McDonald's — Restaurant in Alexandria

Where to begin? This was wild. The day I was there (last week), the staff was overwhelmed. The drive thru was full (both lanes) and there was quite a line at the counter and several cars in the curbside pickup. After waiting 15 min for my order in the curbside pickup, I could see people exiting the building shaking their heads and looking angry. So, I went inside, thinking I'd just grab my order because they were too swamped to bring it out. Cool. I get that.

What I witnessed was just beyond anything I expected. The employees were yelling at each other. It was chaos. There were two young men working near the front counter completely overrun with full cups of drinks and food order bags all over the counter, and it was obvious they were frustrated. One machine was not working properly and the young blonde guy was fighting to get it to work. The other one was loudly yelling at him. It was sad, the young guy looked defeated.

There was (I think) a manager on duty, from what I could tell, who was completely ignoring both of them and the customers who kept coming up to the counter with issues to their orders. She was busy slinging fries, and getting orders to the drive through though. Not sure why she was ok with the older of the two young guys screaming at the other one, but she just let it all blow up spectacularly in front of all the customers.

When I finally did get my order, the guy who yelled at the other guy thanked me for not wasting his time like some people do, and he gestured toward the other people. I was floored by that, but told him to have a great day and left.

I mean, this was the wildest experience I've ever had in a restaurant. I hate to give these poor overwhelmed people a bad review, but Holy God were they having the worst day and it was extremely uncomfortable for customers. Maybe they are understaffed. Maybe management is terrible, I can't guess. Regardless, someone ought to step in and help them out so this insanity doesn't happen.

That said, my order was correct, hot, and actually not bad. After all that, I expected it to be wrong or something but it wasn't. Although, if it had been wrong, I would have done nothing because there was no way I was going to go...

Placed a mobile order. Got to the site, advised that I had a mobile order and was told to pull around the corner. Waited in line and pulled up to the 2nd window. A young man began to hand me ice tea and another drink. I said, those are not my order. He yelled at me 'that's what the mobile order is. '. Sorry man, not my order. He storms off.... Lots of yelling and confusion inside the store. A female employee comes over and tells me to go to spot 1. After a while 2 employees come out and are looking for the mobile order vehicles. I am handed a bag and asked is this my order. I looked quick and it seemed correct upon very quick glance... The employees tell me they are so confused, the other mobile order vehicle isn't there, they don't know what is going on. The food was even less quality than standard McDonald's. My burger had so much salt it was nearly inedible. The Chicken Nuggets were so dry and old, cardboard tasted better. The other cheeseburger was missed, but we didn't notice until a few miles away so we didn't go back to get yelled at again. The only saving thing was the fries just came up and we're hot and fresh.

Not all experiences have been bad at this store.

Thinking about the location of this store, the fact it is the only one in Alexandria this store is always busy, but usually have been very quick, good service and decent food. The past few weekends I have come up have been different.

Expect this store to be busy, expect a drive through line. But, they are usually...

I found that my experience there at McDonald's was extremely poor. They get a one star because there's not an option for no stars. The store was fully staffed yet they had roughly about 20 cars in the Drive-Thru about 30 people waiting for their food several people coming back looking to get their food that they had not previously received. Then I came in and all I wanted was a large fry and a large iced tea and five Splenda. 30 minutes later I left with my cold fries and hot tea. Prior to me getting my food there were two ladies that had been standing there as long as I had for two diet Cokes. The manager was in the push position preparing the bags for a drive-thru and bird counter. She had been told about missing the chickens and one other thing as well and she left the line having someone that had just gotten there take over without telling him anything. There was no communication and she out of her own mouth said I have had a loss I don't know why we can't get this done we're missing two people but we have more than enough people to take care of this and they did. The other two that were missing would have been just extras and I say this because I've been a manager in a McDonald's before and I know how the system works. I would recommend going anywhere...