Potbelly — Restaurant in Leesburg

So, I'm not normally one to post negative reviews, I much prefer posting ones of the positive variety. Sadly this is not the case.

When I heard Potbelly was going to be opening up in my town I was really excited, in part because my experiences with this sandwich chain had been nothing but positive in the past. There's one in Gaithersburg I used to eat at for lunch every week and they actually introduced me to putting avocado on sandwiches. I loved that location. So naturally, while I didn't expect a repeat performance from a new store, I didn't realize it would be this bad. I preface this with the simple fact that I'm normally the person who will just eat what is given to me, without making too much fuss if they mess it up somewhat.

Me and my wife came into the shop, and leaves were all over the floor, we kind of shrugged and got in line. The associate who took our order didn't seem to know how to use a bread slicer and after taking my order, proceeded to mangle my bread and then had the audacity to serve it to me like nothing was wrong with it (he'd ripped off essentially a quarter of the lid of the bread and cut it lopsided). I chose to overlook this rather than make a huge stink and just continued on. I ordered the turkey club, which on the menu has lettuce, tomato, mayo, bacon etc. So when it came time for me to ask for what I wanted on my sandwich I had to repeat myself 4 times, I tried telling her all at once, I tried telling her only a couple of items at a time, but she kept having to clarify with me. I simply wanted what was on the menu board plus avocado, not too complicated. When she tried to shut my sandwich and cut it, the avocado and other ingredients just fell out and smeared the sandwich wrap. While looking for chips, I noticed compared to other locations their selection was barren. It was about 3:30pm so their lunch rush was long over with, I dont know why they hadn't restocked it. I went to get our drinks and the beverage station was messy, soda spilled everywhere, the straws were all wet and the levers used to dispense the soda were sticking so my cup just overflowed. Once again, just shook my head and went to sit down. Then I looked around, almost all the tables were dirty, the floor was covered in crumbs and dirty napkins, and when I thought maybe I could help them clean up a bit, BOTH of their trashcans were stuffed and overflowing. The line had at least 6 people on it, they couldn't send ONE person to focus on cleaning up their Front-of-House? I opened my sandwich and bit into it, and the combination of uneven ingredients, mangled bread and my sticky soda cup as well as the overall atmosphere just killed my appetite.

The crew was very young, including the manager it seemed, who didn't really have a sense of urgency or drive to fix the disaster that was the restaurant. We were there for 40 min and they didn't start cleaning anything until the 5 min before we left because the trashcans were so full we couldn't even throw away our cups/wrappers etc.

In closing, I get that this location is new, as someone who's worked over 10 years in restaurants I understand with a new staff with possibly no experience it can be difficult, but it falls on the management to keep a watchful eye and instill good practices rather than laziness and just expecting the customer to be ok with sub-par performance. I say this because I honestly do like this chain, I'm just disappointed that it looks like I'll need to avoid this location for awhile until they get some things straight. I hope they can take my salty criticism to heart, because I'd honestly like to come back one day, it just won't be anytime soon....

I ordered two sandwiches and asked for “hot oil” on the side. The man on the line handed me two sides of oil. I informed him that I meant the oil from the hot peppers, and he was OBVIOUSLY annoyed by my request. He said I can give you a little but, I don’t have a lot. The stores have huge jars of these peppers, but my request was a problem. Every time I got to Potbelly’s, I always ask for this and this was the first time, I was treated like it was an inconvenience. As I was checking out, I asked the cashier if he was the manager and she responded yes. I was in mid sentence with her when she told me to hold on and asked a guest behind me, if he had a to-go order. When I again asked for his name, she hesitated. Service is obviously an issue at this store and I will not be...

Disappointing. We went in to eat tonight at 8:00 pm. They were already mopping up although they don't close until 10:00. After we sat down and were halfway through eating an employee put the mopping bucket about 6 feet from our table. The smell was really unappealing when eating. We moved about 15 feet away and told the manager that the ammonia-type smell was bothering us. About 10 minutes later the mopping bucket was again moved to about 6 feet from where we were eating. The smell was bothersome again. We left. I won't eat there again. I never saw the manager ask the employee to stop mopping, although she stopped when we asked her, only to start again in 10 minutes. The food was good. I like the location in Tyson's...