Tenders — Restaurant in Florida

It’s called Tenders. They do chicken tenders… so it’s fair to expect they do tenders well, but that wasn’t the case for my visit. Chicken tenders were dry, bland, and over cooked. The sauce selection was pretty standard: I tried several of them and found the Caribbean Jerk to stand up well. The others were par for the course or just lackluster (the hot was basically Frank’s, and comes for what a bottle of it costs). It would be nice, though, if the flavors on the ordering kiosk matched the ones on the digital signage: The menu says “hot” while the ordering kiosk says “Blazing Buffalo, which might be a big turnoff for those familiar with a famous wing joint’s “Blazin’ Challenge.”

I didn’t venture into more adventurous dishes, as they seemed like a caloric nightmare.

For sides, the fries were hot and crispy, but nice and fluffy in the middle. The garlic bread was middling. Surprisingly, the mashed potatoes did NOT taste like they just came out of a microwave. I’d say a few notches above KFC, which for a QSR, is quite a compliment.

I will confess I felt very nickel-and-dimed over the extra charges for nearly everything. Despite having to place my own order at a kiosk, bring my own food to the table, and bus my own dishes, I was still prompted to leave a tip. You can order a combo “meal” but still have to pay extra for the drink and most of the sides. And the self-ordering kiosk does NOT make it fast or easy. The phrase that comes to mind is “Florida food at New York prices.”

Take note: there is an “extra tender” option under the sides I noticed after-the-fact, so some you might be able to sub a side for an extra tender if that’s what you’re after.

The employee I talked to was nice and tried to be helpful, but I got the sense there’s not much they can do.

Free parking. I was there mid-day on a weekend, so not sure what it’s like during nights or when there are UCF classes. Restroom...

I am a regular at tenders, or I should say I used to be after some of the unfortunate things the last couple times I’ve ordered. The picture with the melted styrofoam containers is quite obvious. Multiple pieces of my food were ruined because whoever cooked it decided to toss it into the box with hot oil. Within this picture you can also see the fry portion is pretty good. However, the last couple times I’ve gone I have gotten less… and less… and less fries every single time. Until now where I was given a tiny handful of fries with my near $20 meal (there is maybe 20 small fries total, and this is the same order as the other image). On top of that over the last couple months I have watched the individual sauce prices increase from free to now $0.75. I use a lot of sauce and don’t mind paying extra for it, but $0.75 is now pushing unreasonable in my opinion. Not only that but with the meal I picked up today (the one with the small portion of fries) I noticed the jalapeño ranch recipe has changed. Instead of it tasting like it was made in house and being a thick, creamy, and spicy sauce it now has the consistency of water and tastes exactly like watered down ranch with some cut up jalapeños in it. I understand restaurants needing to make changes to ingredients/ price increases with the tariffs and whatnot, but if there could be an announcement of some sort on your guys social media it would’ve been understandable (I follow the tenders USA instagram). The chicken still tastes good and the fries also taste good, so it sucks to have to give up this spot, but I can’t justify being shorted of food and the other things I spoke about for the price of the food. Unfortunately due to the price increases, the decrease in quality of service, and decrease in quality of some of the food, I won’t be eating here anymore...

Went here today with my wife to order dinner, and had a bad experience. The crux of the issue is the restaurant took in too many online orders, didn't know how to handle it, and the people ordering food inside the restaurant were paying for it by having to wait 45+ minutes for food because the restaurant couldn't prioritize. About 20 minutes in, the call was made to temporarily suspend online orders, but they just never recovered after that point. Frontline kept apologizing left and right to people because their priorities were so messed up from the kitchen producing orders for people who weren't even there. I sincerely hope the online orders were worth it Tenders. We won't be coming back after this experience.

Our order was placed at around 7:10pm, and at around 7:55pm (45 minutes later) we asked for a refund. The food finally came out while we were working through the refund process. We denied the food and simply got our money back, but that was a pretty rough process because David (and the owner by phone) couldn't refund my card back. Refunding a card isn't rocket science, and I'm surprised this turned out to be a difficult process. I reiterated to David that I had no issues with him, but this restaurant has to learn how to be accountable for it's actions, and lack of service.

Ended up going to Huey Magoo's down the street. Ordered at 8:07pm, food delivered at 8:18pm. No excuses, and it was...