Wendy's — Restaurant in Ponderay

I saw a post on Facebook and had to try this place out myself. I wanted to be fair because the post didn't show them in the best light... Now I see why.

I made three trips to Wendy's in three days, all at different times. I figured I'd hit the morning rush, the lunch rush and then go late in the evening.

My first order was during the morning rush, a basic Dave's combo. Burger was ok, the lettuce was wilted a bit, a single leaf about the size of a dollar bill... Not much of a deluxe style burger. Fries were already soft and the soda was like any other soda, good mix, lots of ice. 30min almost exactly. 4 out of 10

Second was lunch rush and I figured it was gonna take time, so I got a classic chicken sandwich combo. I wasn't happy, it seemed like the sandwich itself had waited as long as I had to get to me. The chicken was par warm, barely any crisp to it and I got the same amount of lettuce. When lettuce is a big part of a chicken sandwich, I was just underwhelmed. Fries were the same, The Dr pepper was a little strong and that can ruin a Dr. Pepper. 38min 3 out of 10

That leaves evening. This time I got a triple bourbon bacon. That hot mess of meat and grease and fat was delicious. 10 out of 10. But.... 28min in line, 4 cars....and the fries were the same as before, I would call them al dente but replace the "done" with "garbage". I feel like I keep getting fries that deserved to be thrown out for the money I'm spending. The soda was good.

The staff was nothing special at all, I feel like the trained greeting at taco bell is more welcoming than the staff here. They were not rude, they seemed on task but they just didn't hit the mark on quality.

I got one frosty on each trip and stuffed it in my freezer, doing this makes it have the texture of a malt... 10-10-10......

I have tried at least a dozen times to give this new Wendy’s a chance to get up to speed but their service is TERRIBLE.

Today I stood at the counter for almost 10 minutes while two employees worked on putting orders together at the counter. Another employee, possibly a shift manager, came up to the register and quickly left and a manager took a money drawer out of one register and left.

No one even acknowledged our presence, made eye contact or anything. We walked out.

Over the past 12 visits or so we have experienced similar service.

Waiting 5-10 minutes or longer for an employee to even recognize our presence at the register, getting burgers but waiting 15-20 minutes for fries.

Once we went through the drive through just for a large fountain drink, we waited patiently in line for almost 20 minutes (maybe 6 cars in front of us) before we just left. Drove across the street to the Conoco and bought sodas there. When we came back over the car in front of us hadn’t even gotten to the pickup window yet.

The problem at this location is 100% training and management. No way does a fast food location have such consistently poor service without bad management, oversight...

Went to Wendy’s the weekend it opened. Way too crowded in takeout line and inside so went back last week. Hamburger and fries were good but the burger was very pink throughout. Would have taken it back up but line wasn’t moving very fast. But mostly, the manager, was dealing with 2 separate parties at their tables who had wrong orders. He was apologizing profusely to both and made it right with both. Biggest takeaway: staff needs some serious training. Way too long to get food, and cooks need to make sure patties are cooked all the way through. While waiting for my meal I couldn’t help but notice quite a disarray behind the counter. From my experience, if a new food establishment hasn’t figured things out in the first 2 weeks they will have a tough time making it. I hope Wendy’s is...