Wendy's — Restaurant in Alcoa

Never coming back to this location. For the 3rd or 4th time, I had to accept something other than the ONE thing I wanted—a baked potato. They are either completely out or making them every time I go. I ordered from Wendy's instead of any number of places because I LOVE the potatoes. Instead, my family ate and I didn't. I pulled up to the same rude manager (I'm assuming...Blue shirt, older lady, often in the drive thru and NEVER happy or friendly!) who simply greeted me by saying "we don't have any baked potatoes made. It's gonna be an hour or maybe a little more wait." No "hi," "sorry about that", "how could I make this right since you've already paid?" NOPE.

Annoyed, but polite, I pointed out that I'd had this problem several times before and it's always over the potatoes. She literally rolled her eyes at me. Weighing my options, as I've dealt with the whole "refund" process—also ridiculous btw! If the store is allowing people to PRE-pay for food and the store cannot fulfill it, there's absolutely ZERO reason I should have to wait 4-5 business days to get my money back. INSANE! This needs to be addressed also,Wendy's!!—she said she COULD refund the money for JUST the potato and it would be returned to my card "perhaps after midnight". I corrected her, in case she actually believed that, reminding her last time I dealt WITH HER and another manager, it took 4/5 days to get my $3 or so back. Not wanting to wait days for food i PRE-paid for already, and certainly not waiting an hour PLUS for a potato, I asked could she please just give me a chili cheese fry instead? She again ROLLED HER EYES as she SLAMMED the window and screamed to another employee "SHE SAID SHE JUST WANTS SOME CHILI CHEESE FRIES! I KNOW, I KNOW! OK, FINE!" Opened the window back up, told me "sure. That's fine." As she handed me my lemonade. "Thanks so much" I told her, as she shut the window...hard. How does this lady still have a job?! I can tell by the reviews others have dealt with this same older woman. I honestly don't get it! I've rarely dealt with SUCH rude customer service employees.

Anyway, cut to getting the food home—I didn't wait and check it at the window, which i usually do, already being in a hurry, running behind, and admittedly annoyed. Get home and the 10 piece nugget I ordered for my TODDLERS were 3 short and instead, had 4 SPICY nuggets...which toddlers obviously can't eat. This tells me they were in SUCH a hurry and not wanting to do things right, they just threw in what they already had cooked. They definitely weren't fresh. 🙄 Ridiculous. The fries (both in the combo AND chili cheese fries) were somehow both half done and soggy, while also hard. Chili tasted burnt. And my lemonade had that nasty "stale" taste fountain drinks only get when the parts aren't cleaned often enough. So, I spent $15 or so (because I used coupons) to be hungry, feed my kids 3 or 4 nuggets a piece, and make my own drink at home. Really disappointing. I've not complained in the past because I've been in CS for YEARS and i never complain on a one-off situation, even a two time deal, sometimes, as everyone has rough days. But this being the 3rd or 4th time dealing with this exact issue AND that same rude employee/manager, it's just beyond clear that's the norm. Which the other reviews here also confirm. This store used to be ON IT...I used to bring my kids here all the time. At this point, I'll go hungry if I'm rushed or make food at home 10/10 times in the future... its just not even worth it with rewards and deals through the app, at this point. The location nearer to the mall also has a VERY rude manager, I'm wondering what the hiring process must be to consistently get employees that seem completely miffed by having to do their job. 😒

The Lenoir City location, however...on point. Fresh food, HAPPY employees, virtually NO wait time in the drive thru and lobby...no complaints. This should 1000% be the store to model all the others by, they're doing ALL the...

I stopped at this Wendy's yesterday waited almost 10 minutes for the car in front of me to order then when they moved the lady said I'll be right with you (it wasn't the usual lady that works at the window) I waited about 10 more minutes until the same lady come over the speaker and said their computers were down and they can't take any orders I said you could have told me before all this time and her response was she didn't know I was there which was not correct she was the one that was on the speaker the first time and told me she would be with me in a minute.. There was a line of cars behind me going back out to the street that can be seen from the windows! I will go somewhere else for breakfast from now on ! Update! It has been over a year and a half since I have been to this Wendy's location, and it has not gotten any better. I waited almost 10 minutes to place my order because I was told their was a large order ahead of me. I ordered a #1 breakfast combo with an ice coffee. I got to the pick-up window, and the employee handed me my iced milk their was no coffee in it I was told to pull up behind the other truck to wait for my food they finally bought out my food by this time it had been another 15 minutes since I ordered my food and it was cold !! I tried to call the Wendy's when I got to work, and no one would answer the phone! I do not recommend this Wendy's location for anything at any time! The store was empty it was not busy at all. There was no reason having to wait so long to order or for my food and then to have it be wrong and cold. This is not the Wendy's to go to if you want...

This use to be the location we always went. Sadly, this is no longer the case. The past 2 times, the staff has been rude and the food has not been edible. 2 stars because the remodel is nice. I understand, too, that they have been very short handed.

The first instance, we tried to order the 4 for 4 with a Jr Bacon cheeseburger, nuggets, fries and a drink as advertised on the drive thru screen. Upon ordering, we were told we were wrong. You cannot get a Jr Bacon cheeseburger with this. They would not honor what was being advertised and literally laughed at us for not understanding why they would not honor the advertisement.

The second instance, maybe a month later, drive thru screen still incorrectly advertised the Jr Bacon cheeseburger with the 4 for 4 meal. We didn't want to go through that again, so we just ordered kids cheeseburger meals for the kids. This proceeded with a bunch of questions of what kind of cheeseburgers we wanted and when we repeated "kids", she kept correcting us saying we wanted the Jr cheeseburger. After the 4th time of this, we asked if they are not serving kids cheeseburger meals anymore to be told they do still serve the kids cheeseburger meals. Once we got to the window, we told her we were confused by all of the questions when we were trying to order kids cheeseburger meals to be told, "You didn't say you wanted the kids cheeseburger meal." I corrected her and said that we said it 4 times and then, she said it was too windy to hear us back at the drive thru. Probably a good idea to start with that versus telling us we were ordering...