Wendy's — Restaurant in Kansas City

I placed a DoorDash order from this Wendy's on 4/29/21. A driver went to the restaurant and then unassigned shortly after arriving. A second driver eventually arrived, and called to tell me that the restaurant said they refuse to make the order on the grounds that it was already made once and they refuse to make it twice.

The story was apparently, the food was not ready when the first driver arrived. It had been some time (from what I recall) that my order had been in the "Preparing" stage. I even remember it saying I couldn't cancel the order (I tried to cancel and re-order to add something) because the restaurant had already started preparing my food. The way DoorDash is supposed to work is the order is sent from the app to the kitchen and they start making the food while your driver is on the way. When the driver shows up, the food is supposed to be ready to hand over. In fact, when doing a self-pickup, "Food was not ready" is even a pre-programmed complaint against the restaurant when they ask for your rating at the end. However, they had not even started making my food yet.

Since Wendy's made a mistake and did not start my food, the driver left to fulfill other orders instead of keeping other customers waiting on Wendy's, leaving my order to be picked up by another driver when the restaurant caught up. If I were a driver, I probably would have done the same thing. Next, the second driver showed up, and that is when Wendy's canceled my order (48 minutes after it was confirmed).

I called the store for an explanation and spoke with a manager named Katie. She explained to me that they had not started my order yet when the first driver arrived because they normally do not start cooking the food until the customer/driver arrives for pickup. When the first driver left while they were in the middle of making my order, she explained that it is "not [our] problem" if a driver chooses to leave without picking up the food, but by policy, if someone leaves, they will not make the order a "second time" (I disagree with the premise that they deserve credit for making the first order at all that they apparently turned around and threw in the trash or something), you need to order and pay for another meal if you want to eat.

I didn't really feel like sitting there on the phone arguing with her about it would be productive, so I just accepted her explanation and hung up, but the disorganization and unprofessionalism shown by this Wendy's is just ridiculous and I wanted to say something about it. I think that first driver that left was completely right to do so and like I said, when/if I start driving for DoorDash, I plan on doing the same thing and I can only hope that if any restaurant tries to behave in this manner towards any of my own customers that the restaurant will be punished accordingly. Perhaps management will read this and straighten the store's system out, or perhaps this will happen enough times that eventually DoorDash will just block this specific location from accepting delivery orders anymore (I've seen it happen before...

Drive-thru service was down right rude today. I have the Wendy's app, and I always use a coupon. I waited my 15 minutes to pull up, and showed the man at the window my coupon code. This ticked him off for whatever reason. He grumbled loudly to his co-worker that "this would have been a lot easier if she said something when she ordered". As I could easily hear him and I use the app every visit, I read the instructions stating to 'show coupon at service window.' He was unable to punch the 3 digit code in and became increasingly irritated as he impatiently asked again what the number was. He finally typed it correctly. I paid, received my food, and finally got a 'thank youhaveagoodnight'. When I checked the bag there was no sauce, so I got his attention again and asked for dip for chicken fingers. He was over it and so was I, so I held the bag out my window so he could drop them in without stretching. 🙄 When I thanked him, I received an eye roll turn away and annoyed mmhhhmmm. Look - you hate your job? You having a bad day? You stressed because there's a line at 5:30 on a Thursday? I get it. I work, too. But I left my house 11 hours ago and I'm still not home yet. I mean, I paid $40. Can I not use a coupon and maybe get some ranch and a few napkins without a side of man tantrum? Apparently not. No napkins either. Get this guy out of the drive-thru. Plus, iced tea was off and we threw it out. Fruit teas advertised weren't available, had to choose from different flavors. Fries were cold, limp, and bland - we threw them out. No fish sandwich available yet ☹️ Burgers were the same as you would anticipate. First order ring up was incorrect but I caught the error, except for sauces not readded (see above) Poor form...

Be careful on the app. Did a mobile order and received no chicken on 2 chicken sandwiches. Come to find out, if you scroll to the bottom of the cart, be careful not to uncheck the chicken. As this is an option in the app if you scroll to the bottom to add item to the cart, you will possibly have no chicken on a chicken sandwich or possibly no meat period because this is an option with no meat? Wow. I gave 3 stars because the Manager was helpful to replace the order, but the question every employee should be asking is if you are spending the money on a chicken sandwich with no chicken on the order, just double check. Everyone make mistakes. As this was totally our fault but that option should be changed in the app as that could be a continual problem if it's not double checked by the employees or part of a protocol that it should be asked or confirmed especially since it was a mobile order. I know I would have questioned that. So you pay $6 for a bun and condiments. I explained to the manager it would be a good idea to make sure that question is asked if they really wanted to pay that kind of money for just buns and condiments. They replaced the order but then messed up the replacement order. We've not experienced this kind of bad service at this location but a new structure should be implemented with this app and the employees should be taking quality control into consideration and customer service with greater expectations. This mobile app should have some sort of verification as to did you really want no chicken instead of that option as a check or uncheck or just have the employees confirm it before its handed out. Be aware of this...