Chick-fil-A — Restaurant in Ocala

Food was good but we stopped with a church youth group as we were traveling by and it was not a good experience at all. We all love Chick-Fil-A but we will likely never return to this particular one.

Because there is absolutely no seating area open, there is no area to wait inside for your food except by the counter, where people also need to be to wait for Door Dash, Mobile Orders, drink refills, condiment requests and other various customer needs. (As a group, we have to come in and not do drive thru, so there is no choice but to order and stand nearby waiting for your number to be called.) Other people there waiting for mobile orders & Door Dash had to stand there also, so there were no less than 30-35 people jammed into that tiny area because there isn't anywhere to sit to wait or to eat while others wait. If that is a covid precaution, it absolutely worked the opposite of protecting guests because groups and individuals had no where to go to distance from other groups and individuals.

We had 2 different people who waited over 30 minutes for a milkshake. Even after the staff member near them was told they were still waiting for a shake each, she just said they're behind and it will be here. When I saw them still waiting after 30 minutes, I informed the same staff member that they had been waiting for ONE shake each (one strawberry and one vanilla) for over half an hour, she told me yeah, they're running behind and I repeated HALF AN HOUR FOR A SHAKE. She went and got one of them and said that someone else was making the other one. Several minutes later, someone handed her a chocolate shake & she offered it to us. The order was for a vanilla shake & we told her that again so she just sat the shake down and started to take someone else's order. The adult who had ordered it then said to the employee, "Nevermind, I'll just take the chocolate shake instead of waiting longer." If the employee apologized, I didn't hear it.

When I ordered, I was excited to try the Market salad for the first time, but they were out of the dressing that goes on it. I got something else and used my birthday reward but they forgot to put it in the bag. They also forgot our chickfila sauce. We were far from the only ones. There were multiple people who had things missing or wrong from their orders after waiting longer than any Chick-Fil-A experience ever. I saw someone wait over 10 minutes for a drink refill because no one was paying attention to her. There were a lot of employees there but organization and ability to deal with a dinnertime rush was not there. It was very busy, but normally Chickfila is like a well-oiled machine and amazes us at how fast & great they are. This one was not like that at all.

I will say that ordering went smoothly and the food was still good, but the rest of the experience made us not want to return to this location even with just our own families who live...

Having been here a number of times over the past 2 months I’ve come to the conclusion that the only way to have an enjoyable inside experience is to go through the drive through and carry your own food inside and sit.

The useless “dine in” and “carry out” signs they have hanging from the ceiling do nothing. THERE IS NO NEED TO REINVENT THE WHEEL! People are willing to stand in a line and order. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it!

Our previous experience consisted of standing in the line for 5 minutes before being informed by the employee taking orders on his tablet that the line was only for carry out and if we were dining in that we needed to find a table where someone would take our order at the table. We then waited at the table for 15 minutes before someone came to take our order and another 25 minutes for the food to come out.

Tonight’s experience involved a less busy than usual Chick-fil-A where we ordered 4 milk shakes for carry out in the appropriate line. We then waited 25 minutes for them to correctly make them. Everyone inside was lost. There seemed to be no one leading the team. People were simply making drinks, bagging food and setting them on the counter to pile up. No one there to call out orders. While waiting, approximately 5-7 people approached the counter for order corrections and each interaction required the lacking attention of all its employees to correct or tend to the issue. When our milkshakes finally make it to the counter for the second time after being wrong the first time, they sat there not being called out. We finally took our melted drinks and walked away as 3 employees stood by the counter just looking at their pile of orders sitting there.

In summary, this location needs to admit to themselves that they only prioritize the drive thru and transition to a “drive thru ONLY” location. Or invest in some much needed adjustment to their dine in/carry out set up inside. Preferably back to the same system that the rest of the country uses, and the one this location used before their remodel. Specifically, the...

I’ve been to this location twice, and both times ran into an issue. First time, we went inside and ordered to dine in. Waited about 30min standing there with my little number slip that I was given. Employees kept looking at me here and there for the whole 30min, the customers who ordered after me were long gone with their orders. Employees never bothered to ask what the order was I was waiting on. Finally, I went up and asked about that status of my order. Only to find out my order got “bumped” so they never even made it. Finally my two grilled chicken clubs came out, but neither had bacon on them. Went back up to ask for two sides of bacon. They brought out only one side. Asked for the second side and they brought out a cup of bacon bits. They did refund my order so there was one positive. Second experience was just now in the drive thru. Ordered two grilled chicken clubs again. As I get up to the window and the young lady hands me my bag she says “we are out of bacon, is that okay?”. I responded with “I mean I suppose, I don’t really have a choice”. She gave me a dirty look and said “have a good day” in an annoyed manner. Would have been nice if they would have made an effort to make it right by either refunding me the $1.60 extra on each sandwich that the bacon costs, or even just apologized. Not sure what’s up with this location and their scarce bacon but it is quite pathetic. Will only go to a location from now on that doesn’t stiff their...