Popeyes Louisiana Kitchen — Restaurant in College Park

No, it wasn't good AT ALL. To be fair, it's a VERY busy airport, so I imagine they cook up vast quantities of chicken in advance. I was moderately pressed for time to make my flight connection back to Florida. There was no time for a full service restaurant. My first thought upon seeing this place was "what a great idea". It was comforting to see something like this at an airport. A complete surprise. Now, I didn't have to indulge in a $14.00 premade, packaged ham & cheese sandwich, but now I wish I had.

The FIRST problem is with placing an order. When you walk up, you see a line stretching out into the airport concourse. This line is actually the line for those waiting for their orders to be filled ,which moved slowly at first, then relatively steadily, so maybe a ten to fifteen minute wait. I was nervous about getting my food and having enough time to eat before boarding. Places like this are not truly "FAST food", I didn't expect immediate delivery since no Popeyes I have ever been to has filled my order immediately, but I digress. Given that history, I just figured there must be a fresh batch of chicken coming. Anyway, the issue with ordering is that EVERYONE logically steps into this waiting line extending into the concourse expecting to place an order, but the order desk is buried inside and not in your sightlines, being blocked, of course, by the people waiting for their orders to be called out. Unless someone tells you, you have no idea that you need to bypass the line outside to step into this mini shop to order. There's no sign directing people inside to order and God forbid that they should station someone there to tell people, or at least check. The person taking orders was mostly oblivious... And, he was just robotic, not rude, but not friendly in the least and impatiently sighing if you actually had to look at the menu board which is not laid out all that well. He was not welcoming or cheerful at all. It was as if he was enduring another day in an unpleasant situation. No greeting, no "thank you"... Nothing, nada....

So, the next issue is the quality of the food; or at least the three piece combo I ordered with French fries. OMG, I ordered all dark and got three thighs, no drumsticks (my favorite part), but it was still "all dark" meat which is fine. That's what I ordered and that's what I got. They must have been out of drumsticks. In any case, it was DRY and the crust was like concrete on all three pieces. The chicken had no flavor and I could tell the oil they are using needed to be changed, because there was a bitter aftertaste. You cannot endlessly "filter" oil, it goes becomes bitter eventually. I imagine that with the volume they do, the oil probably needs to be changed more frequently. In any case, I didn't really have a lot of time so there was no returning anything. After my wait I had rushed to my gate once I got my order and found that announcements were already being made about my flight. I only had about ten minutes. Those disappointing first bites of bland, dry chicken convinced me to just toss it. I mean, I TRIED to make it work. I peeled off the bitter tasting, hard as nails crust. I tried to just eat the meat, but no deal. Bad is bad, so, I ate my fries which were great and drank my Hawaiian Punch, (a childhood favorite), which quenched my thirst. It was just going to have to do.

I was DEFINITELY expecting better, BUT, it's an airport, so things may not work in the same way, but they need to update their strategy. TWO registers should run at all times. It's not like I'm going back in the near future to try again, but hopefully this review gets their attention. They can do better. Maybe it was a fluke that I got the only three thighs that had been sitting there all day under heat lamps, but the cooking oil thing is a definite oversight. Sometimes you win and sometimes you lose. This time I lost, but I made my flight connection. Thumbs 👎 down...

OVERVIEW I have never been to a Popeye’s before, and to be honest, our experience was horrible, and I don’t know if I’ll ever go to another Popeye’s. I understand we came near closing and coming from a history of working in fast food, I hated customers that come in near closing, but at least I put on a fake face that I was happy they came in.

LOCATION This particular Popeye’s is located in the airport in the Terminal B across from gate B16.

PRICE The prices were a little steep or so I thought for my wife, daughter and myself. We bought one of those family platters of boneless chicken and one large drink which came to almost $40. It was ridiculous.

PRODUCT/SERVICE The boneless chicken was nothing special. My wife ordered Cajun rice as well with beans. They didn’t have any mac n cheese which kind of bummed me for our daughter, as she’s a bit of a picky eater. I thought it was a rip-off that they charged 55 cents for a refill on your drinks.

EMPLOYEES I shouldn’t go into much detail about the employees, but none of them seemed happy to be there at work. My wife did the ordering and according to her the attitude of the woman giving her the chicken, was rather blunt and rude. I had talked to one of the girls near the register, she was kind of staring aimlessly out into the terminal. I said to her that she looked tired, she nodded her head and said that she was very tired. Shortly after we received our food they closed. They were rather rude and frank with people trying to close, saying, “We’re Closed!” It was the tone of their voices, nothing kind behind it but rather sharp and angered. There was no indication for the customers that they were closed. All the surrounding places had their gates closed or at least semi-closed which is a clear indication that they were not...

I ordered a kids menu and I saw that there were different sauce to pick from. My sister had my bag of food and I went to the counter to ask for some sauces. At the counter there were three employees who all saw me approach, yet none of them came to help. They were so enthralled in their conversation that I felt uncomfortable asking them for help, especially since they had already seen me and decided I wasn’t worth their time. Another employee walked by where I was standing and I asked him for a barbecue and a sweet heat sauce, I had never tried the sweet heat sauce and wanted to taste it. He handed me the barbecue sauce and before he could hand me the other one, one of the ladies, the tallest one that was dressed like a manager of sorts came rushing up, all of the sudden interested in me. She was saying that “the meal came with a sauce” and demanded to see my bag” mind you my sister wasn’t close with the bag and I also didn’t appreciate someone riffling through my food. If there was a one sauce rule she could have said it nicely and I would have been completely fine with that. But she was so incredibly rude and it made me upset that she thought I was trying to rob some extra sauces. And I will say that when I sat down to eat there were no sauces. So I guess the embarrassment of getting that barbecue sauce saved my meal. Horrible place and extremely...