Popeyes Louisiana Kitchen — Restaurant in Town of Cicero

The wife & I were on a time schedule, so when the popular local chicken restaurant up the street told us it would be 30 minutes to get a table, we decided to come here instead. I had never been to this particular Popeyes location, but I have always had a good experience at the others around town. Turns out we should have waited for that table.

I have never seen what had happened to me ever happen before in my life. We walked in for dine in, and what I assumed to be the GM (since she was running the place) asked us how she could help us, we started to place our order, and then right in the middle of it she stopped taking it to address a man who just walked in regarding a DoorDash order for ghost pepper wings she couldn't fill. She then went about handling several other concerns in the restaurant before returning to finish taking our order about 5 minutes after she stopped taking our order in total.

Now that alone is inconvenient, but as a former chef and manager, I understand that sometimes problems crop up that have to be dealt with A.S.A.P., so I didn't think much of it. That is until the next order came in and the process repeated itself.

In short, the staff prioritized every single other order that came in over ours, even though we had been there first. I noticed a hierarchy. Drive through was priority 1. DoorDash (which every order seemed to be for these wings they didn't have) was handled directly by the GM (who was also running the front counter and the sandwich station), who would drop whatever she was doing to handle immediately. Walk-in was last, but even that had a hierarchy. I watched the staff prioritize the one other walk-in customer over us because that order didn't include a sandwich.

In fact, the sandwiches and every DoorDash order being for wings that don't exist seem to be the problem breaking this restaurants flow. That doesn't excuse the horrible service, though. My half of the order sat for 15 minutes while waiting for them to make my wife's half, because every time someone from DoorDash came in for wings the person making the sandwiches had to stop and handle it. By then, a new drive-through order for a sandwich had come in, so they gave my wife's sandwich to them. Wash, rinse, repeat.

When they finally made her sandwich (and announced that they were out of sandwiches for the night. I imagine if one more drive through order for a sandwich came in that my wife wouldn't have gotten her sandwich) and put it on the tray I had been watching for 12 minutes they then realized they never got her sides, and had to make more fries...

By the time we actually sat down to eat, it was 8:46pm. Our receipt had an order time of being placed at 8:29pm. 17 minutes. Add the 5 minutes we had been put on hold initially, and that is 23 minutes of waiting. My food, which had been sitting for 15 minutes without heat, was now very close to room temperature. It also took us about 7-8 minutes to drive from the other restaurant to this Popeyes, so all in all, I really should have just stayed at the first restaurant. Yeah, I would have had to wait longer still, but at least I would not have had to wait 23 aggravating minutes for room...

Worst fast food experience ever.

I went to get Popeyes last night around 7:30ish with my family and we decided to go through the drive thru. When we got to the establishment there were only 2 cars in the parking lot and no one in the drive thru. When we get to the place to order the interaction immediately started off bad. It seemed as though the person taking our order didn’t really know the menu too well so there was a woman in the background shouting things at him to say which just made it hard to hear. There was a few times where the woman came onto the intercom repeating what the boy said and proceeded to give me attitude because I couldn’t understand what the boy was saying. When we finally finished ordering we got to the window and the guy that was helping us didn’t even greet us or say the total, he just stood there waiting for us to hand him money. Then after we paid he told us to pull into the parking lot because our food was going to take a while. I understood because I also work in customer service where I work a drive thru however there was nobody else at the restaurant, so us parking in the parking lot would just make it inconvenient for them to have to walk our food out to us. I ended up going to park in the parking lot and started looking over the receipt and realized we were charged for a drink on one of the orders when we didn’t ask for one. So then we went back to the window and waited there for someone to come over. No one ended up coming over and we even got looked at by one of the employees and she still didn’t come over. I then waved and she finally came over and we told her what happen, she then proceeded to take the receipt and just stare at it and didn’t say anything. Then my mom said we can just take another soda to make it easier and the lady just walked away and grabbed a soda for us. No sorry or nothing. Then I told her that we were just going to wait at the window since there was no body else at the restaurant and she said well you food is ready so it’s fine. We got our food and I asked for a few more sauces since they only gave us 2 and the manager told one of the employees that we can only get 2 more or they’ll have to charge us. I understood that but seeing how they just charged us for a drink we didn’t ask for I’m sure a few extra sauces would be fine. The whole interaction just left a sour taste in my mouth and almost made me not want to eat the food.

The food ended up being pretty good I will say but based on the customer service we were provided last night I will not be going back to this...

I agree with all the other negative reviews, this place sucks. I used to go down to the North Syracuse location before this one was built, and was excited since this new location was very close to my neighborhood, but it came to a huge disappointment because the service sucks here. They never got my order right a single time. For example, one time I ordered wings, but instead they gave me breasts. Another time when I ordered lemonade, it tasted like water! Not only that, I always ask for ranch at the drive through, but when I get to the window, I check it and they never give me ranch, and I have to ask for it everytime, and they charge me for sauce! Today, they also gave me mac and cheese instead of rice and beans for my side. Also, today in the drive through, when I was going to use two coupons for an order, they said I could only use one, because its in the drive through and not inside according to the manager. I've been here over 20 times in the drive through and they never said such, and always were okay with two coupons. How come all of a sudden this is a thing? Maybe because the parking lot is empty everyday and the lack of customers, it's causing them not to have enough money, which therefore they had to say that to me to save money. Well maybe if you actually did stuff right for once, you wouldn't have this problem. Another time I was ordering in the drive through, they told me to pull off to the side. I waited there for 5 minutes and they had to come out and check my receipt to see what I ordered. Then they came back and gave me someone else's order, even after looking at my receipt. I gave the order back, and then 10 more long minutes later, returned with my halfway correct order, but again, I ordered rice and beans, wings, and ranch sauce. They instead gave me breasts, no ranch, and no rice and beans. Only god knows if either that was my order messed up, or someone elses order, because at this location its difficult to tell unless your god himself. I'm never going here again, and will drive 20 minutes so I can actually get the order I want. I could go on and on and the list keeps...