Tommy's Drive-In — Restaurant in Gastonia

What a huge disappointment! My fiancé and I. went to the restaurant and ordered to-go food. Keep in mind this was my first (and last) time eating at this joint. We pulled in the parking lot unbeknownst to me they have curbside waiting staff. So a young girl came to take our order, all we asked for was a menu which she provided us with but the attitude she had was NOT ordered or asked for. My fiancé had to walk in the restaurant to order our food as the waitress never came back to take our order. Now he’s waiting for someone to come to the counter to serve us, mind you he saw maybe 4-5 tables eating but no staff. He had to ask someone if they could help him! I stayed outside of the restaurant, I walked up to the big menu on the side of the building and saw an advertisement on my the bench for a mobile dog wash and I wanted to check out the website or call about it so I took a picture of the bench. 20 mins later; my fiancé comes out of the restaurant he’s perturb, rightfully so, so we both stayed outside of out car standing in the lot waiting on 2 cheeseburgers, 2 orders of tater tots and a hotdog. Roughly 15 mins later a man that works there, obviously in the kitchen, a cook of some sort presumably bc he had on a filthy white kitchen apron, came outside and told my fiancé and I to leave the establishment! We were dumbfounded as we had been waiting for 45 mins on our food. My man asked the kitchen dude to why was he telling us to leave, we haven’t got our food that we paid over $35.00 for (ridiculous). The employee said we had been hanging out in the lot, we scared the young waitress (why, I don’t know), we were taking pics of the building assuming we were there to cause trouble. I was appalled honestly bc we were just standing there, 2 paying customers and we were told to leave or they would call the cops on us?!?!??! The short of this story is my man and said cook or kitchen help had words and not nice words at all! My fiancé was so angry he wanted to punch the guy but lucky for him I was able to talk him out of it. The guy never apologized or even said “my bad”. That’s $35 + dollars that I’ll never get back and to beat all, they screwed up my mans order! Disaster! Come on Tommy! You can do your paying costumers much better than that, can’t ya!!? I won’t give you anymore of my money! Thank your...

I wish I didn't even have to give it one star.... but.....

It never fails, when I go there alone or with co-workers my food takes forever. Today, the manager blamed it because we ordered chicken and it is cooked fresh. Which is understandable. However, it is NOT always chicken. But it does it take 30 minutes to cook? Our order was taken at 12:10 and we received our order at 12:35-12:40..... 5 tables received their food before we did. We spoke to the manager and she mentioned that she would look to see when the order was placed. She never looked into it and never got back with us.

Like I said, this is NOT the first time this has happened. I went there other times in the past and I have ordered the SPECIAL and had to get my food to go because my lunch break was over, the food takes forever. I only received 10% off my order that day.... but wait.... are you ready for the EXCUSE that day... They ran out and had to wait for the truck to get there!!!!!!!! No one.... I mean NO ONE told us, that is what was wrong and we could have ordered something else. We sat down and ordered our food and had to get it to go 50-55 minutes later because they FAILED to tell us that.

I do NOT recommend this place to eat if you are on your lunch break or in a time crunch. The food is good, but never for the sacrifice of waiting for 30-55 minutes for food and sorry excuses EVERY....

Very disappointed in our experience here. Our family (Hispanics who have lived here our whole lives…Legal Citizens) ordered and waited over an hour, only to watch another family who came in after us (and happened to be white) get their food served with no issues. Meanwhile, the biracial family seated before us also had problems with their order.

When we decided to leave, all we got was a flat “sorry” — no explanation, no effort to make it right. The restaurant wasn’t even busy, so there’s no excuse.

It’s frustrating to spend our time and money only to feel like some customers are treated with more care than others. They missed out on a $60 bill, and we left feeling unwelcome. Money has no color — and businesses should treat all families with equal respect.

EDIT/ UPDATE: The owner kindly reached out to us after this review and explained the situation. It wasn’t directly her fault, and she was very caring and responsive in addressing our concerns. We truly appreciate her taking the time to listen and give us hope to give this place another try. Thank you for showing genuine care, that...