Hardee's — Restaurant in Portsmouth

My experience. I placed an online order, drove to the location, walked in, I counted at least 4 workers in the back, 2 workers, w/headsets, up front, both were talking to a single customer and joking around, not a big deal, just being observant, I too love being able to have a little fun at work. I waited about 3-4 min before being acknowledged. I informed the worker who greeted me that it was a p/u order. While waiting, the workers were standing around or leaning on the counter, again not a big deal. Now here is where their inefficiency comes to play because approx 4-5 minutes later, one of the workers, wearing the headset, walked behind the line to drop fries in the fryer. REALLY??? You waited about 5 minutes, after greeting me, to finally decide to cook fries!!!! It was not busy. There were no customers in line except for me, the lady ahead of me was already sitting down and eating her meal. I know of at least one customer went through the drive-thru during my wait b/c I heard the "headset" girl giving her the total for her order. Again, it was not busy. In the dining area, 3-4 customers eating and there appeared to be a "management" type figure conducting interviews, but I am not sure. I have worked in restaurants and fast-food restaurants for many many years and one thing that I was taught/trained/learned was to immediately greet customers and to work efficiently. There was none of that during my visit. I experience this issue a lot at this location, however, it was always during the crazy lunch rush so it was never a big deal to me, just frustrating, but today, I arrived a little after 11am and it was not busy. And no, I am not trying to get people fired, hopefully management reads this and provides training for better practices and...

At 10:58am on 6/18/2023, I entered to order breakfast. I was behind a customer until 11:01am, before I was told I couldn't make a full breakfast menu order. This is despite the front counter cashier seeing me and seeing that I was here before 11, when their full breakfast menu expires.

The fact that the operation of this establishment literally hinges on the cashier and cooks' abilities to hold the rush down and the customer's random ability to order quickly to even make a full order is a very strange business model. When I worked at this exact Hardee's in the past, we gave the last driver in line for the drive through at card so they know they can still order breakfast if they're IN LINE before 11 and the same applied to the in-store customers.

It feels a bit like a bait-and-switch for enter the store expecting to order the food you desire only to be let down because a customer has a 5 minute long ramble session with the cashier. While this isn't the fault of the cashier, these sorts of incidents should be baked into the business model - management should absolutely account for customers already in line by the time...

Pulling into the parking lot around 5:30pm it looks like the place is closed, can't see inside and there are no cars on this side of the building. Pull around to the drive through menu, there are 4 parked cars and no sign of life. We stare at the menu for a few minutes and no one greets us so I ask if anyone is there. The mic clicks on and they ask us to wait a minute without explanation. We wait for at least 5 minutes and I ask if anyone is still there, I get a curt response to wait, again. I ask if they're being robbed or something and they respond with "We're busy, there are a lot of customers, wait a minute"... We eventually get to order and there are no cars in front of us, no cars parked on the sides of the building, and it looks like one customer inside. I'd hate to see what this place looks like with a handful of customers, I'll probably not return to this location for a whole.

The food was good, even though they didn't put cheese on my burger. The food was good, even though they didn't put cheese...