Popeyes Louisiana Kitchen — Restaurant in La Mirada

I put in a mobile order 30 mins ahead of time, and ran about 5 mins late. When I arrived they had not even started my order. The entire staff was plugging along, earpods in their ears, pretending not to see me standing at the counter....I digress, the entire staff, save for the "manager" sitting in the back, but in view, who began to immediately talk very loud about how she would lock the restaurant doors so she could take her break in peace if that's what it was gonna take. (She made sure to repeat this comment several times, loud enough for the 5 little leaguers and their parents to hear - I get it breaks are the law, but professionalism is a thing as well. So I sat for another 20 minutes while the staff tried to put my order together, another lady walked in and up to the counter, it seems she and her party had been waiting for close to 30 mins for their order as well. She was at the point of pleading for potato wedges just to stem the hunger over. The counter staff, made excuses of how slammed they were. (1 car and 1 slingshot in the drive thru) the guy in the slingshot came inside after something was omitted from his order. It took them 15 mins to even address him. 2 more couples came in for orders, and it continued to drag, so much so that one couple walked out, the other couple, older folks, decided to wait it out. They may have passed away from natural causes by the time they got their chicken with how eternally SLOW the staff was. One kid, tall skinny, kind of a modern Opie, was calling out orders, in such a quiet voice, you'd think he was trying not to wake anyone up. SOUND OFF MAN, no one can hear you.

The food was great. The staff needs to be better trained. And the manager needs to be replaced. You cannot manage while sitting in the back making comments about YOU,...

Yes it's a chain, but the chicken is decadent. We had the chicken sandwich dinners to go. The dinner is a sandwich and one side. My partner got fries and I got mashed potatoes and gravy. Both sides were unremarkable. The sandwiches were great, tho. The chicken breasts have a crispy, crunchy coating. Not greasy at all. All encasing a huge half chicken breast. Not too overspiced, and dripping with juices.The buns were okay. They come with pickles and mayo if you want. I got both. I think I'll opt out of the pickle next time.

The reason for the four instead of five stars is the service. I downloaded the app and got the two dinners plus the a biscuit (hard and tasteless) and a handpie (ok). I ordered and paid thru the app and took about ten minutes to get to the restaurant. Went thru the drive thru pick up. When we went thru, the window person thought we were the people after us who had ordered there, she double checked: they had a big order plus two pies. Not us. It took a long time for her to find our order then said the pie wasn't ready. No biggie, they would take the whole order out to our car when the pie was done. We pulled around and weren't in any hurry, but hadn't the people in back of us gotten pies and theirs were ready? No big, but after twelve minutes and many cars going thru the drive thru and no more cars in the parking lot, my partner went in. We had gone thru the drive thru to avoid too much contact since I'm vulnerable. Kind of defeating the purpose going in but no need to ruin our first time getting take out food in forever. The staff was nice enough and I'm always courteous and thankful for those working in any service industry, but I get annoyed when we spend scarce money on a once in awhile treat for just ok service. The food was good tho and I...

Sigh…..

First, let me say I think Popeyes has the best tasting fast food. Their fried chicken is better than 90% of what I’ve had at “real” restaurants. This Popeye’s in particular has pretty consistently good food.

Unfortunately, I have to go through this Popeyes’ underperforming staff. They are the foil of my bliss. Since this location has opened, I’ve probably been thirty times or more. I’ve had more bad experiences than good ones. I’ve had employees lie to my face about my order, I’ve had my order made wrong. I’ve had my food cold. I’ve had unwelcome substitutions for my order, etc.

I think I’ve only had one great encounter with the staff, and I was shocked! I’ve had a few unremarkable exchanges, and way too many negative experiences. I will say, the more recent experiences have been the unremarkable ones. That’s a good thing. I haven’t had a terrible experience for a few months, so maybe things are improving, or maybe I’ve just gotten better at strategically ordering.

Speaking of which, here are some tips for this location.

Always check your order. Make sure you have what you ordered and that it is at an acceptable freshness. Call ahead to see if what you want is available. Call ahead to request your order be made fresh. If for some reason things still went wrong, Popeye’s online customer support is the best I’ve ever dealt with, despite their lackluster on-site customer service. Use the app, to contact them, and they’ll make sure to take care of you.

Anyway, happy dining! Love...