Wendy's — Restaurant in Columbia

This place is absolutely disgusting. I know experiences vary, but mine was absolutely horrible. Stopped here after leaving work. Pulled up to the drive through. Waited a few minutes and there was no one in front of me waiting. I assumed they were closed. After saying hello to the drive through speaker I was finally greeted with “Thank you for choosing Wendy’s can I take your order”? I went ahead and gave my order to the man and as he was talking through the drive thru speaker I could barely hear him as there was loud music playing in the background. He asked me a few times to repeat my order as I was competing over his loud music. He gave me my total and I tried to modify my order and received no response. So I drove to the window and asked to speak to his manager. He asked if there was something he could help me with. I said yes, I would like to speak with your manager. After he left and came back by himself he asked if there was something he could help me with again, and I said I would wait for the manager. She finally shows. I explained to her that I had difficulty placing my order because of the loud music and had to repeat myself a few times. She ensured me that she would take my order and address the issue. I received my food and it was correct as she handled it. Paid nearly 30 dollars for 2 meals. Driving home I reached into my bag and ate some fries. They were good and hot. Reached for the sandwich I ordered and took a bite. Was greeted with a really long hair, coincidentally the guy who took my order had really long hair. Spit out bitten piece back into the wrapper. This was no mistake I felt, but deliberately placed there due to him being called out for his lack of service and my experience. Drove back to the restaurant and noticed the guy was no longer at the window but the manager. She refunded me for the one meal and replaced my order. Called Wendy’s Corporate about this experience, have yet to hear back from their District Manager. Guess they really could care less about their customers or their experiences. Hope this place goes out of business. People like that shouldn’t be serving food to the...

Updated 5/31/25 I don't go to this Wendy's very often because it is not near where I live. But I tend to go when I am going to be in Columbia. I will not be doing that anymore. The burgers today looked like they were thrown together by 2-year-old. I requested no ketchup and wanted tomato added. I did not get my tomato and the burger was dripping with ketchup and mustard. I ordered a ginger ale with vanilla flavoring and a Sprite. The colors looked correct so I didn't even taste the drinks at the time. When I tasted what I looked like Sprite it had vanilla in it. When I tasted the one that looked like ginger ale it had a vague ginger ale taste. So apparently they have some sort of knock-off ginger ale because it is not Canada dry based on the taste. They put the vanilla in the Sprite and left the ginger ale plain. I will be going into Columbia 4 or 5 times in the next month but I will not be going by Wendy's. Five times in a row of having my order screwed up is way too many and I'm not going to try for a sixth one. And I again had to ask for my straws and sauce for the nuggets. Updated 4/19/25 Food is good when it's right. Last 3 times I've been here my order either had food missing or special instructions ignored. Today I think they fixed the burgers and then dropped the nuggets cause we had to wait and the fries were warm but not hot and my burger was nearly cold. Again customer service gave me a reward credit for missing food but that doesn't make up for order being wrong the next 2 times. Person at the window today didn't even speak and I had to ask for straws.

Updated: I'm still giving this a 3 because that salad should never have been served. I did get a refund after I contacted their customer service but it took nearly 2 weeks.

I'm giving this a 3 because the burgers were good. But the salad I paid nearly $9 for was practically inedible. Huge chunks of lettuce, some 3 inches long. Overripe tomatoes. I will NOT be buying a salad from here again. I had quit coming because the service a few years ago was super, super slow and the people were barely polite. I tried it again a couple months ago and the service is...

So I just started working here on 8/23/2017, and things have been picking up. When I was interviewing, I was told that there had been a complete fire and rehire. Right now I generally work the Drive Through window at night. The only issue is that we sometimes become extremely short staffed at night starting around 8 pm, and the staff normally becomes the thinnest at 10 pm. Things have been picking up since we have all been starting to get the hang of things and are getting used to working with one another. I just finished working my fourth night here, and what I can say is don't let any bad experience, should you have one, permanently effect the way you feel about this Wendy's location because, as I said before, I am new here, and I am not the only new employee, but I am one of the newest ones here.

Now we do have our every day customers, so like I said before, if you have a bad experience within the next few weeks, PLEASE do not expect our services to always be bad, because a few of us are still trying to get the complete hang of things, and it has already been getting much better as we are working. I've been going in early to make sure that we aren't short staffed then, and right now I stay until closing time. Our managers are currently interviewing people and trying to secure employees for the later shift, trust me, we are doing our best to please our customers. And if there are ever any very long waits, we will sometimes upsize a drink, give a free frosty, or add an extra order of 4 chicken nuggets to your order for free to make up for your wait times.

Our goal is not to have you waiting as a customer, our goal is to serve you as quickly and as efficiently as possible, as we want you to be able to leave extremely satisfied. It is our pleasure to serve you as our customers, and we are trying to do our very best to insure that you are happy. Right now I am trying to figure out what I can do in order to make the Drive Through line go as quickly as possible at night, but our goal is to get a few more night employees to come in and work so that we will be able to run as efficiently...