Chicken Shack - Churn Creek — Restaurant in Redding

Oh boy, where to start. Let me first start out by saying that up until my last experience, I constantly told all of my friends about how much I love this place. My family and I go to Chicken Shack on Churn Creek at least once a week. HOWEVER, the last time I went, my wife and all 6 of my kids came to eat. We ordered 15 chicken fingers, one chicken wrap, and 2 large fries (close to 40$ in food). After waiting for an obscene amount of time, approx. 30 minutes, the fries came out hard as a rock and cold, and the chicken fingers were hard as a rock and cold. Well I had 6 starving kids, and it was getting late, so unhappily, we ate what we could and headed home knowing that I would later call and complain expecting to be at least partially reimbursed. We came in to eat on a Tuesday, and I called on the following Thursday night. I spoke with a manager whose name I can't remember, but I think it was Dustin or something just like that. He was INCREDIBLY RUDE TO ME, basically blaming the entire experience on me, stating "Why wouldn't you have called us sooner about this?" and "why didn't you ask to speak with a manager?" I explained to him first that they were incredibly slammed, and I wasn't about to have my kids wait for more food to be cooked, and that I chose to deal with this issue when it was convenient for me as the customer. Dustin continued to be incredibly rude to me, I explained that the last time this happened that Chad, the owner, was great about it, and just simply gave us a couple free meal cards to cover the costs. After Dustin continued to be rude, I explained to Dustin that as a manager in the food retail business, customer service is key, and that he was being incredibly rude and that I am surprised that, as a manager in retail, he wasn't aware that his main job was to ensure proper customer service and quality of food. After he rudely explained "well I will give you whatever you want (yeah too late), but I just want to know why you didn't..." and then he continued in his same, rude line of questioning of why I didn't do this or that. After talking over me, and not letting me get a word in, I ended the call. Normally, Chicken Shack was a great, wonderful, and (something it will no longer be) regular experience for my family. It is sad but very true that one young, and clearly very unexperienced, rude manager can end a regular revenue stream of at least $160 per month from a family (not to mention all of the people that will stop coming that we had originally turned on to Chicken Shack) from one simple phone call. I will be honest, I am kinda sad about this, Chicken Shack was something that I used to look forward to every week, but I will not be treated like that from some punk kid about friggin' cold chicken fingers and fries; I will simply never come back. That being said, I guess 5 guys, a burger and Fries just got a little bit richer. Chad if you read this, you have always been nice to us, if you seen us you would surely recognize us as regulars, I am sorry about this, but if you had heard the way that Dustin (or whatever his name is, it is something like that) talked to me on the phone you probably would have fired him, as a professional in this town, I can tell you surely that I would have (one rude worker like him can ruin a local company). Not to mention that as a manager, think of the example he is setting for the rest of the employees...I guess the sun has set on our Chicken Shack...

Food is tasty. Not super expensive but not cheap either. They have specials each day which is good to save a little money but since it's only once a week I never go there any other days. If they lowered the price a tiny bit or had the specials more often I would give my business more... Unless they only want my money once a week.

Food is pretty spot on. Usually cooked very consistent, not cold, not burnt, just right. Something that bothers me is when I get something (like the buffalo chicken fries) it comes with two sauces, nice!, And they charge for additional, ok that's fair, but sometimes the sauces or very unevenly poured so I feel unsure if I need to order an extra sauce with my order or not. Some times the sauce is full and I can complete my meal without interruption. Sometimes they are half full and I need to order another. This is annoying for two reasons, #1 not I have to wait in line and my food gets cold, which those fries are only good hot #2 if the cost of the sauces are included in the price for the BCF then the sauces should be consistent, not half empty and then I have to buy another... Or maybe two or more if they are all half empty. Am I being charged per ounces of sauce or per plastic cup that may or may not be full.

Again the food is very delicious and I return each week for lunch with workmates. But this is my next gripe. It doesn't effect how good the food is but sometimes we choose to go elsewhere because of this complaint. The customer/employee relationships is very poor. I try every time I am in there to be positive, smile, and hope that they will return the expression but they do not. The employees that usually stand at the register might as well be robots, zero smiles, no human type communication or expression. "What would you like?" "Anything else with that?" "Would you like a drink?" 😐 Nothing sells things like happiness and nothing bombs sales like an emotionless sack of dead human. I feel they probably live off of tips and with how the interact with customers must mean they aren't...

⭐⭐ Chicken Shack used to be really good. Now just about every time it's inconsistent, and you can never count on the quality, sadly, anymore. Out of my family's last 7ish orders (which also aren't cheap), 90% of them have had major issues from expired food condiments, to uncooked hamburger multiple times and uncooked bacon, to customizations forgotten. We've driven all the way home to eat and then had to drive all the way back, multiple times, to get things fixed...a huge inconvenience and waste of gas and money. Every time we order now, we have to check all of the items to ensure they were completed correctly and almost always something is wrong, missing, or forgotten, even when asked in advance and as food is handed off and confirmed verbally that it is accurate. We will be stopping our patronization, due to so many issues. Such a bummer. Wish they could get it together, because we've also talked to management multiple times, and still no change. . . . . Dec 30th Response to Owner:

While I appreciate your response, this has not only been our experience during Corona, unfortunately. We have also come back and talked with management multiple times and nothing was ever comped or even really cared about, just an oh sorry, we're busy. I've worked in customer service and food service, and in my opinion, your staff needs trained in customer service in all aspects—from food consistency, to customer service, to product inventory and health safety protocols and practices. We have continued trying to give Chicken Shack chances and have returned multiple times, to try and support local, but 99% of the time, something is wrong and it is just not worth the headache anymore. We also do not want food poisoning... from things like expired mayonnaise packets to various types of raw meats, it's not worth the risk, or constantly having to re-cook our own...