Popeyes Louisiana Kitchen — Restaurant in Prague

Tl;dr: Food is decent, the service is an absolute disaster.

I won't even comment on the artifically created queue to an empty restaurant (if you need to protect your kitchen from being overloaded when the monitor shows they're preparing TWO orders, you shouldn't be managing a restaurant). Let's get to what happens when you get inside.

First of all, there are absolutely none customisation options for burgers. Don't like an ingredient? Tough luck, you can't remove it. This is ridiculous for two reasons. First, this is a brand new chain in Czechia, you'd expect their kiosks to be up to date. Yet they lack an absolutely basic feature that McDonald's has been offering ever since they introduced kiosks (i.e. for at least 5 years), and second, this makes the argument about kitchen being overloaded even more bizzare since they don't even do custom-made orders.

Ok, next you choose the side. Well, to be precise, you choose the types of fries you want, because they don't have anything else. Yes, you've heard that right, they only have fries. No other sides like in other markets, e.g. rice, mashed potato, gravy. Nothing. Then there's a drink selection where they don't let you choose water as an option. If you want a meal deal, you're forced to buy some sweet nonsense even if you don't like it and then buy water separately for extra money. And finally, a dessert. Or not, because they don't have any.

OK, so you went through this ridiculous process, it's time to eat. To be fair, the order was prepared very quickly (why wouldn't it, when the restaurant is half empty and they force people to wait outside). Since I couldn't customize a burger, I ended up ordering the spicy chicken wrap. This was the best part of the experience. The chicken is absolutely awesome: Nice, large, juicy filet with a great taste. And it is actually spicy, which is rare to find in Czechia (where most restaurant think that if they put two dashes of pepper in the food, it counts as spicy). Absolutely perfect. The veggies also tasted good and seemed fresh. Tortilla was bit stiff (and served cold) but passable. The only issue was the sauce, which had a great spice to it but felt very artificial. And I'm not a "organic food" freak, I eat a lot of unhealthy artificial stuff, but this was too much even for me. You'd expect to get this from a tractor factory, not a restaurant. But despite that, the wrap was very good.

Fries weren't too good - if you do thin fries, you need to have an excellent process for frying them, which they obviously don't. However, the cajun spicing was excellent and elevated sub-average fried to a fairly nice experience. I have also ordered buffalo sauce (which is my favourite) on the side. Again, it tasted very artificial (there's just something wrong with their sauces), and frankly it didn't taste like buffalo sauce at all, but at least it was spicy enough.

Despite the restaurant being half-empty, and staff just standing around chatting with each other, it was INCREDIBLY dirty. Lots of crumbs on virtually all tables, there was a chicken bone on the floor next to my seat, and vomit in the bathroom sinks. Seeing these hygiene standards I'm wondering what does their kitchen look like (and whether that vomit was a consequence of the food).

So overal? A pretty bad experience. The food has a potential, especially if they managed to elevate their sauces by using actual food to produce them (but I guess these recipes are created on the corporate level, not by the franchisee), but the service is an utter disaster and whoever's responsible for this needs to be fired and replaced with someone competent, who doesn't crack under the pressure...

This is a rather long writeup about my experience today at Popeye's in Prague. I took my grandmother, with whom I occasionally visit KFC and have a good time. First off, your website is terrible: no prices listed, and the photos are awful. Secondly, while no one expects top-tier service from underpaid fast food workers, this particular restaurant has the worst service I can remember. The staff was rude and unprofessional. Your order panels are painfully slow, and half of them don't even respond. No one seems to care about the customers. The cleaning staff is filthy and unfriendly, skulking around with grumpy expressions. The place looks like a psych ward. Add to that a packed room full of obnoxiously loud teenagers, and it's a recipe for disaster. Unfortunately, I'm used to this in the Czech Republic, where we are notoriously known for terrible service in the gastro industry. Now, onto the food—the supposed saving grace, right? Absolutely not. I asked for something similar to KFC's hot wings, and one of your employees recommended the Louisiana Wings - Voodoo Sweet Chili Meal for 205 CZK. It came with 5 hot wings, fries, and a beverage. Here's where it gets worse. My order came out on a single plate for both me and my grandmother, like we were animals. When I politely asked to have the two meals separated onto two trays, the Ukrainian woman smirked at me, tossed a second tray next to the first, and walked away. She treated me like I was dirt. And that's just the beginning. The hot wings were tiny and COLD. The fries were okay, but nothing groundbreaking. As for the beverage, it was lukewarm at best, so I had to pour my drink and go back for ice, spilling soda everywhere because you clowns charge 200 CZK for cold wings and hot soda. How do you screw this up so badly? The chicken had an interesting marinade, but I wasn’t a fan, and it’s nothing like KFC’s hot wings. Your Vietnamese employee must be clueless for recommending this meal, since I later found out you actually have regular crunchy hot wings on the menu. When we finished, we had to share the one napkin we were given. Then, to add insult to injury, we had to hunt for the unmarked bathroom, hidden on the lower floor. There’s no sink on the main floor—what kind of place ignores basic hygiene? Everyone with half-cleaned hands is touching the same door handles and coders. Disgusting. And the water in the bathroom? Scalding hot. I couldn’t even keep my hands under it for more than a second, and there was no way to adjust the temperature. By this point, I felt like I was being pranked. But when we left, there was no hidden camera, no “gotcha” moment—just the bitter realization that I’d wasted my time and ruined a day with my beloved grandmother at Popeye’s. Popeye's? More like Poop-eye's. Never...

Not great, not terrible.

Some of the prices are way too high, especially for the tiny dips, those are priced ridiculously. Expected more beverage pre-mix choices, currently only Pepsi, Mirinda, 7UP and Lipton which is basically the only thing you get in "Czech" fastfoods, something like Dr. Pepper, MUG root beer or even Mountain Dew (that already has a Czech distribution) would be nice, this is basically the safest bet they could've done.

Voodoo Sweet Lousiana Wings were already cold after few minutes compared to other products but tasted pretty good, the 2 pieces of Classic Signature Chicken for 109CZK is straight up a ripoff and isn't worth buying, not solely for the price but for the amount of meat you get for the price which was not much. Supreme Fries were okay, not enough cheese though, 95CZK is way too much for what you're getting, I'd get normal fries next time. The Bayou Buffalo dip was straight up terrible, tasted like a bad Tabasco. The Chicken Sandwich was overall by far the best, I don't remember what the price was, I think it was around 120CZK, so priced similarly to it's competition: Big Tasty Bacon - 115CZK, Zinger - 117CZK, Grander Texas - 130CZK, Whopper - 129CZK.

Interior looks great, I love the National Museum painting on the wall and the employees were nice too, it was the grand opening so that was to be expected.

Order prices: Refill - 45CZK Supreme Fries - 95CZK 2pcs. Classic Signature Chicken - 109CZK 3pcs. Louisana Wings (Voodoo Sweet Chilli) - 89CZK Bayou Buffalo dip - 29CZK Ketchup - 10CZK

Chicken Sandwich was for free

Not much for 377CZK (617CZK if we had to pay for the Chicken Sandwiches), if you're not in rush you could get more food in a regular restaurant. Me and my friend split the food in half but if we didn't get the free sandwich before ordering this we'd both end up hungry.

I could see myself visiting this place once in 2 or 3 months for the Chicken Sandwich and Voodoo Sweet Chilli but not for any of the other products because of it's high pricing.

I'll probably update this review on my...