Popeyes Louisiana Kitchen — Restaurant in Asheville

I've been here multiple times since opening, and like many other restaurants, this location was, on the opening day, kind of overwhelmed by the unexpectedly large amount of people that would be coming to the only Popeye's around besides Airport Road. I thought that after a while, they would get accustom to this, or maybe even the amount of people would die down. Luckily, the latter part happened... but not the former.

It's been almost two months since this Popeye's opened and the staff STILL don't have it together. On multiple occasions I've ordered simply: A sandwich and a biscuit. And just about every time, the biscuit is missing. One time, I decided to order with the app. I placed the order, it charged my card, and it said my food would be ready when I got there. I arrived, only to be told that they weren't doing online orders-- despite what the app said. (???) I ended up waiting nearly half an hour to get my order when I eventually had to show the manager the order on my phone.

Another thing would be the staff. Like I said, I've been giving them slack because this place is very busy almost all the time, but even times when it's slow, they just don't seem very with it. It seems that a lot of the staff are just extremely undertrained. Every time I ask the cashier about an item on the menu, they never know the answer-- they have to consult the manager, or someone that does know. Also, absolutely NONE of the employees are wearing masks. Isn't that kind of mandated?

The reason I only order a sandwich and a biscuit is simple: Normally I'd get a combo, to get the fries and the drink, but holy hell, this Popeye's is outrageously overpriced. That's my BIGGEST complaint. The sandwich combo is usually around $6.50 or $7, but here, it's $8. That's ridiculous. The sandwich alone is $4, so you're paying twice that amount for a tiny bit of fries and a drink. The whole point of a combo is to get more food in a sort of "bundle" instead of paying for everything separately-- but this combo, along with all the others, is the same price as buying all the food individually. This location is more expensive than pretty much every one.

I won't COMPLETELY rake this Popeye's through the coals, so I will say this: The food is consistently good. I've never had a bad experience here in terms of how good the food tastes or how well it's made. But the quality of a restaurant can't be defined by its food alone, it's also about the experience-- how easy it was to get the food, how much you had to pay, how long you had to wait, and how accurate the food was to your order. This Popeye's pretty much only has the quality of the food nailed down-- but the rest of the things on the list? Well, they've got quite a while to go.

2 out of 5, not great,...

I haven't been so furious about picking up food in my life. We made an online order and the instructions said to pick up our order INSIDE at the COUNTER. The online information was completely wrong from the phone number (which doesn't work), to the hours, to the drive through/dine in open or closed. It said the drive thru is closed and the dine- in was open. We drove from another county to pick up our food which wasn't a large or complicated order. The line was so long at the drive thru (which online said was closed?) that we parked and tried to go inside to get our order like the instructions told us to do when we ordered. The doors were locked with a sign that said the lobby was closed. The line was wrapped around the building and out into the road to where it wasn't even possible to get in line unless we totally left and drove down the highway and came back. We just wanted to pick up our order!! I finally attempted to walk up to the window to ask how we get our online order that told us to pick up INSIDE and they told us to park and they'd bring it out. The girl said "I won't forget you, I promise." She said it would be 6 minutes for the pies to cook. 22 minutes later I had to walk back up to the window (which was humiliating) and was talked about and laughed at by the truck at the window and the girl working the drive thru window. It was cold and windy and apparently it's funny to laugh about the girl trying to pick up the food for a handicapped persons order. If we got in the line, to pick up the order we ordered ONLINE nearly an hour ago, we'd have waited another 30 minutes in the drive thru for the same food. The whole process was infuriating and it seems totally unfair that the person just driving by who randomly decides to get in line for food gets their order before the person who orders online and drives to pick up their order. And to have no way to even call?? No wonder they are only rated 2.7 already. We should have steered clear and will never go...

My family and I were visiting Asheville and were hungry for Popeye’s chicken. We love Popeye’s and seek them out when traveling. There were three Popeyes in the Asheville area. All had bad reviews, but this one was the best of the worst according to Yelp and Google. Regrettably we went anyhow.

No other guests inside - they were not busy. The man who was trying to take our order struggled and made several errors. We ended up making multiple very simple orders to try to make it easier for him. But that didn’t help. He called on his supervisor/manager for help, but it seemed like she was ignoring him. After many minutes we finally got our very simple orders placed only to be told it would “be a while.” We got our drinks and sat down. Several minutes later, our order supposedly was ready. I went to the counter and brought it back to our table. It was not complete, so I had to go back to the counter. Finally, we sat down to eat.

Two in the family got 3-piece tenders and a side. One got a sandwich and a side. The sandwich was dripping and overflowing with mayonnaise. The mayonnaise was scraped off and the sandwich overall was okay but not the same quality or taste we have had at other Popeyes. The tenders were just terrible and could not be finished. Two got mashed potatoes as sides. The potatoes were disgusting and were not eaten other than a bite or two. One got mac-n-cheese which was okay, but the cheese was hard.

We will never go to any Popeye in Asheville again.

UPDATE: As you can see below someone copied and pasted the exact same template response reviewers have received for years. Obviously the issues at all three Popeye's in Asheville go deep. Perhaps its time to change your business model or change to another franchise where you may be successful.

OWNER: You spelled the city name on your receipts. It's Asheville...