Wendy's — Restaurant in City of Ithaca

UPDATE: 13-Feb-2025. There was a fire on 2/11. Closed. News report states that there is no information about WHEN or IF it will reopen.

Fast food is fast food. There's not much to distinguish this Wendy's from any other. However, I agree with other reviewers who note that recent order accuracy is going downward at this location.

Other'n all that, the place is pretty well-kept. It's clean, both dining area and bathrooms. There's plenty of parking. You can't get the 4-for-$4 special any more (it went to $4.44 and then to $5, and it seems smaller), but pricing is no worse than other fast food joints these days.

So let's talk about the service and the venue and the other things going downhill.

Several months ago, the TV was removed and the Wi-Fi vanished. I don't really care about the TV but others might miss it. No Wi-Fi, however --in spite of the sign that says, "Wendy's Wi-Fi"-- is a PITA. Why? Because it means that the Wendy's app isn't going to work on your non-cellular device. Kindof a contradiction, having a web-based app and no Wi-Fi.

FWIW, if you're using the app and need Wi-Fi, stop in next door at Arby's and use its free (and working) Wi-Fi to preload your order on your device before you cross over to Wendy's. Hey, there's something wrong with this picture, but you got'ta make do.

UPDATE: the "Wi-Fi" sign has been removed. UPDATE 7/12/2024: the Wi-Fi is back and it's reasonably fast. The sign is not back. The Wi-Fi has a login screen that gets in the way of using the app...but that's not unusual.

This Wendy's has switched from personal service to two ordering kiosks. If you want to order personal-like (or, for that matter, want to scan the QR code required to take advantage of the Wendy's app) or if you want to pay cash, you have to wait until the one person who speaks English and is authorized to use the register...has time to wander over. You can wait 5 or 10 minutes. Seriously.

The kiosks themselves are brain-dead.They work very slowly, ignoring screen touches until they're good and ready. Placing anything but the most mundane order takes longer than personal service. The two kiosks are very close to each other, limiting the personal space available to customers using them. As marketing studies have shown, ordering kiosks generate larger (and more expensive) orders. Patrons are on the losing end.

And then there's the beverage machine, aCoke Freestyle machine. OK, the Cherry Coke isn't Cherry Coke (it's cherry-flavored Coke, just as is served by those kludgey gadgets you see at truck stops), but it works. This one, however, seems to be an early model and it's not in good working order. Sometimes it works, sometimes you have to push your finger thru the screen to get its attention, and sometimes it misreads your finger and pops up a totally unrelated flavor. Sometimes it just ignores you. I've seen it spontaneously reboot. The reboot can take --no kidding-- 10 or 15 minutes. There's something wrong in there.

UPDATE 7/12/2024: The machine is working better now. It gets hung up less often. It still misreads your finger.

About that English thing. It hardly matters what the language is spoken behind the scenes, as long as the customer-facing staff are able to communicate well...and the prep staff fill the orders accurately. That said, there appears to have been a massive personnel change, bringing a new /lingua/franca/ to the kitchen. It happened in the same time period as the missing TV, the lost Wi-Fi, the ordering kiosks, the broken beverage machine, and the inaccurate orders. It's almost as if a new manager decided to cut costs in every way he could, from equipment to staff...and replaced workers with poorly trained and inexpensive new hires.

If your order costs more than $10...consider a good sit-down meal (soup, bigger burger, more fries, and beverage) at the place-with-the-chili-pepper-logo down the street...for $14, including 8% tax...

I watched as two different people had their order mishandled. The manager was, and I'm really trying to be nice, deeply unpleasant. The way he spoke to both customers and staff was upsettingly rude. Much of the staff seem to struggle, which says more about the incompetency of the management than of the staff.

With our order, the fries were cold, our burgers had the wrong ingredients, and we waited a fair bit for our food, mostly because the one poor soul seemingly in charge of getting the food together was being verbally disciplined by the manager in a way that would have anyone stressed out and distracted. The kiosks they use would be great if the order you put in was actually the order you received.

Usually Wendy's is a pretty solid experience, consistent and relatively tasty. This was not, and I feel kind of bad for saying it, because my standards are low, like the bar is on the ground, you can step over it low. All I want is the food to be relatively warm when it's supposed to be warm and that no one in earshot is being verbally berated.

On a positive note, the chili tasted good and was about the only thing warm. That chili is carrying the single star I gave this Wendy's on it's back, if you're going to this location, get the chili and only the chili and eat it in your car or something, just know you wont get...

If I could put zero stars I would. I went through the drive thru and as soon as I got up to the window for whatever reason they had “lost” my order. The girl spent probably 15 minutes looking through the computer trying to find it after I told her what my order was and she didn’t have it there. She then asked the people in the back if they had made my order and everyone seemed to not know what had happened to it. After another 10 minutes she finally re-took my order and i had to wait about 10 more minutes for them to make it. After waiting that long I would think that the food would be hot and fresh, but the meat on the burgers was cold, the buns were dry and stale, and despite all that they got my order wrong and put stuff on the burger that I had asked for it off. The staff was very rude and didn’t seem to care that they had “lost” my order and kept me waiting way longer than I should have had to. She also never gave me a receipt so I can’t even go online and request any type of help for it because I didn’t get any “proof” of my purchase. Spent roughly 30-40 minutes sitting in the drive thru waiting and didn’t even get a good meal. Very disappointed...