Popeyes Louisiana Kitchen — Restaurant in Virginia

My family and I came to this location because it has had a lot of good feedback. This is not a frustrated rant, but the facts are that the experience at this location was far more than undesirable. We ordered our food in the drive through, two 11 piece meals, and asked for one to be all dark meat. They said that this is a 'special order' meal and will take 15 minutes to prepare. We agreed because it was a 15 minute wait to get the meal without the special order. When 20 minutes was done, and no one had come to our vehicle, we went inside to ask about the status. Upon walking in the manager, Rhonda James, was talking down very blatantly in front of customers to her employees; yelling at them for not wearing hair nets and getting hair in food (mind you she was working around the food with her hair down and not wearing a net); telling the employees that she did not trust them with the money and they needed to "actually do some work, people are waiting!" Mind you, she never once got on the register, never helped out the cook, did not put together orders, did not help run food for the employees. We wait AN HOUR to actually get our meal, then when another customer who had waited for a 10-piece meal since before we came into the store made a comment about the timeliness of service, the manager retorted back, "Well vote for higher wages so I can keep employees, make the food and get it out on time, and actually serve people right". When the other customer said that the comment was inappropriate, the manager very loudly replied, "Thank you for your votes for higher wages!"

On a positive note, I will say that the cook at this location (I am sorry I did not get his name), was ON POINT! This guy was running food, dropping food, pulling food, getting food out and being friendly (mind you from the back of the store) to all of the customers. My wife actually spoke up to thank him for his hard work and friendly service and he replied, "Thank you so much, it feels nice to be appreciated by someone." The manager actually came out of the back room to tell him to stop being cynical and just do his job. I am appalled by what I have seen at this restaurant!!!!

The food is good, ABSOLUTELY!! But the service, the treatment of employees, and the treatment and demeaning of customers and employees that my wife and I bore witness to at this location.... I am very sorry to the owner, but while it is managed this way my family, nor anyone that I can pass the word to, will be dining at this location. The employees do not deserve a belligerent work environment, the cook and the runner were the only 2 focused on their job, and the customers should not experience the behavior that was witnessed by multiple people tonight. Thank you to that cook for his calm, cool and collective demeanor, he is the main reason I will eat at your location again once these issues are fixed.

To those who have read this fully, please let me reiterate that the food here is delicious, the environment is clean, but the rest is left with more to desire. I hope this review f our experience helps...

So I'm adding to my review once again it is still a one-star review, them not having done anything to raise it any higher. Tonight there were probably six or seven cars in the drive-thru when we pulled up. We sat in line without one car moving for probably 10 minutes. During this time three customers came up parked tried to go in found the door locked then drove away. When we finally did get to the screen to order, we were told they didn't have any chicken tenders, except five spicy and no mild. They said we could wait for 15 minutes, but by that time we had already been there 15 minutes. When we got our food, a couple of things were missing, and there were no straws, and no dipping sauce.

I understand the restaurants get busy, but today is Wednesday, not Friday night or weekend or something like that. Also the pandemic has stopped a lot of restaurants from seating gas but this should be more reason to have a better drive-thru experience, not a cause for a worse drive-thru experience.

I would also like to point out that we usually drive across town to go to this Popeyes because we consider it to be the " better " Popeyes then the ones that are closer to us.

Older reviews follow.

Below is an older 2 star review. Today it went down to one star.

Wife sat in drive thru 20 minutes. Drive thru person handed her a fruit punch (she ordered Dr pepper). When my wife questioned it, the girl said, "Yeah, we're out of Dr pepper" with no further explanation.

Got home with food, chicken was old and dry, some parts inedible, see pictures below.

Restaurants during these difficult times need to be stepping up their game, not making mistakes like these.

Older review.

They had one girl working the counter, we stood in line for almost 20 minutes (four people in front of us) they ran out of chicken at one point. There were other workers back there, including a manager, but no one offered to help ease the line. There was no ice in the dining room and no ice. One of my wife's pieces of chicken turned out to be a neck. They ran out of chicken again after giving us ours. Floor was sticky with soda, the counter around the tea had three different colors of soda on it. I overheard the manager tell a customer to "call a couple hours ahead of time" because they ordered the advertised 20 piece special. And... There was one other couple in the dining room.

Bojangles is across...

2/15/24. Chamberlayne and Atlee The manager was not available to customers. She communicated with her employees but had her back to the counter most of the time. She was talking loudly with a young male employee about another store needing hot sauce and that she was too busy to be bothered with that. None of the staff were engaging or friendly. In the 10 minutes I waited in line, no one said hello, we will be right with you. There were only three people in line and all the staff were too busy to acknowledge us. Only a couple cars came through drive thru. Finally as it was my turn. I was pleasant, said to the lady with glasses, “wow, you guys sure are busy” She took our order and I said “ thank you sweetheart “ The young man came in to work as we sat to eat, now we’ve been in the place for 30 min. He walked in after his ride, parked in the middle of the handicap parking area. He got food after he had been in the store for maybe less than 10 minutes and took it out to the car so I guess they had ordered ahead. He was the one that the manager was telling about the hot sauce. As we were leaving, I called out to the three people standing behind the counter, said thank you so much y’all have a pleasant day. It was one other man in there sitting and eating his lunch. There were about six people behind the counter. The trash cans were full and the floor was very slippery out in the lobby area were seating was. The whole time I was in there for nearly an hour there were only 11 people in the lobby, eating lunch. A few people ordered their lunch and left. It was not overly busy.. It was busy and quick service for everyone else that came in the salon or the store . Long story short very bad customer service I wouldn’t necessarily want to go back there and honestly I thought...