Taco Bell — Restaurant in Tampa

I want to give this location a 5 star, but also a 1 star. Let's settle on a 3 for now.

After a long corporate-world workday, I often love to come to this particular Taco Bell, primarily for the customer service and always hot freshly made items by the great staff.

Last night Feb 5, 2015 at midnight the "ASSISTANT MANAGER" changed my habit.

I drive thru to order my usual $6.50 meal, thanks to the newly discovered chicken Quesarito, and the awesome staff at this Taco Bell. I've been to other Taco Bells and none compare to the customer service of the late night and afternoon staff (between 2 pm-10pm). They always have smiles, happy attitudes, and great suggestions. I'm even the weird customer that invents things ((ever try a chicken crunch wrap supreme mixed with the new chicken Quesarito (basically a chicken crunchwrap with the queso around the crunchy taco)?? Life changed.) Anyway, I also always get a Dr Pepper Freeze... but the plastic cups those freezes come in always leak and make my car sticky... after a complaint about this, a helpful suggestion from the great staff at this location got me into the habit of ordering a large Freeze... but in a fountain drink cup.

So back to last night midnight- I order my large freeze in fountain drink cup... Only to be answered by a very rude and attitude-ridden "assistant manager" that decided it would be appropriate to announce to me that those sweet kids that had been making my nightly Taco Bell visits a bit of a fun nightcap (with their funny attitudes and friendly personalities) would be IN TROUBLE for regularly putting the freezes into the fountain drink cups for me.

Are you kidding me? THIS MANAGER IS WHY MOST FAST FOOD PLACES HAVE HORRIBLE CUSTOMER SERVICE!!

As someone that has multi-unit managed chain stores in my past, I felt so bad for those kids about to get in trouble the next day that I just drove away and won't be back to this Taco Bell for anything except to go in and apologize to the kids working there if I got them in trouble.

An apology from the "assistant" manager to her staff when they're just being good kids not hurting the business is needed.... and take heed that you never know who your "regulars" are, regardless of if you're managing a chain or not.

Sometimes that little extra thought in a frozen drink can make or break a daily business...

STAY AWAY FROM THIS TACO BELL. This is the second time I have a horrible experience here and I won’t be returning again. We pulled into the drive thru and placed an online order, when we got to the speaker we told them we were there to pick up our order and we pulled around to the window. Once at the window, we were asked to pay for an order that wasn’t ours, we told them we ordered online and it was already paid for. The person at the drive thru asked us to pull around to the front. After almost an hour, someone came outside and told us that our order was being held up by Uber deliveries and they didn’t know how long it would be and asked us if we still wanted to wait, we said we had already paid, and cars were coming and going around us, why couldn’t they just make our order if none of the Uber drivers were there, they said that we HAVE to wait for all the Uber drivers to show up and then they can start our order. We asked them to cancel the order and they said they couldn’t and we had to figure it out ourselves and just walked away. We left without getting any food or our money back. I will never return here, I reported them to corporate, and I encourage you...

I’ve been to this location three times, and each time I’ve made it very clear that I’m extremely lactose intolerant and can’t eat pork or dairy. Unfortunately, despite clearly stating my dietary restrictions, I’ve repeatedly been served food that contains ingredients I can’t eat.

I’ll admit that I should double check my order before leaving, but let’s be real the only times I come to Taco Bell are after a fun night out when my friends bring me here. In those moments, I’m not thinking about checking every detail of my food, but I always remember to tell the staff about my restrictions. It’s second nature for me to disclose this information.

Yet, here I am again, dealing with the consequences of something that could’ve been avoided if my request had been taken seriously. It’s beyond frustrating to experience this level of consistent disregard. Mistakes happen, but this feels like a pattern of carelessness.

Respecting a customer’s order, especially when it comes to dietary restrictions, should be a basic standard....