South St. Burger — Restaurant in Calgary

I walked into South St. Burger today for the first time today, around 12:00pm on a Friday afternoon in a busy shopping area. The place was deserted. You might soon learn why.

I went up to the register and ordered 2 hot dogs, 1 fries and 1 bottle of water. After punching a few items into the till, the employee asked me if I wanted fries with the order. I told him that I wanted 2 hot dogs, 1 fries and 1 bottle of water.

The employee punched in one hot dog and a combo fries/drink line item. All ordered items are visible to patrons via a screen facing them. He asked me what I wanted on the hot dog. I said mustard, relish, ketchup, onions, then I went over to the toppings area to see what else was available. I added banana peppers and jalapeno peppers. The employee punched in onions and the two types of peppers. He asked if that was it. I reminded him of the mustard, relish and ketchup. He punched in relish and ketchup and asked me if that was it. I asked again for the mustard. He punched that in.

The employee then left the till to go ask a colleague for assistance. The colleague was busily filling basket after basket of fries to be ready for a quick drop into the fryer. She was filling the baskets from a garbage pail size container. I was surprised that she was preparing so many fries in so many baskets when there was not one single patron in the restaurant. Not one. She came back to the till with her colleague and she entered a few things on the till, not sure what they were. She left. He smiled at me and said that he was sorry, he was in training. No problem. I get it. He's been left alone to fend for himself with limited, poor training. That's not his fault, that's management's fault.

The employee asked me if that was all. I said:

"OK, so just a reminder that the order is for 2 hot dogs, 1 fries and 1 bottle of water". He punched in the second hot dog. And again he started the process of inputting the same toppings, after I told him that both hot dogs would be dressed the same. It was painful watching him double up his work by manually entering a second hot dog with the 6 separate toppings, rather than changing the original 1 hot dog to 2. Once that was done, the total came up on the screen and there was suddenly a second fries/drink combo item. He told me the total, which was now well above the anticipated amount with the additional fries/drink combo that I didn't order.

So I again reminded the employee: "So to start from the beginning, I would like 2 hot dogs, 1 fries and one bottle of water". The employee didn't know what to do. He again went to get his colleague to help him. She returned to the till, smiled at me and said: "Sorry, he is in training". I asked her: "Who is training him?". She didn't answer.

After another minute or so of messing around on the till, she proceeded to add and remove a various number of items, reducing the order to one hot dog and one fries/drink combo. She then hit a button, the till spit out a piece of paper which she crumpled up, and the screen was reset to take a fresh new order.

At this point, I told them that I had been trying to give my order for over 7 minutes. I said that I didn't have any more time for this and I left.

Part of the pain and drawn-out nature of the failed transaction was a tremendous linguistic barrier. The employee's grasp of the English language is poor. I had to repeat many things, and had to ask him to repeat many things so that I could understand what he was saying. That has to be tough on a customer-facing service industry employee.

I won't be going back there.

Part 2 - Owner posts a comment with email address to follow up with them. I send my email to them several times. The email keeps failing, it is...

Disgusting. The employees could not make a burger! They were doing their best with what I'm pretty sure was no training at all. All my burgers had the cheese against the crown of the bun, above the lettuce. On my father's burger they loaded it with everything on the top and a dry bottom(ketchup on top of the lettuce, wtf!). On my mom's mustard and mayo were both placed on the bottom with nothing on the crown but the tomatoes, lettuce and cheese. After attempting to communicate with their poor frightened staff to correct the aforementioned issues my parents gave up and ordered something different for myself that would be easier to make.

And it was still disgusting. I have worked in fast food for seven years and I was a swing at McDonald's for three years ending Dec 2012. Allow me to say wow, just wow: Your meat tasted of waste grease. It tastes as if it's been hot held way too long in a dirty container; you need to clean your grill between batches of patties and whatever you're holding them in needs to be cleaned every four hours like everything else does by law.

I really hope you do not use a CVAP. So many fast food workers are amazed when they learn that it does need to be cleaned and not just refilled with water every day. It takes a long time sitting in old grease to make patties taste as they did tonight, that is one thing I can say for sure.

You have to mess up big in a lot of ways to give someone an experience like this. YOU SHOULD NOT BE OPEN LIKE THIS. It's unfair to your staff that you've thrown them into this without training. It's a liability if they make someone sick.

I will not be back and I will be advising others to avoid you. While the burger was certainly gag-worthy at least I didn't acquire real food poisoning, and I would like to keep...

Tuesday after work, my boyfriend took me to Walmart to buy some groceries. After that, we had a dinner at South St. Burger, which is across the street from Walmart. It was our first time trying the food at this place.

Environment:

South St. Burger is a local burger restaurant, which has so many locations in Calgary. The one we’ve been, located on 130 Ave SE, Calgary, which is right across the street from Walmart. Outside look, it is a small restaurant. Inside the restaurant, it’s middle size. We arrived this place around 6 pm on the weekday, so it was empty inside the restaurant. The menu is on the big screen on the wall. The customers could see it once they walk to the front desk. There are no many burgers selection on the menu. But, people can create their own burgers at this restaurant.

Service:

The same as many other fast food restaurants, such as KFC, A&W, and McDonald’s, we ordered the food at the front. After food is ready, the servers brought the food to the table. Besides that, people could also pick the toppings for their burgers.

Food:

We ordered two burgers with fries, onion rings, and pop. The food came out kitchen fast, fresh, and well cooked. Two burgers sauces were tasty and awesome. But, I do not really like the meat patties. They tasted a little bit overcooked. Fries were decent. The onion rings tasted different from other restaurants. This restaurant has used purple onions for the onion rings. The onion rings were crisp and delicious. Both fries and onion rings were very small portions.

Price:

This place is a little bit expensive. We had two burgers, fries, onion rings and pops....