Taco Bell — Restaurant in North Carolina

I’m convinced this is the worst Taco Bell in existence. Not sure why I keep going, it’s my fault that I keep thinking things will be different. The food is awful - they must not store the ingredients properly between orders because the refried beans are always dry and cold. Same with the rice. I’ve had food that tastes and smells like hand sanitizer. Yesterday, the chips tasted sour and spoiled. Must’ve been an old batch of oil that they hadn’t changed because they smelled so putrid, my car had a rotten oil smell in it all day. Even the soda often tastes like the syrup is running low (overly watery and carbonated Baja Blast - gross.) If you order chips and nacho cheese sauce, they only give you a tiny dollop of cheese instead of filling up the container. It is usually a fourth of the amount I get at other locations.

They ask you what hot sauce packets you want with your order, but never actually put them in the bag.

DO NOT go to this Taco Bell if it is after 9pm. For some reason, the staff seems to check out 2-3 hours before closing. I have gone to the drive thru at 10-11pm (they close at 12am) multiple times, and always experience the same thing. The employees are outside on the dining benches smoking and vaping, and when they see me pull up in my car to the drive thru, they reluctantly go inside to take my order. They make me feel like it is a huge inconvenience to them that I want food. Good luck getting anything you want after 9pm - they always “run out” of ingredients about 2-3 hours before closing. This has happened to me four times, especially with nacho cheese sauce. I think this is just them being too lazy to open a new portion of the cheese sauce. I’ve had several other late night orders missing ingredients too.

The other night, they were unsurprisingly “out of cheese” so I asked for a side of creamy jalapeño sauce instead. The person taking my order seemed angry that I even asked that, but said “he guesses he can make that work…”. He charged me $2 for two sides of jalapeño sauce, and still forgot to give me my chips!

Do yourself a favor and go to the McDonald’s, Jersey Mikes, Dominos, or any of the other restaurants in the area. You are guaranteed to be disappointed by...

There is an attendant who may be a manager that has you pull around and does so in a flippant way pissing off customers especially if you have a large order. It makes no sense and it seems like he hopes another customer with a quick order will pull up and get in front of you so he can take care of them first before dumping your bigger order into your hands. I parked and ate mine and watched a pickup truck squeal out and pull around just like I did and then after being POed they left and it looked like they left without their food.

The food quality if you can get the AM crew is usually not bad, but the afternoon “pull around” clowns can’t get it together and if you order ahead for inside, often there will be some issue or they will switch your order to drive thru. I have sat in the restaurant having my food and watched them say we can’t take your order, you have to use the kiosk. Feels like the staff, particularly the pull around manager, do what they want and go out of their way to make ordering and getting your food super inconvenient. It’s always something. And then you end up with food poisoning or extensive GI symptoms after eating there when this crew is on which makes me not trust the food safety practices at that location.

Will definitely go elsewhere and avoid the Bell off Knox Way in Chapel Hill. Not worth the hassle or the GI symptoms. Rotate out your nasty refried beans once in a while instead of letting them dry out to the point they are no longer pliable or edible and just because I order a burrito off the value menu doesn’t mean make it a 2-inch 90% folded over flour tortilla ball. Are you getting bonus pay from your regional manager for all the ingredients you don’t use and making one batch of refried beans last 3 months or are you being super stingy so you can take a big haul of squirtable toppings home? Either way, the prices are going higher and higher and the quality and quantity is almost always better at other locations so I would look elsewhere and rather go hungry than “pull around” again at your pathetic excuse for a Taco Bell...

They are pretty good at making the menu items but it often comes out colder than other taco bell locations.

I really do not like how they ask you to loop around after paying. It doesn't matter what the size of your meal is, they will often ask you to do this. I asked why, and they said "just so we can get everyone's money." Sorry, I'm not sympathetic to this.

You can refuse to do this easily enough, as can anyone else in line behind you. On more than one occasion, after being assured that no one would get their food before me, I waited in a line of 4 cars for everyone behind me to get their food. This, of course, makes it so they lose track of who's order is who's and I've gotten the wrong food a couple of times. If there's a problem with anyone's order, or anyone refuses the whole thing breaks. Since people behind you have already paid there's pressure to move along and not check the meal. Then you get to wait in line again to fix it and make them more confused about who's order is who's.

If there's a 50% chance that someone will say no when asked to pull around, the chances that things get messed up goes up for every car in line. The more coins you flip the more likely you'll get a tails at least once.

I can't think of any reason why this system helps, unless they're afraid people will drive off without paying. And folks will only drive off if the wait is incredibly long. So their solution to a poor customer experience is a downright awful customer experience. Fix the experience, don't make it more stressful and chaotic. Whoever thought of this is very, very stupid.

If they didn't do this, this location would be in my top 3 taco bell locations in...