Popeyes Louisiana Kitchen — Restaurant in Meridian

The greatest marketing fumble in fast-food history... NO CHICKEN SANDWICH! and even worse, NO CUSTOMER SERVICE!

I was so excited to try the Chicken sandwich and share it with all of our clients and staff that I made a trip to Popeye's on August 12th to secure the much hyped delicacy. After waiting in line for 15 minutes, all the while looking at the chicken sandwich in all its glory on the HD digital menu board, I get to the front of the single line (why they have more than one register and no staff to man them during the lunch rush is a mystery) and I am promptly told without apology that the chicken sandwich will not be here at this location for a while longer. "Why is it on the menu?"...

Fast forward a week and we call, many times, before the phone is answered. YES! They have the chicken sandwich. I go and get them and yes it is great! (despite a 10 minute wait for the fries, just enough time for the sandwiches to lose some of the desired crunch)

Fast forward another week and I am very excited to get one for my wife on Sunday, so I can get her verdict on which is better, Popeye's or Chick-Fil-A? We skip lunch, as we are not in an area with a Popeye's, it will be worth it I say, trust me. We are finally able to get to the Popeye's in Meridian and enter the drive through at around 5:00pm, starving. "We will have 2 chicken sandwiches please".... The load-speaker blares back..."We don't have the chicken sandwich". I said I had just eaten one last week, so yes, you do have the chicken sandwich. "No, it's released on September 2nd"... no, it was already released. "That was a limited release to the community to gain interest in the sandwich, we will not serve it until September 2nd"...

No apology, nothing. We left. We will not be back.

Popeye's may have the better chicken sandwich (debatable), but it lacks restaurant cleanliness, promptness of service, product knowledge, a membership program and most important of all CUSTOMER SERVICE.

Before Popeye's rolled out one of the greatest marketing and menu entries of all time, the upper management and leadership at the helm should have ensured that the chicken sandwich would have been a hit and it's restaurant's service and image were second to none. It would have secured loyalty and driven repeat business. Instead, this experience for me and millions of others across America only reinforced that the competition does it better - the whole package.

It's "My pleasure" to bring this to the management's attention and hopefully, a great marketing / customer service lesson can be learned for the future. For...

I used to work here as a manager for several years back in 2022… and oh has it changed. Around 8 pm we decide to go to the meridian POPEYES for dinner…Not a single smiling face, not as much as a greeting. We get to the drive thru to have our order taken, and my boyfriend and I took a minute to look at the menu because it’s constantly changing. And we’re asked several times if we were ready yet. (There was no one behind us). And I completely understand filling speed of service, but we hardly took any time at all. We had to repeat our very simple order several times. 3pm mild tender dinner box with mashed potatoes, and a classic sandwich combo with fries and a mango frozen lemonade. We get told that they don’t do meals without drinks and that I had to choose something else. I laughed, because I worked there for years as a manager and knew all too well that it was completely achievable to order a dinner meal with no drink. The young man then gave an annoyed sigh and had to speak to his manager to get it done. We finally get to the window and we hand the young man with braids $30 (a $20, and a $10)…. He stares at the money and seems to not be able to get the right change… (we owed 25.01). His manager had to help him count the correct change to us. Then, we watched him make us an iced mango lemonade… and then change it to a frozen one last minute. We ended up getting a cup filled halfway with ice and filled the rest with the slushy…. What the heck dude. My boyfriends fries were old and gross… and they gave me spicy tenders instead of mild. With all this being said, we weren’t even given napkins or cutlery for my mashed potatoes and everything was cold. Obviously customer satisfaction is no longer prioritized at this location anymore. What a bummer. The new management of this company need to figure theirselves out. This is unacceptable and not at all the “warming, welcoming company,” that used to have that “Cajun hospitality” that I was trained on for years. What a shame....

The 5 stars is for the great food Popeyes has, best biscuits I've ever had, I happen to be from Louisiana born and raised and had the pleasure working of working for A Copeland and Stan Ware as a young lad and they were awesome to work for. Now with that being said Mr. AL passed away a good while back and last time I heard Stan still had his stores. Now never in the history of any place in the world that serves yard bird have I seen the price of chicken so high in my life. Youngest has lived here 15 of her 16 years so she really never experienced the awesome cuisine her home state had to offer, she loves KFC. So I haven't hit Popeyes in years, I drive up the drive thru glanced and had to take a double take. You remember that ad that ran on TV long ago the Indian chief on the horse they pan the camera down it shows the sides of the roads full of garbage the camera pans back up and the native American Chief has a tear running down his cheek. When I saw how much a 2 piece dinner cost camera pans back from the menu back to me and I have a tear running down my cheek. I was trapped in line I couldn't run I had to order. Are these magical chickens created by unicorns in the fairy forest if so then maybe those are expensive but don't think that's the case. So I had to order chicken damn I'll have to get to the bank early in the morning and take out a mortgage on my home now for this chicken which is great. I saw the person working the window give the car ahead of me a big box 24 pc plus all the sides and drinks, not often you see royalty here but these people had to be wealthy. The food is great its just their prices are out, definitely...