Taco Bell — Restaurant in Gladstone

Man, I cannot believe how much this location has gone downhill. My family and I have been going to this location for years but over the past few months things have really gotten terrible. Tonight we ordered online and 10 minutes later we left to pick it up. Should’ve been plenty of time for them to make the order for 3 people right? Guess not. When we arrived there were 3 cars ahead of us. I told them the name that we had ordered online under and they asked us to pull forward and wait in the parking lot, despite the fact that there was no one behind us in line. Why? Whatever, we’ll pull forward hoping that our order doesn’t get tampered with. Upon pulling forward we realized that the 3 before us were also waiting along with 2 others that had already been waiting. As we began to watch the drive thru line back up we began to wonder how long things would take. By the time the car behind us had been served my wife decided to head inside to see what the delay was. She was given a bag that had been sitting off to the side cooling with an “I don’t know what happened “ excuse. We all go to Taco Bell knowing that it is sub-par food, BUT it’s usually ready in a reasonable amount of time, especially when ordering ahead online. But no, this was 30 minutes plus waiting for our order. Will not be ordering from this location ever again. I’d rather drive 15 minutes away to order from another location, these guys suck more than can be imagined. No sorry for the wait or thanks for coming inside to pick up your order because our employee probably would’ve taken your order to the wrong car instead type of excuse. No, this location is particularly under managed we ordered multiple items that came with nacho cheese that was less than half way full. Tonight’s experience was BEYOND PATHETIC! Boo Mcloughlin Taco Bell, you are better than this. I invite your managers to explain the level of service we’ve been receiving lately, I can only assume that you will not try to explain yourself. I welcome your reply, please...

This is the last straw with this Taco Bell. 4 out of the last 5 times have they gotten my order wrong. 1 of those 4 I ordered thru the app and they gave me part of someone else's order and missed 6 out of the 7 items I ordered. Another was breakfast. 2 other times I ordered the create your own box on the app and the completely messed up the order. Plus it seems like when we order the box thru the app they never put it in a box and its ALWAYS wrong. My wife this last time asked twice if everything was in there and they got annoyed with her and said yes it is we checked twice. Well sure enough 2 items were missing and 2 other items were made incorrect. And even 1 of the burritos got lettuce in it from them being messy. Everytime my son has gotten a cheese rollup which is just melted cheese and tortilla there was lettuce in it. When I call and talk to them they keep blaming it on the new people. Managers are blaming it on others. Managers are not saying sorry for their mistake and keep using new people as excuses. Its not new people making the mistakes. New people usually read the modifications and make sure they are right. Lazy people that want to hang out with the other employees is what's wrong. And STOP MAKING EMPLOYEES STAND OUTSIDE IN THE RAIN. WHEN THE ORDER BOX WORKS. You put your employees in harm's way. They are closer to customers this way with a so called pandemic out there as well as no way for them to clean the iPad when the customer is done touching it. I will never go back to this...

RE FOOD: Standard fare from Taco Bell. Nothing exceptional about the food.

HOWEVER, I absolutely must share a novelty that I've only ever encountered at this specific store...and I'M RESPECTFULLY REQUESTING AND EXPECTING TACO BELL TO POST AN EXPLANATION ABOUT THIS.

Let's talk about it...

This store has a RIDICUOUS drive-thru setup. I've been through the drive thru approximately three or so times in the past few months, and the setup was the same each time, which makes me suspect this is not a temporary solution workaround for something that needs to be fixed.

Here's the sitch: They have a person standing at the entrance of the drive thru taking orders using an iPad or tablet. The usual speaker at the menu board is there, but I have no idea why it's not being used...and NEITHER DID THE EMPLOYEE, who was shivering in the cold while taking my order. I met a dude wearing a camp shower tent in an effort to protect himself from the dead-of-winter cold, rain, wind. FOR REAL.

TACO BELL: Can you shed some light on this weirdness?

Oh, another thing: the employees told me that they are responsible for figuring out how to keep themselves warm and dry. Hence, tent guy. Another person didn't fare so well; he was standing in the rain, wearing a coat with no hood, no umbrella in hand, just soaking wet and taking orders!

Shout-out to the drive thru warriors: KUDOS with a huge dollop of RESPECT!

SERIOUSLY, TACO BELL: Please post a reply of explanation. What IN THE HECK is...