Cook Out — Restaurant in Selma

I would honestly give this place 0 stars if it were possible. I had 2 of the worst experiences of utter incompetence. Passing through the NC, we stopped to pick up food from the Cook Out at Ricks Rd and Crocker St — pretty excited to eat Cook Out as we don’t have the opportunity normally. Upon trying to order (keep in mind this is off of US-70, so they definitely do not ONLY get locals for customers), we were met with downright rude responses and impatience. When asking a question as simple as, “Does that come with sides?” we were met with an abrupt and snarky, “It can.” Our order was not complicated either, yet they managed to mess it up. We ended up with two of one meal and completely missing the rest of the order. We backtracked to correct their mistake — complete and utter mess.

On our way back through NC, we somehow managed to stop at the same exact Cook Out. We simplify our order even more so from our prior experience, hoping to avoid any issues. Once again, my order is botched and incorrect. This time, it was at least correct on the receipt (chili cheese dog, that’s all...). Upon returning AGAIN to fix our order, the employees AGAIN met us with just incompetence, a lack of understanding and zero attempt to remedy the experience. Their solution was to just top off the original hot dog with a dollop of chili as opposed to offering me a fresh one, which I find to be a little lazy and inconsiderate. Keep in mind this is during Covid.

These 2 experiences are arguably enough to make me never want to eat at another Cook Out ever again, and that’s...

Ordered $66 worth of food and got home to eat and all of the burgers were raw in the middle, bacon on the bacon cheeseburger was way undercooked, everything was soggy, and our double ordered of onion rings was as pictures (not a lot of onions rings for sure!). Called and spoke with the manager who say that she would write our name down and we could come, bring our receipt, get the food replaced. That is ALL we were told we had to do. We go today to get our food replaced and we get there and are immediately greeted with confusion. We speak with the manager who says he cannot replace our food because it goes against policy to replace food without us bringing the food back WHICH WE WERE NOT TOLD WE HAD TO DO. We asked if he would refund us the $66 we’d spent on inedible food and he said there was NOTHING he could do for us. When we asked why we were told otherwise when we called previously, he said it was because the person we spoke with was a trainee and she wasn’t aware of the policy. Why would a managerial trainee be handling customer issues on her own? SEEMS LIKE A BAD BUSINESS PRACTICE FOR CUSTOMERS TO BE TOLD THE BUSINESS WILL FIX SOMETHING AND THE BUSINESS NOT HONOR THAT. We were given the number for corporate and will be contacting them because the quality of service was appalling and utterly ridiculous. I would rate lower...

We stopped at the Cookout at exit 312 off I40 this Saturday and ordered 2 milkshakes. We used a copy of the Cookout milkshake review that appeared last month in the Raleigh News & Observer as our guide to try some different milkshake flavors.

I ordered the highly rated pineapple milkshake. It was okay if you like vanilla soft serve ice cream, not especially exciting to me. It tasted like vanilla ice cream with some flavorless pineapple pieces mixed in (mostly in the lower half of the cup). No pineapple flavor at all. The milkshake was stiff enough to be called a concrete as other stores use the term. I was disappointed with the lack of pineapple flavor and few pineapple chunks. It definitely does not rank in my top five.

My wife ordered a hot fudge milkshake, again based on its high ranking in the N&O review. She also was disappointed with her milkshake. She said it tasted like it was vanilla ice cream with some Hershey’s chocolate syrup added, and definitely not hot fudge tasting. The N&O reviewers said their hot fudge milkshake had actual hot fudge sitting atop the shake. Must be a special order for newspaper reporters because it didn’t happen for us.

Maybe other Cookout locations do better with their milkshakes, but this location...