Lion's Choice — Restaurant in Sullivan

Let me start off by saying, I have worked in the food/service industry for over 10 years throughout my teens and 20s. I know when I need to be patient and understanding of a situation at a restaurant and when they are out of line or unreasonable.

2:30pm July 4th 2019, my girlfriend and I went through the drive thru for a couple combo meals. I ordered her roast beef sandwich, the lady working the drive thru didn’t sound very friendly when replying back, but I always try to be as courteous as possible anyway. The first sandwich was ordered plain with some extra seasoning and pickles on the side, the second one was ordered with cheese. The lady listed off the cheeses and I asked for provolone. We got our food and drove away, only to discover there was no cheese on the sandwich. So I pulled back up to the drive thru and told the lady that my sandwich did not have cheese on it, she said “hang on” and went in the back. I thought this was weird since I never told her what sandwich I had or anything.. moments later she came back with a small container with a couple slices of cheese in it. This frustrated me, as I paid almost $20 for 2 meals, I don’t want to make my own sandwich, nor do I want to make a mess in my truck by opening everything up. So I asked “can you put the cheese on the sandwich for me?” To which she replied “well we will have to make a new one” and I said that was fine.

Moments later the manager stuck her head out the window and said “sir, you didn’t pay for cheese on your sandwich” and right here is where my patience was wearing thin. Anyone in the service industry knows that this is not the way to handle a situation. I told the manager “I’m not sure if she charged me for it or not, but I can tell you that I ordered cheese” and both the manager and employee barked back saying that I didn’t. They proceeded to argue with me over cheese and if I did or did not order it.. 25 cents worth of cheese was worth them arguing and fighting and losing me as a customer, and posting this review. I asked the drive thru lady “you listed the cheeses off to me didn’t you? Why would you do that if I never asked for cheese?” “Well we always list off the cheeses” “You didn’t ask me for cheese or list them off when I ordered the first sandwich” “Yes I did”

I couldn’t believe they were arguing so hard, lying about what they said/did, and telling me I didn’t do what I said I did, when I had just been through the drive thru 5 minutes earlier! After finally just giving me what I actually ordered (and making sure to take the incorrect sandwich from me) they had never ONCE apologized, acted sorry, or anything remotely close to it the entire interaction. So before I pulled away I told the worker “you know, this is terrible customer service. This is not how you are supposed to treat customers. I have never been treated this way, nor even seen anyone else treated like this” She proceeded to interrupt me and said “you didn’t order cheese, have a nice day” and slammed the window close in my face while I was still speaking to her.

Absolutely unacceptable. I would expect to be fired if I had ever treated someone even half as bad as that when I worked in the industry. And the manager only backed her up. The multiple places I worked, we were taught to apologize, diffuse the situation, make the customer happy. I didn’t come at these workers with anger or attitude. The service industry is falling, hard. It’s sad when they can’t get a simple order of cheese on a sandwich correct, but when they can’t accept fault and fix it correctly is what will bury them. I’m quickly losing hope and faith in the food industry, good luck getting a higher hourly wage with such...

You can tell that the only way they qualify a new employee is to give them the "fog a mirror" test. If they can fog a mirror, they are hired. I'm a native St. Louisan who has supported Lion's Choice restaurants from day one. Eaten there literally thousands of times. This afternoon my wife and I ate at their Sullivan MO location. The front counter female clerk was not competent, nor did she ever smile or say "thank you". I gave her a $50 bill to pay for my sandwich, she gave me change as if I had given her a $20 bill. After repeated advising her that she did not give me the correct amount of change, she finally got the manager to open the cash register only to see my $50 bill on top. Both the manager and the clerk just looked at it like a deer in headlights and didn't say one word. Not "sorry", not anything. The manager gave me the correct change and I went on my way. It is so incredibly disappointing to see a great restaurant slide backwards. To add insult to injury, the food was substandard. On a positive note, all of the teenage employees sounded like they were having a great time, laughing, making jokes, basically having a party instead of taking care of their customers. The new...

I haven’t had Lions choice in almost 6 months I was soo happy to get some till I pulled into order thought was gonna be great no line what so ever but as I start to order the Lady taking my order kept rushing me to see if I was done I had a pretty simple order (2) #1s one now salt the next extra salt she even read back what I wanted but get to window to pay the lady (Dark hair up in silver clip) was super rude looked mad we was even there to order and then messed up the whole order both #1s was regular made we didn’t even get one no salt …. I am sooo sooo disappointed no one had on name tags either so I was able to say who the super rude lady was but I’ll be sure to spread the word about this absolutely HORRIBLE service especially how much we have to pay for it!!!!!!! Hope something gets fixed...