Popeyes Louisiana Kitchen — Restaurant in South Carolina

I love the food but customer service has gone down drastically. Today was the worst. The drive thru was backed up and the inside was too. Due to lack of parking lot space, we had to sit in the drive thru line just to park in one of the 6 empty parking spots. The staff today was very moving slow like they didnt have a line of customers out the door. I ordered this exactly: 2 piece mild dark meat with mashed potatoes and gravy and cajun rice. The manager, who is also texting underneath the register, asks "so you want an extra side?". Now I have been being charged for a 2 piece combo and an extra side for months until i came across a lovely young woman at drive thru a couple wks ago that told me yall had a price for a PLATTER that included 2 sides. In all my 14 years of working in customer service, ive learned to always think with the customer in mind. So the manager not even mentioning that they had a platter with 2 sides until i asked "Dont yall have a platter?" after trying to charge me extra rubbed me the wrong way. Then my husband ordered a 4 piece dark meat-legs and thighs, the manager says "oh you will get one of each piece, a breast, a wing,..." thats when my husband stopped him and repeated that he wanted dark meat only. Had he not been on his cell phone, i think he would have understood our order better. Then it took about 20 mins to get our order done. Lastly, we had to wait before pulling out of our parking space because there wasnt any space to do so thanks to how close the drive thru lane is the parked cars. If you would like to hear my suggestions, here they are: 1. Retrain that particular manager at the very least. 2. Hire more employees who have a genuine drive to provide outstanding customer service and cross train them to complete tasks in other positions. 3. Remodel the area to provide dine in customers space to leave the parking lot when ready, even if the drive thru is backed up. Again, never had a bad experience in regards to food quality but the service will eventually lead to me never eating Popeye's again I will update this review if possible to include the name of the young woman who i feel like deserves special recognition for ALWAYS showing what great customer service looks like. The next time i see her, I will ask...

The OVERALL rating of 4 stars was given because I came for the food and it was good enough to me. The service was not up to par at all, but because im unfortunately used to encountering BAD or LESS THAN DESIREABLE SERVICE when attempting to DINE-IN at certain lower income areas or surrounding locations. The lack of professionalism and immuturity was embarrassing to me and I was just a customer. I came in from the gym and im a Medically Retired Disabled Veteran but I look a little younger than I am and I guess was the reason that this young kid thought that id be up for being played with I guess. I entered with my cordless headphones on and in the middle of a conversation and he immediately started to talk about the size of my headphones being too big and how hes never seen a set of headphones being used for Bluetooth. I paid it no mind UNTIL HE APPROACHED ME TRYING TO GET MORE LAUGHS BY YELLING IIN MY FACE "Aye YO YOU GOOD FOOL, AYE FOOL, IM SAYING YOU NEED SOME HELP!?!! All in hopes To make his friends at the table that they were ALL SITTING DOWN AT laugh, All the while the line was clearly backing up. Once I stood up from leaning down onto the counter while looking at the menu and I turned towards him on my right whereas he too had come over and leaned over the counter to literally GET in my face as he was yelling but he was so puney and skinny looking I started to kinda calm down immediately once Id realized that this was a LITTLE BOY. I say that, meaning, literally he was even smaller than my own baby boy and his little friends. I LIFTED UP ONE SIDE OF My Cordless Headphones after putting my call on hold to ask him what he wants and he the tells me oh nothing I was just seeing if you needed something and I said yes just to place my order im just getting the #2 and a Large Sweet Tea and as pointless as this encounter was he then, yells in my face again OH AIIGHT THEN, SOMEBODY GONE BE COME HELP YOU IN A LIL BIT DEN and laughs in my face again right along with the other Employees/Friends at the table as they said to him "Man You Wrong for dat, leave people alone boy!!! In the end I finally did get to place my order and the food tasted okay to me. None of the group at the table were involved in making my food so I went on to...

I consider Popeye's spicy chicken and sides (red beans & rice and cajun rice) the best in the fried chicken biz, the close second going to KFC's original recipe chicken. KFC's sides are woefully abysmal, so I always prefer Popeye's as the food is strictly superior all around (usually).

This location, however, sullies the Popeye's name. I just came from lunch at this location, and every aspect of the experience, all the way from ordering the food to the ignominious dump in the trash at the end would be best described as a comedy of errors, if it weren't so depressing.

First, the ordering: I asked for the spicy 3 piece dinner with red beans and rice and got rung up for the combo - I don't drink soda. That was fixed. I also ordered a Shrimp Po' Boy with no pickles. I asked for a cup for water, which was denied - the water only comes in bottles, which is pricey Dasani. The fountain machine doesn't even dispense water (I couldn't resist testing it). For shame.

Secondly, the food arriving. Instead of red beans and rice, I got mashed potatoes. I made them swap it. I ordered a breast, leg, and a wing - and they gave me a thigh instead of the wing, so I made them swap that as well. I also soon found out that I got regular chicken instead of spicy, but I figured it was too late to do anything about it so I let that one go. Let me reiterate - Popeye's spicy chicken is the best fried chicken, hands down - but their regular fried chicken is nothing special, tasting no different than Bojangles, and I consider it substandard to KFC extra crispy. The spicy chicken has telltale redness in the dough, and tastes, you know, spicy. The red beans and rice was spicier than the chicken. Finally, the coup de gras was that there were pickles on the Po' Boy.

In conclusion, I will always love Popeye's and continue to seek it out, but this location? ...