McAlister's Deli — Restaurant in Athens-Clarke County Unified Government

Edit: I have since visited and had two much better experiences!

The food was good and on point. My to go order came out fast. What was lacking was the knowledge of the cashier, the interactions witnessed between staff, customers and managers. Staff were talking loudly and crudely towards each other and should not have been witnessed by patrons. They had very trashy attitudes and were talking loudly amongst themselves. The manager was sitting in the dining area doing paperwork (is there no office for that??) while an employee was talking to him about how her "Cash App Card" had an issue and discussing pay checks. It was very chaotic inside and while I was waiting to order I witnessed 2 different customers have problems with their order. One of the clerks literally yelled across the restaurant for the manager to come assist her. She had to call to him three times. It was very unprofessional. I am also a former McAlister's employee from Columbus, GA in 2001 when the store opened and I was in college. Our store never looked like this, even on opening month. These employees at the Athens location made this establishment look like trash and would turn off most people if they did not know how the restaurant COULD be if better...

I originally held off visiting this place because of all the negative reviews. But we decided to go and had a good experience. So from here on out I will not be listening to negative restaurant reviews. I did go on a slower day and at lunch. I prefer to go out for all my meals on less busy days. Food was good, the people were nice and the eating area was attractive.

Seriously a lot of people are leaving negative reviews when these are issues that you can just give feedback to the manager. These days there is a lot going on as far as staffing and training so people should be a little more understanding.

And whoever was complaining about the mask thing… The majority ( but not all) of Athens all continue to have a mask sign on their front door. It does not mean that they are actually enforcing it. Just because everyone else is wearing one it does not mean you have to feel the pressure to cave-in and wear it. If you want wear one great, if you don’t want to wear one that’s great too.

My husband and I went in and both of us were not wearing masks and everyone in there that I saw eating and entering were not wearing masks either. I don’t even carry one on me. Some of the staff I saw chose to wear one.

I will be eating...

The deli changed their hourse the wedsday prior to Thanksgiving to be closed at 2 PM which is understandable. I did come in close to that time at 1:45 so I get they probably want to go home to their family, but when I open the front door I am immediately met with a woman working that states very loudly across the restaurant that they were about to start closing so I need to leave. Although i can see them still taking orders I can understand that they may be closing even earlier, but to be this rude and loud immediately is just uncalled for. They also had another worker who started arguing with the original one who yelled on if they could serve me. There were many ways to handle this situation, but the way they did was just blatantly rude and awful customer service. I definitely left out some of the finer details on how she was acting, but this is the short and simple...