Chick-fil-A — Restaurant in Burlington Township

I wanted to share a disheartening experience I had on Saturday, 4/1/23 at the Burlington NJ Chick-Fil A restaurant. We had multiple family members in from out of town to attend my daughter’s school play. We did not have a lot of time for lunch when they arrived, and didn’t want typical fast food, so we chose Chick-Fil-A as they had never eaten there. We all went into the restaurant and ordered at the counter without issue, then sat at a table to wait for our order. After 20 min, and no food had arrived, we went up to the counter to inquire. The manager was standing at the counter, and we let her know about the situation. Her response was, “we cater to app orders first, and if you had ordered via the app, we would have had your food out by now. Once again, we went back to the table to wait. After 15 more minutes had passed, now 35 minutes after we ordered, I went to the counter and asked to speak to the owner, as I had seen him walking around. I told him what was going on and he said he would check on our order. Once again, we went back to our table to wait. The owner came to our table about 5-10 minutes later and stated, “you ordered tenders, they take longer, so we re-made your food, it will be out”. The owner then walked away from the table and disappeared. No apology was given, but he very much impressed upon us that it was our fault for ordering tenders. We then sat and watched as many customers that had come in long after us, received their bags of food, carryout from the app station, and left. After waiting for over 45 minutes in total, I went up to the counter to ask for a refund. At this point, no one had eaten, including my family members that had just driven 250 miles, but we had to leave or we would miss my daughter’s performance. The manager was at the register and I asked her to cancel the order and refund our payment. She literally started walking in circles unsure of what to do. I stated again in a direct voice, that I wanted a refund, and that we needed to leave now. The restaurant counter was now filled with customers, but she kept fumbling around, so again I had to state that I wanted a refund. I started to reiterate our experience to her, while she was retrieving our payment from her register. It was then, another customer behind me stated, “I too ordered at the counter and have been waiting for over 35 min”. At that point, many other customers started verbalizing their issues with their orders. One customer even stated, ”this Chick- Fil-A is always like this, what did you expect?”. As we walked out, my family member stated, “ I still have never eaten at a Chick-Fil-A, and after this experience, I never will”.

I have literally been going to this location since its opening as it is the closest to my home, and we have tried to overlook all of the issues we have had. I have even submitted complaints, minor ones, hoping that Chick-Fil-A would care enough about their customers to finally, and comprehensively, address the issues that stem from the inept ownership and management at this location. The management went so far as to admit that they cater to the app customer, and by my experience, are trying to drive out the dine in customers for volume and profit purposes. The customer experience and “glorifying God” sentiment hasn’t just taken a back seat at this location, they have been exchanged for profit. As a Burlington resident, I have seen too many local businesses allow their standards to fall in exchange for profit. It seems to go with the territory in such as culturally diverse area. I am disappointed and saddened that Chick-Fil-A, a company that was built on the motto of “ we’re better together”, not only allows this treatment of their customers at this location to continue, but to thrive under this ownership and management. I will no longer patronize this location no matter how inconvenient it will be. I will also encourage others to also make another choice for casual dining as Raising Cane’s Fried Chicken, Popeyes, and Chipotle, are opening in the...

To be honest, I have been going to this restaurant very frequently since it's opening several years ago. I've never had a problem until today. Yesterday before work I had decided to get a salad because I wanted to try it and I heard they were delicious. I placed an order through the app, for a market salad with the strawberries, blueberries ETC. And I customized it to say no feta cheese. When I got the salad it had cheddar cheese and stuff I did not order on it, because they gave me a Southwest salad instead of a market salad. By the way, this was a $20 salad and I used the last of my money to buy it. I called the store because I was stuck at work with no lunch and we're not allowed to leave on our lunch breaks, and I had not ate all day. I was so hungry and also excited to finally eat and when I opened it up it was all wrong and I was so upset because of my hunger. I was late for work for that salad and it was messed up, and when I called the team leader told me I would be able to get a refund and a new salad. I got to the store today to return it (I had to leave it unrefrigerated since I don't even have a fridge at work so it went rotten so I had to hold on to a rotten salad...) He asked me if I wanted a new one or a refund and I said the team leader told me I could have both, and he looked at the salad and my receipt and still continue to tell me I was wrong (It was pretty obvious the cheese was on there that I did not want and he even reading the slip was telling me I'm wrong... The older Caucasian manager). So in the end I got a refund but I had to spend an entire day with nothing to eat, I went out of my way to get the salad, out of my way to return the salad, and they could not even give me a free salad after all of my trouble as a lifelong customer. I don't like people taking advantage of the week or treating good people in such a bad manner, as the man was literally arguing with me and looking at me like I was trash, So unfortunately I don't think I'm ever...

I am an absolute CFA loyalist, so it pains me to give anything but a 5-star review but I went there for breakfast this week and had an experience that broke from the norm. As background info, I’m comparing this experience to (conservatively) 100+ breakfast orders at over a dozen CFAs in multiple states.

I love the breakfast menu, but I always order French fries as my side instead of hash browns. I always say that I’m okay waiting and it’s never an issue - I’ve literally never been told no to the request. Then this week when I put in my order, asked for fries, and said I was okay to wait, the employee behind the cashier turned to me and started shaking her head and the cashier said “well yeah you’re going to have to wait an hour and a half until lunch, we don’t do lunch items for breakfast”.

To be fair, I was asking for something not on the breakfast menu and the store was completely within their right to say no, but after receiving no pushback from any other location any other time - this really stood out in a negative light. I’ll obviously still go here for lunch, but I’ll likely be changing my on-the-run...