Duchess — Restaurant in Norwalk

I work down the road. I sometimes ate there when I needed quick food, even though the food quality was poor compared to other Duchess locations. Today I wanted to grab some quick take out from a restaurant across the street (I wanted to enjoy real food for lunch). Considering I had limited time for lunch with having to travel and pick up my order I was in a rush. The other restaurants parking lot was full and so was street parking. Duchess' parking lot was half empty. I figure it shouldn't be a problem to park there for 5-10 minutes as I ran across the street to pick up my order. As I left my car an old rude Duchess employee begins to yell at me that I can't park there. I explain my situation to him telling him that I'd only be 5 minutes to pick up a food order. He could care less. I then questioned if he was willing to lose a customer, as I eat there at times. Again, he could care less. Finally I gave up considering my lunch time was ticking down. I got in my car, pulled up next to him and asked if he knew what compassion was? His answer "Compassion is for another day."

Now I get it. They must not want people using their parking lot for other businesses. And I wouldn't mind being asked to leave if I took one of the last few parking spots. But when half the spots are empty, and you're only going to be a few minutes, that's when a good person eases up on the "rules." Not to mention the way you speak to someone makes a big difference. He was rude with me the whole time.

So I will never eat at this Duchess location again. I didn't eat there often as their food was that great, but...

Look, I’m sure the food is good but due to the worst customer service ever I never got it so I can’t rate on food. Here’s the deal..Duchess food takes FOREVER- even on a good day. If you’ve ever eaten at one before you accept this. I hadn’t been for about 7-8 years so I had forgotten that it can take over a half hour for a burger and fries. The worst problem (if you can believe it) isn’t even that. It’s the staff at this location. I only wanted a two small burgers and small fries to split w a friend. So I ordered that, but the drive through speaker was muffled and inaudible so I couldn’t tell if they got my order ( seriously why haven’t they improved upon this technology after decades??) When I finally got to window (literally 35 min), they tell me it’s $9.85. I am not cheap, but, “say what??” I ask what the double cheese combo costs and it’s like $7. So i ask the guy why he didn’t just tell me to get that. He yells for the manager. I ask to switch my order to the combo (where the fries are larger, and I’ll get a drink) and save money. All good right? Nope. They proceed to THROW MY FOOD AWAY and make me drive up so they can remake the whole order out of spite. No apologies. I was livid. Got a refund and left. Will never go here again. People who treat customers like this don’t...

Just wanted to edit this review and say this restaurant is genuinely a scourge on the rest of the town. If you order delivery from another restaurant and your driver decides to take a detour to Duchess to double up on orders, your food will be over an hour late and ice cold and inedible, borderline unsafe to eat. Because this restaurant doesn’t allow delivery drivers to come inside at night and forces them to wait in the drive thru that takes 45 minutes to serve one car. You have to plan all ordering around the chance that your food could be sabotaged by getting this Duchess involved. Insane.

Now they’re not 24 hours anymore I have zero reason to come here. Absurd upcharges compared to any other Duchess location, I’ve been served raw potatoes, the drive thru line is just absurdly slow (coming from someone who’s also a delivery driver and is forced to use it because they close the lobby after like 8 PM). I can’t think of a good thing to say about this location. Meanwhile, I’ve never had even the slightest complaint about any other Duchess location I’ve visited. So yeah it’s not worth it… go to Darien or any of the other ones...