Noodles and Company — Restaurant in South Bend

This place has five star potential and should be buzzing with customers. I have tested this place out several times over the last couple of months and order from here at least twice a week. The food is usually super tasty which makes the rest of the experience pretty disappointing. There was only one issue with food that I will touch on later.

All but two of the times I have gotten food here, there is a crazy wait just to order and not because there is a line. It seems to be the practice that whatever orders are in, those orders have to be completed before more orders are taken. This is rather silly because if they take your order and your money, you've gotta hang around. When they don't take an order for minutes, respond to customers, or greet customers, it makes it super easy for people to walk out and go to another place. Once the order is taken, my food is usually out in 11-12 minutes if it's not busy.

Weekends are decidedly worse. Sometimes there's a faster response for an order, but you will often get an unexpected one as a customer. One weekend my husband went to pick up an order before closing and was told (along with other customers) they weren't taking orders because they sent their cashier home early. Someone did eventually come out from behind the prep area and take customer orders. Customers are frequently told that machines are down and they're not taking orders unless you ordered online. I have heard a dasher be told that they never made the food because "dashers don't normally show up." The dasher said he always shows up to get his orders and at that point they began making the order. Another night we were told that they are not taking orders because the cook was let go an hour before closing. On these occasions, it can take 30 minutes or longer to get your food even with an online order. The longest wait we had was just under an hour with an online order (due to staff being sent home). Today I was told they weren't taking orders while working on a catering order unless it was an online or Door Dash order. The manager said it would be 15 minutes before I could order in person.

The only food issue was when they were adding salad chicken to the food rather than the baked chicken I had ordered. When it was brought to the managers attention, he quickly corrected it and said that shouldn't be happening. It has not happened since. While it is discouraging the number of times I have been told they are not taking orders, the food really does taste great. The fresh ingredients taste fresher than the...

Our family has gone to Noodles and Company for years over in Mishawaka but lately it seems like they're always closed. So we tried the South Bend location for the first time today and it'll absolutely be the last. My son cannot eat dairy so we got the same order we get every time we went to the other location; macaroni noodles with no cheese and some veggies and protein. (We've gotten this order with zero issues for years in Mishawaka.) They brought it out with cheese on it so the employee took it back so they could remake it. About 5 minutes later, I heard someone say "No! You weren't supposed to put cheese on it!" So they made it again and another several minutes later I heard someone else say "wait, this isn't supposed to have cheese on it?" (Mind you the kitchen is 10 feet from where we were sitting so we could hear everything they said.) And if you're keeping count, that's 3 times they've made a simple dish incorrectly. So after several minutes waiting again, everyone else at the table was done eating but my 3 year old son still hadn't received his food. So I waited in line to speak with an employee about getting the order to go since everyone was done. She went back into the kitchen and it was apparent that they still hadn't fixed the order. In fact, several people came into the restaurant and got their orders in the time we were waiting for them to make a dish without cheese. While waiting again, I heard the chef ask confusedly, "so they just want it with noodles, tofu and broccoli??" Like was it THAT difficult?? Either way, I'm definitely not going back if a simple request like no cheese takes several tries and the staff is not even caring enough to get it out in a timely manner. Especially since we spent over $50 on just two adults...

Food was good, service was not good. Employees were not necessarily rude they just were very disinterested and didn't seem to put much effort into helping customers. I Did a pickup order, they forgot one of the three things I ordered because I checked it before I left. I get accidents happen but it wasn't busy at all and I only had three things on my order, one of them being a side item. But really I am not that bummed about that since I checked it myself and noticed it before leaving. I then went up and talked to them about it and they asked what size was the item and I said large. After that conversation the person lackadaisically walked to the back area where I could still see her and her co-workers where they just kind of talking and were not doing anything about the item they forgot to add. The other employees were making food but it seemed like the person I talked to wasn't even doing about getting the item that was missing from my order. Eventually one of the employees said something regarding me and the person I originally talked to said that I was waiting on the item they forgot. The person I talked to then came back up and said it would be about 2 minutes and then they went back to the back area. I couldn't really hear anything more that they talked about but after a couple more minutes I saw the person I originally talked to, go over to a spot in the back and prepare the item they forgot and then walked to the front and gave it to me where I thanked them and left. I probably waited about 8-10 minutes to get it all together after talking to the person at the front about it. Only, they gave me a small, which I didn't realize till my wife told me when I got home which I specified was supposed...