Popeyes Louisiana Kitchen — Restaurant in Gastonia

Horrible horrible horrible. If I could give no stars I would. My family and I visited this location last week 9/12/2017 around 4:30pm. I guess this is the staff meeting time because we went in and there was absolutely no one in the kitchen. A young man walked to the register to take our order, 3 orders, and then two other ppl walked in to order. He took their order as well while attempting to move around the kitchen and prepare our food. Meanwhile there are THREE managers AND the district manager sitting in the dinning are "meeting." Now after waiting about 10 mins the 3rd person that walked in is becoming agitated waiting to order so he begins to ask the young man if he can get some help. The young man points to the 4 staff members sitting down eating and meeting watching him run around operating the register and the kitchen and says I'm sorry sir I only have two hands. One of the managers sitting down laughs and says "he only has two hands." COMPLETELY UNPROFESSIONAL. The district manager gets up and walks over to the register to tell the customer that the young man "is doing both jobs right now and will be with you as soon as possible." SMH Keep in mind my family and I are STILL sitting waiting for our food. 12 mins have now passed. The district manager goes BACK to the dinning area to sit back down with his managers to continue their meeting. Now their are two customers who have yet to order and my family of 3 still waiting for our food. The customer continues to complain and then two more customers walk in so NOW the other employees get up to go and help and at the same time the next shift of employees walk in to help. We finally receive our food with a "I apologize we were trying to have a managers meeting" from the district manager, Mario (probably a fake name). The district manager was the worst. This is the worst experience I've ever had not just at Popeyes but a fast food restaurant period. No way in the world should it have taken us almost 20 mins to get our food with that many employees sitting right in the restaurant. The young man the register held his composure and continued doing his job despite the other employees around him,...

Ice catastrophes is not even the right word to describe my visit. This has gotta be one of the most horrific places in the world. First of all we ordered spicy chicken sandwich combo at the drive thru , we pull around and wait behind the car before us. A man comes walking up from behind the car lane, I’m watching closely because first of all , why are you walking up on our car , he had on dirty black clothes, which is crazy because when you can notice that black is dirty then there’s a problem. I immediately think that perhaps he’s hungry and wanted food ( so that you don’t think I’m stereotyping, there’s always people right there asking for money and food and whatever else. But non of this even matters because he walked to the window and pushed it open and then walked around where the Kayla let him in. By this time I’m at the window waiting for my grandson’s order, the guy walked right in over by the drive thru area , Kayla hands me the drink. meanwhile the guy grabs a cup, puts ice in it and a drink, drinks out of it, pours it out , proceeded to use the same cup and scoop more ice and fix a different drink. Mind you he hasn’t washed his dirty lil hands or nothing. When Kayla comes back to the window, I asked her to please give me a different drink with no ice and explained why, she lets the guy know, he comes to the window, I guess to look at me and he waved. She gave us the order, we drove off. My grandson taste the fries, they were cold, he taste the drink, it was carbonated water without the flavor. By this time we are home and it’s freezing outside and I didn’t feel that good. Do not go to this place . I will update you once I receive a response from my complaint. This can’t be an isolated incident, imagine what else is being served out of that window. And if you work in a restaurant, since when did it become ok for you to wear dirty...

My first sign not to eat here should have been when I pulled up to the restaurant at 7 p.m. and all of the lights outside and on the menu board wear off. I should have drove away then.

But I understand that these are franchises and wanted to support a local business.

I ordered the butterfly shrimp platter , which I have had at other Popeyes before , and a chicken nugget kid's meal.

The fried shrimp were absolutely horrible and very much dried out. The chicken nugget kid's meal was almost raw and still pink inside but crispy and brown outside.

From my experience working in food service that means that the fried shrimp were left under the heat lamp for way too long past their time to be thrown out, and the grease from the fryer may not have been changed which is why the chicken appeared Brown on the outside but was still pink on the inside.And clearly no one was clearly no one was checking proper food temperatures.

I'm sure no one opens up a franchise for it to fail, just like those employees do not come to work to provide poor service. I seriously blame leadership and management. The Chick-fil-A directly across from them had a very full drive-thru because they are producing quality food and treating their employees kindly.

I know that I will never ever eat at that Popeyes again , which is sad because I am very local. If management, leadership or owners are reading this you must seriously change some of your practices. Starting with your building Aesthetics. There is no way my business that's open till the evening hours would have all the exterior lights shut off at 7pm. That is like literally sending your money away to another store. Which there are plenty of options...