McAlister's Deli — Restaurant in Columbia Township

I'm giving the McAlister's specifically in Columbia, MO a one-star review.

I've only been here two times and my experience coming here the second time was worse than the first. I came in with my husband and I ordered a spicy turkey sandwich. When we received our orders, his sandwich seemed fine, but I immediately noticed that my turkey sandwich was pretty plain. I assumed the sandwich was made correctly & took a few bites. It seemed really weird that the sandwich only had turkey, cheese, & mustard with nothing else on it; no lettuce, tomato, etc. I don't ever come to this restaurant so I'm not familiar with the menu.

I went back up to the front to check the menu, and it says it's supposed to have avocado, lettuce, tomato, some kind of spicy ranch dressing, bacon, turkey, & cheese. Clearly there was a mistake, and I was given the wrong sandwich. No problem! It happens! No big deal! We are human and we all make mistakes. I have no issue with this. I walked up to the cashier & said my turkey sandwich is incorrect. She offers to have it made in a to-go box for me & I agree. That's fine. I didn't mind finishing my "mistake" turkey sandwich while they wrap up the actual sandwich that I paid for in a to-go box.

The cashier goes to the back, then she comes back out with some kind of manager/team lead (I am not sure of her title). This higher-up comes to me & requests to see my sandwich. ALSO understandable! Of course they want to make sure I'm not tricking them into giving me a free sandwich. Absolutely! Happy to oblige and prove that I'm not making this up.

She comes over to my table and I show her my sandwich to prove that I'm not lying. She then says she is going to take the sandwich. I told her that I don't mind finishing the "mistake" sandwich and the lady at the front would have my correct order in a to-go box. The higher-up lady said she was going to take the sandwich anyway despite what the cashier said. I told her that is a waste of a perfectly good sandwich even if it was given to me by mistake and I already took a few bites. I asked what she was going to do with it, and she said she would throw it away. I said "Well, if you're only taking it to throw it away, why not just leave it here? I'm happy to finish it. This makes no sense."

She accuses me of being difficult & all I'm doing is just trying to get the restaurant to give me two sandwiches. I told her I was not doing anything of the sort. She says to me "Then WHY did you eat some of the sandwich?" I took 3-4 bites, and she was accusing me of trying to scam them! I don't have McAlister's ingredients memorized! When I originally started eating the sandwich, I trusted that they did it correctly!! The nerve of this woman! I simply did not want them to waste food by throwing it in the trash just because of a mistake that was made. A mistake made BY THEM!! It seemed nonsensical.

My husband finally spoke up & told me to give her the sandwich anyway even though they were going to trash it. For the sake of peace, I gave it to her, and she went to go make the correct sandwich.

At this point, I was so livid with this lady, her attitude, and accusations. My husband and I both agreed that it was not wise to accept food made by this woman. When you are dealing with a food-service person who's not afraid to treat you like this, it's not too farfetched to assume they will do something unhygienic to your food. I certainly wasn't going to take that chance. We went to the front, requested a refund, then got the heck out of there.

Of course, when she heard we decided to get a refund instead of accepting the replacement sandwich, she made sure we heard her say "Welp! Guess I made this sandwich for nothing!" I'm not sure why she cares since she's so happy to throw away perfectly good food. I sincerely hope she ate it as her own snack or dinner because I truly do hate it when perfectly good food is thrown out.

Never going back. Good riddance. Honestly, that's too bad because the food was actually really...

Ordered my sandwich with gluten-free bread as I have many times and the staff in the kitchen immediately complained about my gluten-free order. Once the sandwich was delivered, I question whether it was gluten-free, as it did not look the same. I touched the bread and it was frozen. I stated that my sandwich was always toasted, so the server offered to toast the bread. I stated I wanted my bread toasted. Once the server returned to the kitchen, a member of the kitchen staff starting yelling so loudly about my gluten-free bread, I could hear her at the front of the building. It went on for a moment. Due to how uncomfortable the entire situation became, I demanded a full refund. The manager on duty was meek around his kitchen staff. Gave me my full refund, sheepishly stated the company had changed their policy and would no longer toast gluten-free bread. I stated they should inform customers. He did not reply and after he turned to walk away, he quietly stated "sorry". Unfortunately, as I like the food at McAlister's, I will never return to the Grindstone location in Columbia, MO. Extremely poor customer service. I felt extremely uncomfortable and any other customers present were aware that my order was causing...

Girl…. I’ve never in my life have ever had such under delivered food and service in my entire life, they completely ignored my food allergy when I ordered my food. I am deadly allergic and I disclosed that and it took them a long ahh time to correct my order. My mac & cheese was a coagulated, disgusting, almost pimento cheeseish mess. They literally didn’t have potatoes for the spuds and didn’t tell my friend until after she had ordered and paid. They then told her that she could swap it out for a sandwich or super salad. She picked a French dip, and it was so dry that it literally sounded like bones crunching when she tried to eat it. The meat was gray and absolutely flavorless, and they didn’t even provide you the dip for the sandwich. This was beyond disgusting and we’re a little appalled. Never returning again, way fking overpriced paying 16-17 dollars for this is just not the vibe. Save your money too DON’T go to...