McAlister's Deli — Restaurant in Deerfield Township

I had a "To-Go" order that was supposed to be ready at 11:35am today. I got there at 11:30am and didn't get my food until 12:10. I STOOD AND WAITED 40 MINUTES FOR AN ORDER I PLACED 30 MINUTES BEFORE ARRIVING. I was late to my class, my sandwich was cold at that point and I desperately just wanted my money back.

I saw my food sitting there for AT LEAST 20 minutes and everyone was running around like chickens with their heads cut off because they were busy and had a bus that arrived long before I did. (It's lunch time - this is probably an every day occurrence) I worked at Wendy's for 4 years and I understand being busy and having buses arrive. My managers and staff were actually prepared for busy hours, completely staffed and worked as a team. There was absolutely no excuse for the incredibly awful service I received today.

No one talked to me until after a half hour of being there. No one directly came up to me and asked if I had been helped or needed anything. I felt like I was being blatantly ignored when I approached the counter on multiple occasions. People were coming in after me and being served before me. The manager finally asked if I had been helped and I told her no I had a pick up order from 30 minutes ago. She looked for my name and then tried to tell me she doesn't have an order for me. I pointed out the food I knew was mine and she bagged it and handed it to me. Not to mention there was another much older woman with a cane also standing for over 30 minutes waiting for her to-go food.

I have never felt so frustrated in my entire life with a restaurant. As much as I love McAlister's food I will never be returning here after today. This was the worst experience I ever had with...

Stopped in this location today. I think it’s important to remind people that when we spend our money at restaurants, we are asking for something relatively simple and straight-forward. We are asking for the people who are running the business to have some degree of motivation for serving a satisfactory product. After all, they are the experts, aren’t they? I trusted my gut today, if you will pardon the expression, and refrained from ordering any type of chicken menu item. Many of us know the consequences of poorly handled/poorly cooked chicken from restaurants. Instead, I ordered a French Dip sandwich. Shouldn’t that type of selection be “relatively simple and straight-forward” from the experts? The sandwich was served with very tough beef, so much so it was difficult to cut with a knife. It also had nickel-sized areas of fat throughout the slices of meat. Do the experts really feel this is a satisfactory product? What is going on? Well, I have diagnosed the problem. It is an increasingly common phenomenon called “restaurant apathy.” The experts just don’t care about serving a satisfactory product. Very unfortunate. I expect the response to this post will be the standard “We are very sorry to hear about your experience.” If you are genuinely sorry, then do...

This is a really uncharacteristic visit for me. Usually this place is fantastic food, if a little pricey, but worth it. Very clean restaurant. Love the seasonal witch’s brew drink too! The people are usually hit-or-miss on how they treat you, but today they’re all very very… I’d almost say “zombie-like”. You have to speak slowly and repeat yourself over and over, to each one of them, and they’ve already messed up my order but I don’t think any of them are with-it enough to fix it so I’m not going to bother trying. Yes, I am aware that McAlisters does like to hire handicapped individuals, but that’s not what this is. Every single employee here is like they’re half asleep, from the order-takers, the man in the polo who is obviously a manager, the busser, the server…. Everyone. It’s very unsettling. I’ll certainly give this location another try down the road, but this is… a very “twilight zone” sort...