Popeyes Louisiana Kitchen — Restaurant in Norco

3-01-2020 UPDATE: DINE-IN NOT RECOMMENDED (Hamner Ave. Norco location). Here are my observations on this day of visit

THUNBS UP: Good chicken sandwich than other locations (The Day Street, Moreno Valley had the worst)

THIMBS DOWN:

1. They are not trained to be efficient. If you like their chicken sandwich or fried chicken, order to-go or use the drive-thru. To dine-in, bring your patience, lots of it.
2. No ice
3. No straws
4. No lids
5. The Sweet & Low packets was wet before causing the power to clump up
6. No soap in the men's room
7. No paper towels
8. It STINKS so bad you can smell it outside of the closed door.

There you have it.

POPEYE RE-LAUNCHED their Chicken Sandwich created even a bigger buzz than the first time. ABC7 News Reported, "Popeye's Chicken Sandwich debuted with killer reviews" referring to someone in Maryland who was stabbed to death after tried to cut in the waiting line. Other reports including restaurant staff were attacked, customers fighting, cars crash into each other in the drive-thru. So, I went to the Norco Popeye to find out what's about all the hypes.

Thought I'd go early (3:50 pm) to avoid the line, upon entering, seeing the order line was only 10-deep, I thought this won't be too long, WRONG, heck-no, it was 20-minutes when I got to the ONLY open register, then, a 40-minutes wait until I got my order, all this time, I was thinking they are so unorganized, so inefficient, so not knowing what they are doing, The girl handed my order and told me the sauce is in the bag. WRONG, there was none, when I went back to the counter asking for sauce, the manager didn't even look at me, she simply raised her stop-sign hand in my face and said: "Wait". After waiting for an hour and getting this kind of treatment? yah, I wanted to slap the snot out of her nose.

Well, just one bite of the Chicken Sandwich, my eyes rolled back and all bad-feelings went away, it is hands-down The Best Chicken Sandwich on the market. The fresh-out-of-the-fryer thick palm-size chicken breast was tender, juicy and oh-so-tasty, yes, it was me moaning. The Popeye's Blackened Ranch Sauce complements the sandwich well,

There you have it. The Sandwich is Mmmm Mmmm good. The cost $3.99 is more than welcome. The waiting is long. The Restaurant is in no shape to handle this craze. So, don't go if you are...

I like Popeyes menu and enjoy the food but certainly incredulous that so many menu items are not avail as they are out of product. Third choice was the charm, actually the third choice was asking the drive thru attendant what they did have that was avail? Pretty crazy so much stuff not available. I am thinking to myself that the failure to order of maintain enough merchandise or product is a sign of mismanagement or a red flag that something is wrong financially and again some franchisee has mismanaged his store. But of course this thought makes me question if it's a franchisee or individual store mismanagement once I pull up to the window and there is a window sticker or placard that is official corporate looking signage that notifies customers of the fact that they often might be limited on occasion of individual items.... OK so the whole company has mismanaged their supplies!!! Understood that supply chains have been problematic due to epidemic and such , but most supply issue should be resolved by now should they not??? Crazy that literally over half the menu is out of stock. Maybe perhaps it's just that I showed up at the drive thru as they were preparing to close down for the night and had cleaned up and finished cooking for the night.. That might be correct of the staff expects to leave right at the very hour the doors closed. It was about quarter to the hour! It appears that by the numerous majority of the young staff that was standing around with their hands in their pockets chit chatting with each other ( I didn't even realize they had that many staff in one store!) These kids were simply waiting for the clock to hit the hour like kids in the classroom wait to be saved by the bell! Well ok no worries these kids will learn someday and they are lucky to have it so care free and easy. Not sure if it's me or just that I rather finish a job first and get everything done when I am at the job site before I let everyone start packing up and waiting on the hour to leave! Of course everyone gripes about leaving a few minutes late and wants to take five minutes over as 30 minutes overtime, so it's all the same I...

Original order was made incorrectly and was not completely cooked. I had ordered the shrimp popcorn with a side of rice and my fiance ordered the voodoo tenders with the sauce on the side. Got home and there was no voodoo sauce and no rice. Chicken was under cooked and the shrimp was over cooked. Contacted the store and they were will to replace the order.

Went in today to get the replacement meal. Upon entering the store it was total chaos. There was a long long line and they only had one cashier working. I spoke with a manager and explained why I was there. She appeared less than happy to help, but did. As I waited for my food I watched the workers. The kitchen was a complete mess, you could see flour all over, workers wiping their heads with their arms as they made the food, and a maintenance man repairing equipment in the food prep area. Saw one employees stretching over the fryers on her toes to reach chicken sitting on a shelf.

The manager finally brought my food and it was a good thing I checked. I was give fries instead of rice, the voodoo chicken was missing. When I told the manager I wanted rice there was a look of discontentment on her face. When I asked about the voodoo chicken with the sauce on the side she indicated that I could get mild tenders but the sauce had to be on the voodoo chicken. To avoid any further problems I told her to just put the sauce on the tenders. Wow, it was poured on the tenders, just not much of it.

These past two visits left a poor tasted in my mouth on both the quality of the food and quality of service. Not to mention the lack of cleanliness of the store.

The 2 rating was a gift because of the original contact and friendliness of the manager...