McAlister's Deli — Restaurant in Macon

I gave two stars because of the friendly employees. I added a picture of a salad I made at home and that is what a fresh salad supposed to look like. I paid almost $15 for a half sandwich which was made sloppy. A bed of wilted and soggy, old lettuce, which was supposed to be a salad. A large berry lemonade, which was almost $4 and all they did was splash it with a little berry syrup in a cup of regular lemonade in front of me. At least fake it until you make it and throw fresh fruit in the cup along with it. I originally asked for a small lemonade but the worker didn't hear me correctly. I started to asked for a refund but didn't want to make a scene because it's my brother's favorite restaurant he goes to everytime he's in town. This use to be a go-to restaurant for me, but the quality has gone down. Some of the tables were filthy with dirty plates that looks like it has been sitting around for a while. They need to invest in a trash can for customers to discard their own trash to help keep the tables clean and make the clean up easier for the employees. The restaurant needs a lysol and bleach cleaning party because it's dusty & dingy. The whole entire kitchen staff needs to be retrained or fired because it's despicable how awful that food was prepared. Especially when I could have gone across the street to Subway and get a $8 footlong made with fresher ingredients, plus a drink and chips that would have amounted to the same price I paid for the pig slop I ate at McAlister's. The store owner or district manager really needs to make frequent visitations to keep the restaurant running properly because the way this restaurant is being operated, I really don't see it staying open...

My partner and I usually love coming here but we have had two bad experiences in the same week. The first time we ordered a cheese spud and a side salad and it took them over 30 minutes to get it out to us. The manager was so embarrassed that she gave us a free meal card. Fastfoward to a few days later and we decide to cash in our card. We see the card says expired 2/28/22 even though we got it in April 2023. The night manager tries to get out of accepting it but ultimately does. The restaurant is way less busy than during our first visit but it still takes about 20 minutes to make a cheese spud, side salad and, this time, half a sandwich. Unfortunately the wait wasn't the only problem. Both times the cheese spud was inadequate. The first potato was burned. Both potatoes barely had cheese and, despite the first one being burned, they were both somehow cold. We also asked for some ranch for the potato and there wasn't a problem with that during the lunch visit. At night, it's so dark in the store that when I checked the order I couldn't tell that they had given me caesar dressing instead of ranch and so more than half of the potato didn't get eaten because who wants dry, uncheesed, undressed potato? Also, they packed the pick 2 in the same box. Who puts loose salad in the same box as a sandwich??? At this point it's more trouble than it's worth to eat here. They take too long, the food is cold and/or not correct, it's expensive and you'll still be hungry after. They comped a meal but the comped meal was even worse than the problem meal. 0/10 would...

So... I tried this place for the first time on a Sunday. I am gluten free. I got a half sandwich and a t/c salad. It was fabulous . Well done and built to perfection. I have been back three more times because of my love for this kind of sandwich and because of my first experience . The other visits were not as good. The sandwiches were very sloppy and there was a huge chunk of melted cheese in the sandwich instead of turkey.. in the veggie baked potato, the skin was hard as a rock and there was one piece of spinach , one piece of pepper and 2 small pieces of broccoli . Really?????? I am thinking it depends on whose cooking that day or preparing but you should look into that because I’m thinking about not going back or st the very least , not spending $30 there anymore😔. On the bright side, I get the feeling that the people that work there are slow but that’s ok because they are all extremely nice.😊 I mention this because there are people moving here from everywhere and building here is active and happening . You need to step up to the plate . You offer a great great product but it needs to be done...