Habit Burger & Grill — Restaurant in Eatontown

I hate having to write reviews about terrible customer service but especially during these times, it feels necessary. I barely ever go here because of all the terrible customer service allegations that has gone viral from this place located in Eatontown specifically but today I experienced it for myself. I have worked in customer service for so long and had the position of manager that I took seriously because I valued my job, the establishment itself but also the customers that willingly spend their money there.

I ordered online for curbside pickup and followed the instructions that were sent to me saying to pull up to the front of the store, which I did. The actual parking spaces for this is area is already busy in general because it a populated business area. When I arrived, they had another customer parked diagonally in front of their curbside pick up sign already. I thought nothing of it because by how the parking lot is already busy/jammed and some other places that have curbside, have the cars pull up to the curb diagonally to create space for other cars to pass by so I did the same.

I am pretty sure the woman who came out was one of the managers or assistant managers and handed me my food and goes “next time pull up to the curb” in such a rude condescending tone, flails her arms at me, and walks away before I can even say oh sorry I didn’t realize thats what the store wanted. I’ve been in customer service for YEARS and this was totally unacceptable in every way. How about end the conversation with “thanks for your business” or “have a great day”? I just don’t understand what happened to the concept where treating the customer with respect and kindness who was trying to greet you politely was not a shared value of customer service training here. This hasn’t been the first time I’ve witness terrible customer service here because right when the pandemic started and Habit opened up with “covid precautions” there was a viral video that went out in Eatontown showing the SAME woman and another man who were totally disrespectful and lacked even sufficient customer service. Especially now during Covid and all the hard hits businesses have been facing. I would think businesses like Habit would care even more greatly for customers who decide to spend their money here instead of elsewhere....

Good burger but lacks options. A good tasting, flame grilled burger with nice caramelized onions and cheese. However, with many burger places competing to be the best, Habit just can't stand up against some of them. There's a very minimal amount of options to choose from when ordering a burger, 2 types of cheese, 2 buns and not much else. Go to a competitor like Smash Burger, there's at least 6 types of cheeses, 3 different lettuce or spinach blends, multiple other options for peppers and onions and so on. At Smash, I can get a burger "how I want it" where as at Habit, it's take it or leave it.

The grilled taste was there and was good, at Smash you don't get that. The bun was a little hard around the edges, yea it was toasted but it felt like it was stale and not toasted as the rest of the bread was soft. Carmel onions had very good flavor and was my favorite part of the burger. Only 2 choices of cheese is a shame, I love cheddar on my burger but you only get swiss or american :(

Ordering online was simple and easy, with limited options to choose from it's not difficult to pick "no mayo" "american cheese". Picking up was easy as well, it was pretty busy so I'm glad we ordered ahead and when we got back home to eat it the food was still warm enough to enjoy which was nice. Inside seemed clean and the staff was friendly but really busy so it took a while for them to notice us waiting to pick up.

I would eat again at Habit, but won't. For about the same price, ~$4.50 I'd rather go to Smash and have more options to choose from...

Food was cold, soggy when we finally got it. Waited over 20 minutes after checking in for curbside, never received text as check in message stated, no instructions on specific place to park. When I finally called to see why food had not been brought out, the impression was no one really wanted to speak to customers based on the automated message, after picking curbside in the phone options, I was disconnected after being told to order online. Called back, chose 'place an order' and finally got a human, I explained the situation, he checked on my order and said I had to pull up in front of door and asked for vehicle description, which was very detailed in my curbside order notes. When I asked about the freshness of the food since we had been waiting in for over 30 past time it was to be delivered to the car, he said it was fresh. Food arrived, cold, soggy and all ice melted in drinks. Complete disappointment and the human on the phone acted and sounded more like a robot by repeating the same answers over and over like he was scripted, clearly he did not care at all about customers and the fact that I paid over $20 for 2 burgers and fries. Ridiculous!! Wish I could get my money back. UPDATE 5/10/21: emailed as response requested and had already sent corporate an email...