Popeyes Louisiana Kitchen — Restaurant in Ontario

This Popeyes location is something to behold. I frequent Popeyes quite a bit all over the GTA, and have been to good locations and bad locations with a wide mix in between. Nothing quite as uniquely poorly managed as this one though. Its actually staggering and if I was involved in Franchise Management, this would be a textbook example of when to strip a franchise of its licensing rights. The way it is run is doing extensive damage to the brand (and it is the only location is a fair distance too). I would actually make the call to shut down this location immediately, the situation is that drastic and systemic.

The food quality is poor compared to Popeyes standards but sadly that is far from the real concern here. The cheapness of the owner is evident and in your face in almost every micro decision this location makes and while it obviously directly impacts the food (how often they change the oils, the cleanliness etc), what kills me the most is the lack of logic in midst of profit. It's like if you are going to be that greedy, that pathetic and small when it comes to shaving cents off your customer experience, at least be smart or rationale about it. But they can't even manage to do that. Below are two examples that highlight the absurdity of how they operate. Small examples to be sure, but make no mistake it permeates everything they do and is hardwired into every employee that works there and you can see it and feel it.

For example 1 - the location refuses to serve the spicy mayo as a side sauce for tenders. It's not a button option on the register. Ok, well charge me for 3 buffalo sauces then. Ill pay for it. Charge me double that. Charge me whatever you WANT. I don't care, Ill pay for the sauce. I don't care how you ring it up. Oh no, we cant do that. Not only are they adament about this, but actually rude! Because so many people have been frustrated by this that they are tired of answering why! Only Popeyes location I've ever seen that is turning down actual profit by failing to offer something people want that every other single Popeyes location has done without fail.

For example 2 - they failed to honour the recent Leafs Powerplay special from the app. Only location to ever deny this to me. Ok, fine. I'm going to order 50 worth of food though. Can you just take a few bucks off then to acknowledge the failure of the promo? Oh no we cant do that either. So you would rather lose a 50 dollar order? Yup. Ok then.

They are greedy. They are lazy. They lack intelligence in their decision making. Their food is substandard and so is their condition of their store. They have no clue what they are doing. I will never ever step foot in this store again and its a black eye on all Popeyes...

UPDATE; Oct 30th, we called the store to speak with owner/ manager. We were told she would call us back, when I mentioned that I wanted to speak with manager, we were told that manager wasn’t there at the moment. The lady over the phone mentioned again she would call me right back, never asked for my name or number and hung up the phone! Absolutely ZERO customer service skills!

Absolute horrible service! My brother in law and I went through drive thru at approx 12:35pm, Oct 18th 2024. We waited at the speaker to order food and were greeted with one moment please. When she returned we said our order and she said ok is that everything and suddenly another person came on the speaker to take our order we started talking again and someone else came on the speaker saying hello at this point we mentioned we said our order twice now and it’s getting a little frustrating. They once again seemed to not listen to us when taking our order the 3rd time because they kept repeating our order and it was wrong. We decided to leave drive thru and go inside. We waited about 5 min to be served and when we finally did the lady at the counter was ignorent, she kept getting our order incorrect and when we tried to fix the issue she would roll her eyes and get snappy. When it came to pay my brother inlaw went to pay and his chip wasn’t working so he tried a different card in which it didn’t work again. She handed us another debit/ credit machine said “ here try this one” payment went through on credit card and only a partial receipt came out as the paper ran out of the machine, she replies “ try again” when she noticed the paper. My brother in law showed her that the payment did go through and that he was not making another payment. I told her “ the paper in the machine is low” and she proceeded to change the paper and finally gave us the receipt. She once again rolled her eyes and shook her head. She handed us our cups. I asked her if I give us the managers name as I was going to make a complaint. Upon getting our food my brother in law ordered a large fry but only received 2 small and we were missing...

-I ordered a spicy "The Sandwich" deluxe platter for myself with red beans & rice and onion rings as my side and a 3pc tender combo for my friend with Cajun fries as her side. Coke and root beer to drink, respectively.

-I didn't know that the spicy version of "The Sandwich" was just spicy mayo rather than spicy breading but it was still very good. The red beans & rice were also a great pick but the onion rings were a pathetic disappointment; limp, barely-seasoned... it was actually a small mercy that the portion some was so small; it would've been such a waste of food to put any more of them in the tray. My friend quite enjoyed her tenders, of which she received 2 extra tenders so that was a pleasant surprise. The Cajun fries were crisp/crunchy and well-seasoned which only left me more confused about the state of my onion rings

-the person taking our orders (drive-thru) was very difficult to understand and frequently struggled to understand me. They did, however, let us know that there would be a ~7min wait for our order which was appreciated; I like knowing to expect a wait and roughly how long of a wait rather than leaving my car running and just hoping my order is almost ready

-there were cardboard boxes and a half-crushed broomstick littering the drive-thru just past the window; my friend got out of the car and moved the broomstick out of the way so we wouldn't need to...