Cook Out — Restaurant in Colonial Heights

Edit: The review text below is from four years ago. They have significantly improved since then. They can still fall to this level on occasion, as their turnover rate seems to be downright frantic, your experience varies day-to-day, but it certainly seems like they improved their training.

Ordering at cookout means accepting risks and sacrifices for the sake of the taste of their food and price. The customer experience is VERY hit-or miss. In short, you risk: -Late at night, being stuck in long, horribly slow lines. 30-45 minutes to get through. -Employees not understanding your order, extremely often getting stuff wrong, or sometimes VERY wrong.

Do not fool yourself into thinking the fact they have three windows, (two drive-thru and one walk-up,) will help you get out faster. They are often the slowest fast food lines I've ever been in. If you're lucky, everyone will be in the inner line not realizing the outer line is open, and you can drive up the outer line and get out quickly, of course forming the outer line in your wake.

Like I said earlier, this is worst in off-peak hours, such as 11PM-ish, do NOT get in the line if it is long. You easily get trapped into the line and can take 30 minutes or more to get through. I swear I've been in that line for over an hour more than once. When going at night, I actually have to bring something with the expectation of being in that line so long. I have to entertain myself to keep my sanity. I'll either choose to get fully invested in the music on the radio or use my nintendo switch or my phone. Shift to park whenever you do of course, it'll make sense with the long gaps in time between the line's movements.

Again, the fact they have three windows does NOT improve efficiency, at least as far as I can tell when they're all occupied and when comparing it to another fast food place. Any other place you go, they will only have one line, but move twice as fast or more, when you compare it to Cook Out at peak hours.

When you finally get to the sign with the speaker, you have to be very particular about how you express your order. If you don't state it clearly, it's likely to be received incorrectly, and you'll need to correct the mistake at the window, or just accept the order with the mistake and drive away.

I don't know what causes the error rate to be so extremely high at Cook Out, I think it's often because of that HORRIBLE mic-speaker system they used to use. It seems like they finally replaced it by now, but that took a long time! If you're going there for the first time, I'm glad you won't have to experience that.

I don't know if the new system brought improvements to the error rate, I've only been there like three times since that, but in my past experience it's more often you get an error somewhere than when you don't. They'll forget to make the BBQ Plate All Slaw, they'll forget to take the onion off my burger, they'll forget to put cheese on my burger, they'll only give one side of cheese bites when i order three, or sometimes they'll even forget an entire tray! Again, that may actually be fixed by now, but I really don't know yet. I do know, however, for the times I used the walk-up window and gave them a written list of the order instead of speaking it, the accuracy was...

Will never go back again ! Made a late night run with the significant other only to get home to him being disgusted by finding a burnt orange short hair on his hushpuppies while eating his food . he ate half his tray but couldnt finish the rest because of this and i didnt even start eating my food so we decided to go get a refund and grab food somewhere else like any normal person would do .. When we returned we went to the walk up window where my boyfriend told the employee what happened and she went to get the manager which i was surprised because he acted like a damn fool . he already had the nastiest attitude when he approached us at the window and just told my boyfriend there was nothing he could do without even hearing him . we told him how because we have the food this is a situation out of our control and we're being inconvenienced by making a second trip up here . he proceeded to tell my boyfriend EVEN IF SOMEONE SPIT IN HIS FOOD THERE IS NOTHING HE COULD DO . at this point about 5 employees gathered behind him and were laughing . he closed the window went in the back grabbed a cookout cup returned and us to call the number on the bottom .. WASTE OF MONEY AND TIME !!!! All we want is the refund , the food and hair will still be in the bag ready to be returned...

My husband and I just went through the drive through and ordered two cookout trays, one with a big double cheddar style burger with a chicken wrap and a chicken quesadilla, and the second (my husband's) a tray with a spicy chicken sandwich and two chicken quesadillas, as well as 4 orders of their 99 cent nuggets. We parked to check our order and noticed that my husband didn't have a second quesadilla and none of the orders of nuggets were present. When we drove back around, they knew that they had forgotten our nuggets but when we asked after the quesadilla, a girl in the back started yelling about "Who lying on me?" repeatedly and very loudly. The manager came over and questioned us repeatedly until my husband handed him the tray in question, and even then he asked me to open my tray and show him to be sure we weren't hiding the quesadilla. He still seemed to not believe us and even after giving it to us seemed irritated with us, and by this point we could hear the aforementioned irate employee now screaming and cussing in the back. I couldn't believe being treated like a thief while their employee carried on with the manager standing right there. How dare we request the food we paid for, I guess. Completely rude and unprofessional treatment. Never going back to...