Popeyes Louisiana Kitchen — Restaurant in Salem

Cold fries reverse Karen?

I ordered the classic chicken sandwich with Cajun fries, asking for the fries to be extra hot. I got my food and let the drive-thru agent know my fries were lukewarm, almost cool. I asked for new, hot fries and offered to pull around so the person behind me could get their food. The window agent quickly handed me a bag with a half-filled child-size fry (?!). Again, same temp. I repeated myself, again offering to pull around and wait for a fresh batch, and the window agent said “I don’t know”, left and came back and said the fries were fresh out of the fryer. I grabbed a handful, showing him they were cool to the touch and said they’re not even warm. He got the manager who was visibly upset. The manager said (with obvious irritation in his voice) my fries are hot, fresh out of the fryer. I held them in my hand out the window (yes, sass) and said they’re barely above room temperature and there aren’t even grease stains on the bag, meaning they’ve been sitting around. He said he checked himself and they are hot, fresh out of the fryer (required verbiage?). I asked for a new batch and offered to pull around. Both the manager and window agent said nothing, closed the window, and seemed to be talking to each other. I waited for some sort of feedback or instruction, anything. I probably waited a minute (feels like a lifetime in the drive-thru when you have no idea what’s happening with your order but you can smell that the people in the vehicle behind you have the munchies and you don’t want to be THAT person), then I concluded it wasn’t worth it to risk more attitude and I left.

I’m of the mind that people are far more valuable than the transactions they make, so there is legit no judgement from me; I just wanted hot fries. It was an extremely challenging and pretty miserable day for me; I didn’t need argumentative defensiveness. I chose Popeye’s 50% for the sandwich (was warm but not hot) and 50% for the fries. There isn’t a Popeye’s where I live so I was pretty excited when I first pulled up. In a day filled with frustrations the manager’s defensive willful disregard for obvious facts (and likely blatant lying) just made things worse. I drove out of my way to this business and paid them to give me old fries and attitude. Think about that.

Popeye’s has great food, but something is wrong with management at this location, so if I want hot fries I’ll skip this location for a while until it’s reasonable to assume some turnover has...

Interesting story about this visit to Popeyes. We used the Popeyes app to order on my phone and it says you can schedule a time to pick up your order, which was what we wanted to do. We were traveling from Eugene and wouldn't be in Salem until 1:20'ish, so I chose a pick up time of 1:25 as that was the closest time to our ETA. Imagine my surprise when I completed the checkout process and the app told me it would be ready for pick up at 1:07. What?! I'm quite well versed in restaurant apps and I've never see one offer up a time to pick up an order, then completely ignored the time I chose. There was no chance we could get there at that time unless we maybe went 110 MPH on I-5. So, I thought it wouldn't be a big issue if I could just cancel the order and then resubmit it once we were closer. Only thing is, you have to go through a bit of a strange process to submit a request to cancel. I went through the support process and got an email about the issue being investigated by an agent and that I should call the store to ask them to wait on making the food until we were near.

So...we got there roughly ten minutes after the order was wrongly expected to be complete. They did not answer the phone when I called. The order was obviously not fresh. I have no idea if the ordered was canceled in terms of my card being charged. Not sure why this process is so much more complicated than for example, McDonald's or Taco Bell, who have zero issues providing clear cancelation. Maybe they should do away with order scheduling of its just going to be ignored by the system. The order was far from fresh to say the least. They strangely had the drinks we ordered just sitting there in the carrier with the ice just melting away in there. If they have a soda dispenser in the store, why not just give us empty cups and fill them ourselves? The Cajun fries were the worst part as they were very cold. The biscuits also had a small touch of heat.

The employees in the store were very friendly and seemed happy to help. The middle monitir that displays the middle panel of the menu was flickering, but off longer than it flickered on. Not the employees' fault, and neither was the paint they were putting on the building. But still, this affects the atmosphere. I gave the food a 4 mostly because Popeyes is very tasty and the employees prepared the food properly.

In summary, Popeyes as a company really needs to fix some issues...

The food is always good but for the 4th time I'm waiting over 30 MINUTES for chicken...... I ordered 2 meals, a side of boneless wings and 2 orders fried oreos. Get it together guys it's about to make me stop coming here! edit to add it took about 50 minutes to get our food. There were 2 orders who came in over 20 minutes AFTER we had ordered and been waiting for our food (she said 2 to 3 minute wait.....we waited almost a whole hour!) And they recieved their food almost immediately while we still sat there waiting. After finally getting food (FIFTY MINUTES LATER) I had an hour drive home and dumbly did not check their handy work prior to leaving.....got about 10 minutes away and realized they forgot the boneless wings I paid for. Went back to tell them they charged me for the wings but did not give me them.....JASMINE decided it would be a good idea to call me a liar and tell me she put them in the bag (spoiler alert, she didnt!). She argued with me about how "that was funny cause she put them in the bag" (TWICE) and she kept basically calling me a liar so I stormed out to my car to get all she had given me and prove her wrong. I came back in and opened every single box (2 boxes honey tenders, 1 box cajun fries and 1 box with my fried oreos, and a paper tray with my ranches in it) while she again called me a liar and said she put it in there. I asked if she wanted to come inspect the inside of my car to prove how wrong she was. At this point I was FUMING and this other girl working had to tell her stop arguing with me and give me the boneless wings. Jasmine argued with me for at least 10 minutes! Total. Freaking. Joke. I will literally drive 10 plus minutes away to the new one before I ever step place in this one again. To the manager of this place, if you see this you might wanna drug test your girl because she is clearly hallucinating thinking shes giving customers items they paid for and THEN KEEPING THEM (presumably for her own dinner on my dime). DO...