McAlister's Deli — Restaurant in Madison

Original Post (2016--see update below): We have been coming to McAllister ' s restaurants for years and this is the absolute worse one we have ever visited; on our previous visit they got our orders wrong, had an attitudes when they did correct them, and tonight was the worse experience yet.

We ordered two spud max potatoes (one was supposed to be without ham) and was told it would be a 45 minute wait, which was no problem because we weren't in a rush and weren't extremely hungry yet. However, when we got there, 1 of the potato had no bacon (which comes in a spud max). To add insult to getting the order wrong, the person whom I suspect to be the manager tried to tell me that the bacon was mixed in: my mother is VERY particular about what ingredients are in her food and I double checked the order before going back in--there was no bacon. After they added the bacon, we tasted our potatoes on the way home (thank God we did)--the potatoes were not fully cooked (they were extra hard on the inside) and the ingredients lightly covered the top of the potatoes (instead of being in the potatoes like they normally are).

Needles to say, I ended stopping by Kroger to get ingredients to add to our potatoes to make them decent enough to eat. We weren't super hungry when we ordered, but by the time we finished basically making our potatoes OURSELVES, we were extremely hungry. For all of that, we could have gone to Wendy's and had them to make us one...it would have been smaller, but at least it would have been fully cooked and we wouldn't have had to get extra ingredients to make it taste worth something. We've tried going to this one because it's closer to us, but we're going to go the extra mile to other ones in the future...it's not worth the horrible service.

Update(2019): it's sad that it's 3 years later and managment is even worse than my last visit! The waiters were awesome, but the manager that was on shift during my recent visit (6/18/2019 at 6:30pm) was extremely unprofessional and rude. 1st off, I ordered double meat (ham, turkey, and bacon) on my spud max, but got the equivalent of an extremely thin layer of meat toppings instead; even though I paid for double meat,I decided to just deal with it and fix the other issues with my order--we ordered TWO double steamed brocollis with shredded cheese. They came out hard with no cheese, so we asked if they could double steam them and add the cheese (which we were charged for ON our ticket).

The waiter came back and relayed a message from the manager: "She said she won't charge you this time, but she'll have to charge extra next time for adding cheese,"--as if we didnt PAY for this in the first place and as if it wasn't CLEARLY visible on our ticket that we ordered cheese with the broccoli. Having the waiter to come out and relay this message--in front of other customers--was extremely unprofessional on the manager's part and made it look like we did not pay for what we requested, even though we did.

Despite our bad experiences at this location 3 years ago, we came in with an optimistic attitude, thinking that things would be better this time and that we could make this a regular lunch place again, but we will NOT be spending our money at this location again. It is worth the drive to another location. Based off of this bad experience and the fact that we were very nice in spite of our order being incorrect, I feel like we should have at least gotten a credit (that we could use for a different McAllisters location) or something, but we didn't even bother with trying to request 1 from this manager. We'll just steer clear of this location and warn friends...

Today, July 20, 2025, I met my daughter and her family at McAlister's after church. My son-in-law had placed my order for me because I had to attend a meeting at the church. As soon as I arrived (20 or so minutes after my son-in-law had placed my order, along with his family's orders), I placed a to-go order at the counter for a salad to take home to my husband. My daughter's family and I waited at least another 20 or 25 minutes for our food. After we'd finished our meal (some 30 minutes or so later), my to-go order had still not arrived. My daughter and her family left. I went to the pick-up counter to wait for my to-go order. Thirty minutes, later, I was still waiting, along with at least 6 other people who were waiting for their to-go orders. Some of them started asking for refunds. I got in line to do that. When I finally got up to the counter, I asked the young lady who was making refunds if the manager was there. She said she was the manager. I asked her what was going on. She said they were just overwhelmed with so many orders. I then said "Maybe you need more employees because this McAlister's has been this busy or busier on Sundays ever since it opened. Church crowds". She copped an attitude and said "well if I wasn't having to be out here in front giving out refunds, I could be in the back helping out." I told her if I hadn't had to wait for over an hour for a simple salad to go, she wouldn't be having to refund my money. I asked her how long she'd been the manager there. She snipped at me with "I don't know. Here's your refund." A gentleman who was standing beside me and waiting for his to-go order asked her about how much longer he was going to have to wait, and she said "maybe 15 minutes - I really don't know." A young lady who had placed her order on the app had gotten a notice saying her order was ready. But it wasn't. She had been waiting a while, too. This manager - whoever she is - needs to be fired.

While I was waiting, I also witnessed a lady who had returned to the counter after her table had received their order. She told one of the cashiers a cup of chili was missing from their order. The cashier went to the back, and on her way back to the counter with the chili, she slipped on a wet (?) floor, almost fell down and spilled the chili so that there was only half a container, but she gave it to the lady, with chili dripping down the side and only a little more than half full fo chili.

This restaurant has been bad for a while, but today was the worst I've ever witnessed myself. The manager who was there today (7/20/25) for the lunch crowd should be fired or demoted. She was unprofessional and inept...

Horrible customer service‼️ I came in to order my usual on 4/29/2025 around 2:50pm, a veggie spud with added olives & 1 pickle. While ordering I noticed one of the workers in the kitchen wiping their nose wearing no gloves handling food at the window where customers can see. Only their counterpart making the food had them on. So I let the woman taking my order know what I saw. She then told them (couldn't tell if they were male or female just caucasion with a pixie cut)to go wash their hands very loudly I might add in front of customers. I'm sure she explained to said person why he/she needed to, but when they came back from doing so they yelled immaturely "See my hands are all squeaky clean" with a very condescending & rude attitude. I ignored the child. Then the other child who took my order had an elderly woman waiting at the front register while she was sitting in the office talking to another girl. So I politely informed her she had a customer. When my order was about to be handed to me this same lady told the person who didn't wipe their hands to make sure I had my pickle in the box. She asked her how many I wanted l, when I specifically stated one when placing my order. Well, the child who didn't wash their hands decided to be funny & give me a box with probably over 30 sliced pickles in it. So then the girl that rung me up still chose to hand it to me rather than giving it back and just giving me one. So I took one out the box myself and slid the box right back to her and told them to have a great day. These kids nowadays are so rude and disrespectful. If you can't follow the basic health guidelines without (in my opinion) throwing a tantrum and being rude to your customers because said customer wanted you to wipe your hands and where gloves after wiping your nasty nose back & forth you don't need to be in the field. Luckily for them they got me on my good day. I took the food but I did not eat the food. I went to the one in Ridgland, explained what happen to their manager and they happily...