Long John Silver's — Restaurant in Visalia

The food is okay, but the staff could seriously use a refresher course, or three, on courtesy and customer service. The last time I ate there, I was given half my order, and told the rest would be brought out to me in a couple minutes. At first, I hesitated to start eating until the rest of my order arrived. But then they got a bit busy. So I ate what was in front of me, hoping the rest would be served to me before I was done. It wasn't. I asked a female employee, who glared at me as if wanting to say "I'm busy - don't bother me". She less-than-politely told me to give her my receipt. She looked over my receipt, then looked back at me as if suspicious I was trying to pull a fast one on her. She showed my receipt to the lady who took my order. The cashier/server looked at me, clearly embarrassed. I didn't hear what was said, of course. I had gone back to my table. But even after the cashier confirmed my complaint, the employee I had brought it up to still looked at me with suspicion, and now with a dash of impatience, too. She walked back over, handed back my receipt, and told me "we'll get it out to you in a minute", followed up with something about not wanting to get me in trouble at work by keeping me too long (ie: it will be "to go"). Wow. I might have believed it to be a statement of honest concern, if not for her condescending tone. Anyways, they got busy again, and after waiting another twenty minutes, I gave up, and walked out. I know the less than polite employee saw me walking out empty handed. We made eye contact.

When my errands were completed, and my responsibilities were satisfied, and day was done, I thought about calling Long John SIlver's, and asking to speak to a manager, but I didn't. I was worn out after a busy day, and so I just wanted to stop thinking about it. I sincerely doubt I will ever eat at Visalia's (or any other) Long John Silver's again. Good food, but not worth the piss poor customer service. Also, call me selfish, and perhaps even spoiled, but when I pay for something, I kinda-sorta like to receive ...

Ok, I'm going to be honest here. Before eating at this Long John Silvers, I was convinced that there was some strange, secret society among us that kept this place in business. I didn't know anyone who ever ate here. Fish fast food? Sounded to me like a recipe for a rough night. But a coworker heard I'd never been and invited me, and I thought "I'll try anything once."

The result? The food was pretty dang good. Not the best fish or anything, but certainly not the worst fast food place. I got the platter with the hush puppies, fish, chicken, shrimp, and waffle cut fries. It was all pretty good and well-seasoned.

The service was excellent. Our order was taken promptly, delivered to our table without error.

The atmosphere was good - but somehow felt a little sad inside? Not sure how else to describe it. Maybe it was the extra seating area on the side of the restaurant blocked off with tables. Somehow that said "we used to be busier/more popular, but all that's behind us now."

All that being said, it was pretty dang good. Much better than I expected. If I'm ever hungry for a quick bit to eat, would Long John Silvers pop into my mind as a place to go? Probably not. But that doesn't mean that it's not...

Long John Silver's use to be really good and a family friendly place where you would love to always have a weekend dinner at but over the years it has gotten bad. Including changing some of the items on the menu like their delicious crispy fresh fries into their crinkle cut fries that are soggy and gross. Even the taste of the chicken strips, the coleslaw and the hush puppies have changed and definitely not better than they use to be. I would also like to know what happened to the crispy pieces everyone always looked forward to getting in their meals and why they stopped doing that? At this location the employees here were really rude to all their customers who kept coming in as if no one wanted to work at all. So many orders were coming back incorrect or had something wrong with it. We received horrible customer service, we didn't receive our full order and our food was given to us cold and everything tasted horrible. This place isn't cheap anymore with all the rising prices so I expect everything to be fresh, taste good and to have better...