Taco Time NW — Restaurant in Seattle

Taco Time is my favorite chain ever, but this is by FAR the worst Taco Time location I've ever been to. I've only had a fully correct order one single time out of five visits before I finally said "never again" and gave up on this spot. The staff seem to really not care less about service, about having a friendly attitude or smile, about producing correct orders, and especially not about fixing problems once they've happened - you get stone cold glares, unhelpful attitudes, and snarkiness like they're bothered to be asked for a correction to something that they screwed up.

I've lived here for five years and have tried going back about once or twice a year the whole time I've lived here, but it's literally never gotten better. If you read the google reviews here, I don't understand why representatives of this location spend their time with snotty google replies about how they'll "remind their staff that every taco is important to our customers" when they clearly don't since NOTHING has changed in alllllllll this time.

I also don't understand why, but the food quality seems lower here than any other TT location. When I've ordered mexi-fries they almost always come with a big actual puddle of oil in the bottom of the container which has twice spilled all over my car seat by being tipped sideways (seriously, it's like they just ladle the tots straight from the fryer without even trying to drain them or something??). The taco tortillas seem chewy but not in a good way - like they're left sitting out in the air and they sortof start drying out or something? and the salads and tacos I've ordered just seem really slopily put together - toppings falling out of a loosely rolled taco, or dangling half way out of the taco salad bowl, but with the lid smashed on them anyway....

it just seems like this place can't hire anyone but the absolute bottom of the barrel staff who maybe can't get hired anywhere else and seem to know that their performance doens't matter at all. I don't know what's going on, but this place clearly has horrible management that hasn't bothered to care or fix it in many years. Taco Time is normally such a great restaurant, but this one gives it suuuuuuuch a bad name and...

Well, I come here quite a bit because I do like their food, especially when I'm short on time... Part of me really wants to give a higher rating, but there are two big reasons I haven't: 1) this particular location has a serious fly issue inside the restaurant and has for months now (I've literally poured ketchup from the spout and had three flies swimming in it - I think they flew into the stream rather than coming out of the dispenser) and they don't seem to be doing anything about the clouds of flies hanging around, 2) there are a couple people who work here who are rude and literally seem like they could not care less at all (mostly one man who is one of the most unwelcoming and impatient seeming persons I've ever seen working in a customer service position). I've seen some things that made me concerned whether they cared about food handling safety (ex: the customer says they didn't get chips with their order, and I saw this employee pull a baggy out of a drawer, hand it to a customer. The customer said it was the wrong thing, so the employee tossed the baggy into a different bin on the counter then took a different baggy out of that same bin they'd just thrown the other into, and handed it to the customer)... I mean, all of this was done while frowning and not saying anything to the customer, but also, why are bad/wrong things that have already been handled in the same bin as items that are being handed to a customer? Despite these things, I keep coming here because the food is still good and most of the other employees are nice or at least decent. Management might want to look into the fly issue and the employee customer service and food...

I really love Taco Time, but I cannot recommend this location. After a couple bad experiences in their early days, I’ve tried it twice in the past couple weeks. Both times recently I’ve received entirely incorrect, or incomplete orders. The first time I reached out to the company directly. I work in food service and don’t believe in publicly complaining about minor issues. After getting the about $10 less in food than I ordered, Taco Time sent me $20 in gift cards (very quickly.) Today I decided I would try again and put one of their gift cards to work. My order was correct… but missing 1/3 of what I ordered (missing about $7 in food.) After my previous experiences, I really should have checked before driving away, but I guess I’m a trusting person/courteous Seattleite that didn’t want to hold up the cars behind me. At this point I don’t want anything else from the company, I just want this location to be better… but I will not be going back here again. I’ll go to Aurora instead, and I’ll probably take a break from the company entirely after my gift...