McAlister's Deli — Restaurant in Denton

I don't normally write bad reviews but here we go. I just ordered a call in order that cost $35.97 for a baked potato, a BLT sandwich, a bowl of soup and what was supposed to be a large cucumber tomato salad. I asked for the mayo to be on the side of my BLT and asked for extra, so my sandwich would not be soggy when I got home, neither of those happened. I got home to soggy bread, and no extra dressing on the side. I am assuming they put it on the sandwich by looking at the bread. The tomatoes were not even red, they were not ripe and were almost white. I got to my small tomatoe cucumber salad and it has literally no dressing and is dry and was not a large but hey it's dry so I guess that's no big deal since I'm not eating it anyway. When I go out to eat or I expect to tip when I am waited on, that is customary. However I am still trying to figure out what Mcalister's is asking for a tip for? Is it because the food was brought out to my car? No, I'm sorry I walked in and got the food myself, so that surely can not be the reason. What really threw me off was when I went to check out I could not see the credit card machine because of the height of the counter and a bad blur because of the light shining on it. I had to try and figure why my tap didn't work and instead of the young lady helping me, she just stood there looking away until I finally figure it out that I could not proceed without tipping or declining the tip. I am still baffled why this is even asked when I did not hv anyone wait on me other than checking me out. Then get home to my $35 dollar meal that...

Normally I have a good experience here, that I go about two times a week. Today, I went at 8:10PM was greeted by two young ladies. One was refilling ice buckets while the other was just standing there on her phone. The young lady with red braid (on her phone) greets me with “we only have one register open and it’s the one that she’s on (while pointing to a different woman) and she’s on the phone taking a order so it will be a little wait”. Ok, cool so I stand and wait patiently, then place my order to go. When the food is placed on the to go prep area, the same young lady with red braids gets off her phone to look at my food, and then proceeds to put on chapstick, and start a conversation with another young woman there. I give it 2 minutes of this before i notice she has started packaging it up, but only when the conversation she is having about unrelated work items give her a break to do so. Being that I’m pretty patient but only on a 30 minute lunch break, I give it another minute before I say “I’m sorry to disturb your conversation, but can I go ahead and get that (as she’s holding it in her hand talking) so that I can get back to work. She finished packing it up, and handed me the bag only for me to walk toward the door and see her reflection in the very clean glass windows looking at me with the nastiest look as my back is turned. McAlister’s, I love the food, but I’d rather go to 288 to get Jason’s deli where the food is ok but the employees...

The food is extremely bland, and the place itself is dirty. I had the Memphian sandwich and potato soup. The sandwich is large but filled with low quality meats. The bread seemed fresh, probably the best part of it. The potato soup is basically an onion soup with a potato or two accidentally included in the flavorless mess. My wife's sandwich looked like a mess, but she described it as "the same as always". One of our daughters had the Mac and cheese, she spit it out. It looked terrible, hard to blame her. Our oldest daughter had the Uncrustable, she ate it and was happy. Their fruit was not good though, unripe strawberries are not a good idea. I grabbed a bag of the mini cookies before we left, hoping to salvage this experience but when I got home I noticed they had been baked 2 days prior, based on the sticker that was conveniently placed under the flap of the package. Another $9 wasted. The place is dirty. Everything is either sticky or covered in some grey/brown gunk. I grabbed a high chair for our toddler and it was absolutely gross. They all were, the lack of care the employees and managers have for maintenance is glaring. The men's room is disgusting. Airplane bathrooms after a 3 hour flight are cleaner than this one. Hire some people that actually care about keeping a restaurant clean. I'll never go back to this place, doubtful I ever walk into another...