Whataburger — Restaurant in Fort Smith

My daughter and I had dinner tonight after we both got off work. We placed our order, filled out cups and went to look for a table. Just about every table that was empty had some type of trash on it. There was french fries, napkins and straw wrappers on the floor and under the tables. The trash can by the door in the seating area was beyond overflowing. Once our food arrived, I was absolutely disappointed. The fries were stale, cool to the touch and tasted like they had been sitting out under a heat lamp for half a day. The burger patties wasn't even hot, barely warm would best describe it. Being that I was starving and didn't want to have to wait to speak to a manager causing my food to get colder, I ate it. The final blow to this visit was when I got to the bottom of my fries, one had what appeared to be a small hair resembling an eye lash stuck to it. At that point, I had already consumed 90% of what I had hoped to be an enjoyable dinner. I have had Whataburger in several cities across Texas and have never seen, or experienced, anything like this. What really shocked me is, I witnessed multiple employees who were bringing food to patrons walk past all of this and not blink an eye. We were there about 25 or 30 minutes, long enough for me to see the employees, on what I assume is day shift, not give a flying flip about how the restaurant looks. It's sad to say but, if I experience this again it will be the last time I ever step foot in the Fort Smith Whataburger. Very, extremely disappointed. I hope this issue get rectified, I really like Whataburger but will wait until I visit Texas to have it again.

I took photos, but there isn't a location to post them... otherwise I would.

Update.

My daughter and I went to have dinner tonight. I'm pleased to say the food was perfect, the service was 💯 better and the restaurant was clean. I sat an enjoyed my favorite burger and savored every bite.

Food was good but man, the drive thru is extremely slow. From the time we put our order in, drive around and was behind one car. (Note, the parking lot was empty except for 1 car) 27 minutes later we finally pulled up to the window and...

This might be the all time worst service I’ve ever had in my life lol I’ve never left a review but this was unreal. For one it took 25 min to get our order. No big deal though, all Whataburgers are that way. But half our order was missing. We told the lady who brought it to our table and they took it back to get the rest of it. A few minutes later they bring back the food and still forgot the gravy. We brought that up and the lady shrugged her shoulders like she didn’t know what our problem was lol but she ended up getting us the gravy. This is where it gets insane though. So we order 4 spicy chicken sandwiches. We ate 3 of them and then bit into the 4th and it was a regular sandwich and not spicy. So we take back up to the counter and tell them. They say we can keep the sandwich if we want and they will make the spicy one and bring it out. We don’t have anything against regular chicken either so we started eating it and a minute or so later another lady comes out saying they actually have to take the sandwich back so they can see that it was wrong so we gave it to her and she took it back. Then she comes back and straight up tells us to our face that it is a spicy sandwich and not a regular one. I eat at Whataburger all the time and it was absolutely not spicy lol it’s very easy to tell. So we said it definitely was not spicy and that we just wanted a spicy one made. So she takes it back and comes back again saying they refuse to remake it and the best they could do was a refund. We went up to the counter and what I assume was the shift manager said she personally made the new sandwich and it was spicy insinuating we were trying to scam them out of a $4 sandwich as we are holding the non spicy sandwich in our hands lol in the end they still refused to make a new one and claimed they would refund us for that sandwich so we will see if that actually gets put back on the account or not. 100% the worst experience I’ve had at any...

I really don't like to do a negative review, but my experience was consistently pretty bad. Usually we love Whataburger but this location needs some assistance.

I'll start with breakfast... We ordered the pancakes and my best guess is that they were cooked right along with the burgers because they were like sponges that sucked up ALL the burger grease. It was so bad that I was sick throwing up off and on for two days. They offered to replace them so a few days later I tried again assuming it was a one time goof because it was close to lunch that day, but when I opened it you can immediately smell that burger grease smell and see the little burger flecks all over it so not wanting to complain, I tossed it and gave up. On to the biscuit options... Twice I tried to order an egg and cheese biscuit, but both times the yolk was super runny. That comes out very weird for a breakfast biscuit, so that was also a no go.

Lunch/Dinner I don't have too many complaints except for the long wait time and frequently getting cold food. I just don't see the food/experience as a good enough value to make customers want to return.

I understand there are labor concerns etc, but I really would love to see this location do a little bit of training to address some of these issues so we end up with a better Whataburger. After all the negatives, I admit that the banana pudding milkshake...