Wendy's — Restaurant in Oak Park

First of all, the food...

Overcooked nuggets, fries that taste both horribly foul, slightly fishy flavored, and are completely tasteless otherwise. If you get a crispy chicken, you'll swear it's fish. I believe they fry both fish and chicken in the same oil batch and the flavoring crosses over. If that's no big deal for you, don't worry about it. But I'm not a fan of fish and that was truly disgusting.

Like all other Wendy's, they use nearly frozen lettuce and nearly frozen tomatoes so that any hot item you get with lettuce or tomatoes, when you start eating it, is like it's refrigerated.

The atmosphere... Being situated on the corner of Madison and Harlem, the parking lot is hard to get into and out of. Parking lot is not maintained well and typically has garbage in half the parking spaces. It needs to be resurfaced or resealed and painted.

The restaurant is not well maintained either. The restroom is usually out of soap or toilet paper or both. There's always a bad odor coming from the drain in the floor.

The service... When I went in the early afternoon, there were 8 to 12 employees working including one manager. There was actually only one or two people working and the rest were just goofing off and chatting and ignoring everyone in the drive-thru and in the restaurant.

The employee who took my order had me repeat it three or four times before he actually entered it properly.

Food safety...

As I was waiting for my order, I saw the cook wrap up random sandwiches in the exact same wrapper with no designation of what was what. I'm talking the chicken sandwich and the double stack, and half a dozen other sandwiches all in the exact same wrapper folded the exact same way.

Literally, the cashier had to unwrap the sandwich to see what it was. And half the time, the person at the drive-thru just grabbed one at random and stuffed it in a bag and gave it to the person in the car.

What's worse? They don't have a queuing tray for sandwiches or prepared items. They just lay sandwiches on the box of vinyl gloves and on the dirty counter next to the trash can behind the register. That's right, your food is sitting next to a dirty trash can before they give it to you.

What I ordered was the biggie bag bacon double stack with regular nuggets and fries. What I received was a chicken sandwich that tasted and a smelled like fish. The nuggets were burnt and overcooked, chewing into leather. The fries were the most disgusting foul flavor I had ever tasted in my life and I refused to ever order anything with them again.

There was zero sense of urgency. There was zero order to the chaos. There was no prioritization or cleanliness whatsoever. The manager was busy talking with someone she knew personally and ignoring all the employees. Half the employees were touching their faces or licking their fingers without wearing gloves and then proceeding to serve fries and nuggets and prepare sandwiches bare-handed.

If you get sick from eating here,...

EDIT: They recently updated this place and I figured I'd give it another chance.

TL;DR -- it still sucks.

My order was taken and gotten wrong by a glassy-eyed cashier who smelled of pot.

Even that incorrect order, missing fries, for two sandwiches was unfilled after 25 minutes. A near riot amongst some who had been waiting for over forty minutes ensued.

The SEVEN employees in the kitchen, working at a pace somewhere between "frozen in time" and "fully immersed in ice cold molasses," kept wandering around aimlessly. Meanwhile they began robotically repeating "so sorry for the inconvenience."

I ended up rolling my eyes when the manager committed to making each of our meals himself and walked out, thirty two minutes after placing my order. I never got my food. Drove to Red Robin for my burger fix and they gave me a high quality sit-down meal faster than these jokers gave me an excuse for not having my food ready.

Have disputed the charges with AmEx.

If you have a hankering for Wendy's, do yourself a favor and drive three miles down Harlem to the one in North Riverside. The service is good, they get your order right, and you won't have to wait the better part of an hour to get your order processed.

This place is doomed to go out of business. I won't be back.

ORIGINAL REVIEW:

Drove up to the drive through. Ordered a meal and a Diet Coke. There was no Diet Coke -- or anything other than Sprite. (yuck) Paid and got to the second window after a long wait to pick up my chicken tenders, only to be told the Sriracha sauce I wanted was not available either. I asked for another sauce which also wasn't available. Finally settled on ranch. They might as well close if they can't do the basics like have Diet Coke and advertised sauces available.

My prior visit a week earlier, I went in their dining room. My burger took 10 minutes to prep, their Coca Cola machines were out of most drinks, and they didn't have Sriracha sauce then either.

Corporate needs to shut this place down. It's nowhere near the standard I expect of Wendy's, or any food establishment. The entire vibe of the place screams "we suck and we...

Dear Management,

I’m writing to share my recent experience at your [location] drive-thru, as I believe it’s important for continuous improvement and accountability.

I placed an order for a Dave’s Single Combo Meal, but upon receiving my food, I was given a Baconator instead. I immediately informed the drive-thru cashier that this was not what I ordered. Unfortunately, there appeared to be confusion about how to handle the situation, and I was not offered an apology or any clear resolution at that point.

As someone who works as a General Manager, I fully understand that mistakes can happen. However, what concerned me most was the lack of professionalism and customer service throughout the interaction. Despite me saying “thank you” multiple times, the drive-thru cashier never acknowledged it with a response or even a simple “you’re welcome.”

When I entered the restaurant to return the incorrect food, I handed the fries and sandwich back to the manager and explained the issue. His only response was, “I got you,” without any apology or reassurance. Meanwhile, some of the front-line cashiers appeared to be laughing about the situation. It was disheartening to observe, especially since I had clearly stated—twice—that I do not eat bacon, yet the team’s solution was simply removing the bacon and handing the sandwich back to me.

This experience reflected a lack of attentiveness and respect for customer concerns. I’m sharing this feedback not out of frustration alone, but in the hope that it can be used constructively to improve service and ensure future guests are treated with more care and courtesy.

Thank you for taking the time to consider this feedback. I look forward to seeing improvements should for the next customers as I will never spend my hard earned money at...