Taco Bell — Restaurant in Hickory

Where do I begin? Well, it was 2/28/2025 and we had a wonderful day with family. We decided to stop at taco bell around 7:30. We pull up and park because we already see the line is long in the drive-thru, we go in and about 6 people are in there and waiting on their food. We place our order on the kiosks and begin to wait, little did we know that it would turn into an hour and 45 min wait.....4 employees on hand, one of the 4 was in the bathroom the ENTIRE TIME! The other employee girl was just in lala land and Roamed around. The other 2 employees(I wish I knew their names) I PRAISE THEM...they were slinging tacos by the second, drive thru window, the driver had been there for 47 mins. The amount of effort those 2 were putting in to getting those tacos out were amazing! However, the other 2 could have stepped up and helped. By an hour in we had 25 people in the lobby and several of us been there for an hour and the drive thru is wrapped around. How sad taco bell only had 4 total but only 2 working employees working under the conditions they did. None of the sauces had been refilled..sitting empty, a dirty cleaning towel lay on the counter at the sweet tea jug with a bottle of comet bleach, not sanitary at all. The roaming employee had gloves on and touched everything, even the register with the gloves and then continued to go pittle around in the food. So we FINALLY get our food, most of it was wrong and definitely cold. We spent almost 40 dollars on food that night. We knew if we wanted it corrected, we would be waiting another hour and we did not want to do that. The employees never offered a refund but only offered a cup for a free drink because we waited so long. But during the 1st hour we stepped up and ask why we haven't received our food yet 😕 well the little roaming employee cleared ours off the screen and didn't tell anyone...it came back up on the screen as a remake...I am sad to say we will probably never eat there again. That place was a regular for us throughout the week, every week. But I thought it was best to share my experience so others do not have to deal with...

This is my third review of this Taco Bell and this needs to be HEARD. Trigger warning for those who are sensitive to details about foodborne illnesses The first review I made wasn’t favorable, the second was good, now this one takes the cake. First of all, my cousin picked up both hers and my mobile order and brought it to our house. She didn’t know what I ordered, so she assumed the order was right when they handed it to her. Nope. They gave her SOMEONE ELSE’S order. The only thing that was right, was our drink. Sad for me, because I don’t eat meat. I passed the food on to my husband, which I regret instead of throwing it away. Why?

I have been in the hospital ALL DAY because this Taco Bell is UNCLEAN to the point that it hospitalized my husband!! I don’t mean an er visit, I mean admitted to the hospital, facing a surgery in the morning. All last night, he was violently vomiting non- stop. Morning came, and he started vomiting up BLOOD. I had to rush him to the emergency room, who then transferred him to another hospital because the vomiting from the food was so terrible, it tore his esophagus. He lost so much blood, that he had to have a blood infusion. We don’t have a diagnosis yet, but I do know this nasty establishment caused him to become ill because my cousin ALSO threw up that same night, roughly around the same time, but only once. It made BOTH of them sick. Luckily she’s okay, but my husband? Well, looks like we are facing THOUSANDS in hospital bills over $13 Taco Bell food that wasn’t even our correct order....

Worst service I've ever had. I'm a manager for fast food and I sat in the drive thru for 45 mins and was yelling at the speaker. Not once did anyone say I'll be with you in a min or sorry we apologize for your wait or nothing. So I proceeded to call the store from my phone and the response I received was they are not able to take any orders but yet there was no cars in front of me. So I said your drive thru is closed? They said no but we can't take your order either. I said well shouldn't you at least acknowledge your customers and tell them you can't take there order or put a sign in the drive thru and they said we can't do that but we can't take your order. They was laughing at me like it was funny my kids have patiently waited that long for food. I asked for there names they refused to give me any names said they wasn't allowed. And meanwhile at 6 pm during dinner rush you have half them outside smoking. Then the lady proceeded to tell me she isn't going to rush her people. 45 mins isn't rushing them so then they hung up on me and never took my order. After a few mins a sat and watched and then decided to go inside to see why they just refused my service. All the staff was sitting there talking and cutting up and barely doing anything half of them standing on the cell phones. Sad excuse for management and a waste of the companies money for that place to be open. I literally watched at least 15 other cars drive off while waiting. Who runs a business...