Carl’s Jr. — Restaurant in Alamogordo

I arrived in the drive-thru at around 5:55PM. I noticed a Ford SUV in front of me with the front door open, giving their order. Item after item. The ordered a lot, short of ordering the menu. They completed their order and I order one item. I pulled up behind the Ford SUV who had the worst smelling exhaust coming from the vehicle. I noticed it almost immediately. There were two vehicles in front of the Ford SUV. Once the Ford SUV got the window, my hope was the worker would take their payment and then have them pull to the front or side of the store due to the size of the order. NOPE! The Ford SUV stayed at the drive-thru window, with the vehicle running and I had to smell the exhaust for about 15 minutes. I didn't want a conformation with the driver of the Ford SUV, as he had a full vehicle with other adults and multiple kids so I said nothing and just had to sit there. There was no way to pull out of the drive-thru either. After sitting there for 15 minutes, breathing in the exhaust, I finally got to the window at 6:15PM. Note: I got a headache which got worst after I left the drive-thru.

I spoke with the employee at the window, suggesting that when someone orders that much, it's best to move them aside. I did inform the employee that it wasn't the wait that was so bad, it was breathing in the exhaust while waiting. They were polite and understanding and hopefully understood my frustration. I've been to this location a few years ago where I ordered 2 items. Just 2 items and they had my pull to the front of the store and not one person was behind me in the drive-thru. Due to this experience, I won't be entering any drive-thru's in the future if there's a vehicle in front of me. I've never had this problem before and want to avoid it in the future. Please have those employees working the drive-thru pull vehicles aside if they've got a large order or there order is expected to take a while to make. I've sat in real traffic before, Los Angeles traffic and was fine. The vehicle defiantly was having problems which caused the awful smelling exhaust. The exhaust coming from the vehicle in front of me at this Carl's Jr. location was awful, similar to smelling gasoline...

I ordered at 1:17 pm. I did not receive my order until 1:35 pm. That is because I finally said something. There were people there even longer. Those people told me that the store manager was there previously and giving out refunds and just walked out.

This helped double the chaos as they had no leadership and nobody stepped up to straighten things out. I fully expect the manager to be fired for abandonment.

At the time I spoke up, they were happy to take additional orders when they could not put out any orders they took.

This is part of an ongoing headache that this place has caused customers ever since they opened their doors. It's obvious that they are here to take advantage of their customers and employees.

It is time to take action to have this place removed from this town. I will be looking into attending city council meetings. I urge others to do the same.

Just to add, my hamburger had a completely saturated bottom bun and I have lost my appetite for fear of all of this and the food poisoning comment...

Came in the door at 5:35pm. No one came to the counter or even acknowledged the two groups of customers waiting to order until 5:40. Customer in front of us orders. Wait again. Order placed at 5:49. Drive thru and curbside orders are prioritized to the point that we didn't get our order in hand until 6:22. There is no where near enough staff for a busy Friday night. All four workers are running around like crazy and still the service time is insanely long. What's the point of fast food if I could have gotten quicker service at a sit down joint? Lost almost an hour of drive time waiting for our food. Unacceptable. At least a sit down restaurant will give you some idea of a wait time. We definitely would have gone somewhere, anywhere else if we had known they were so backed up. Never again will we stop here. Oh and they were out of napkins. Run to the car to get back on the road. Dig into the bags. Extra sandwich no fries or onion rings. Burgers cold because they sat so long in the...