White Castle — Restaurant in Ross Township

First the (great) national chain, then this (terrible) specific store:

Of course the national White Castle chain is creat. The food is some of the best, one of the first true fast food franchises.

The burgers are delicious, among the first "sliders" ever, and they've made mini versions of all the other kinds of sandwiches, not just the burgers. All are disproportionately tasty for their small size.

Their chicken rings are also worth special mention, better than anyone's "nuggets". The fries are the most boring style, "wavy" fries, but are good for that type.

THIS STORE: Horribly mismanaged. They were out of so many things that it impeded even the experience for someone flexible in what they want. For example, no tomatoes...when several of their best sandwiches are "deluxe" versions that depend on tomatoes to set them apart.

They have one of those "mix" soda systems, where you could...in theory...choose among dozens of kinds of flavors. Except they were out of MOST flavors. You had to settle for either plain Coke/Sprite/whatever, or unflavored carbonated water. Almost everything else was there yet "unavailable". They were missing almost all syrups that are used in the machine.

Most of the staff was friendly and alert, but they got things wrong. We ended up with wrong items, and also I think some misunderstandings, like apparently she was trying to tell us she was out of the sauce for the chicken sandwiches, but we misunderstood...so what we got were sandwiches with NOTHING on them. Not even the cheese or pickles or whatever that came with them, aside from the sauce.

And on top of all of that, they were trying out one of those useless "AI" order taking systems at the drive-thru. This particular one thought every ambient noise was an order, so that it was repeatedly saying "sorry, I didn't understand that" and NEVER managed to take even ONE segment of order. It was just a loop of "didn't understand" before you could even say anything.

That's why we had to go inside, where the order-taker messed things up anyway.

Oh, and beware: The "combos" no longer are cheaper than the individual parts, like was the tradition for all of Fast Food history. In fact, some of them cost MORE than ordering the...

I feel a degree of regret here. My experience today at White Castle included an annoying feeling, accompanying me at every moment. Let me start at the beginning, before I took my first step out of the house. I downloaded the White Castle mobile app this morning and when I got good and hungry this afternoon I fired er up. So we're looking pretty good so far, the app is working just as smooth as can be. Minimal issues or glitches if any. Now let's fast forward to the moment I walk in. I'm the only customer in the whole building. The drive-thru seemed rather busy, as every employee seem to be scrambling to and fro with a degree of purpose. Unfortunately having my order ready on time didn't make the cut on their to do list. I mean isn't that the point of the mobile app, so they can perfect your order before you even walk in? That feeling I mentioned earlier, which is basically that this place can do better, is aggressively assaulting my experience at this early point. Needless to say I had plenty of time while they prepared my order seemingly from scratch, to look around and realize that just about every single surface in the whole building needs a rag a wipe down a basic cleaning. Sticky mess covers every surface at the soft drink dispenser and a multitude of the dining tables. The bathroom. The urinal is out of order. There's debris on every surface except for the inside of the trash. I do my business in the washroom then I walked back out into the dining hall to collect my freshly prepared meal. The food was as expected. The customer service here is above average. I hate to say it feels like it might be above average almost out of a little guilt. So basically they can do better here and that's the truth that I must stand firm for. I mean, it might be a mess in there butt the food...

July 3, 2022, Between 3- 3:30 a.m. We went through the drive thru. Placed our order. They muffed up our order and the chubby girl at the second window was rude! My hubby wanted a large Fanta strawberry No ice , Combo 1 - 4 cheese burgers w / everything . Another Combo 1- 4 cheese burgers w/ everything, onion rings instead of fries and medium vanilla coke No ice. The chubby girl at the second window says, " Here! with a friggin attitude! " And gave us a large vanilla coke and medium fanta strawberry that's not how we ordered it. My husband is way nicer than me and she's lucky I wasn't driving because I would have told her off & spoke to her manager. Absolutely NO FRIGGIN EXCUSE for rude attitudes!!! It's a simple process. Customer orders food , pays for food & should get what they ordered & paid for. Simple! I know these are difficult times for everyone but if you have a job you're lucky, if you can get a job you're lucky especially during these difficult times but loose the FRIGGIN...