stop. Lot’s of free outlets, which is a plus, when needing to stay on campus for a while. :)

4 stars for letting me be able to catch most of the presidential inauguration before my second morning class. I was hoping the main TV wouldn’t be focused on sports like they do every day. Definite bonus. I’m sort of craving for a good burger from here.
My last review was harsh, but it was the beginning of the school year, they have rough patches. You’d still be able to find a good salad, burger, or even a taco salad if you get the chance. I just wouldn’t recommend the strawberry muffins here. It won’t really get you wired on sugar, just sick from excessive amounts of it.