Chick-fil-A — Restaurant in West Lake Hills

I have symptomatic celiac disease. The only fast food restaurant that has a dedicated fry-only fryer and gluten free bun is Chick-fil-A. I have eaten the same meal I ordered probably 10 times in the last year with zero reaction… today was the exception.

I had gotten a ton of blood drawn (still fasting at 3:30 PM, by the way) right up the road, and thought I’d stop really quick to eat before driving the hour commute to my daughters school. I ordered on the app, same thing I always do. Luckily I checked the bag — I was missing the gluten free bun I paid almost $2 for, and they had put a COLD grilled chicken filet with a piece of lettuce on top. I ordered a club — strike number 2.

Not only was the employee arguing with me that my order was RIGHT (like I didn’t place the order or something????), when she brought back the “right” thing (same cold filet, hard cheese and cold bacon) , she included two cookies as an APOLOGY. Girl… You put two wheat cookies in a bag containing food for someone who JUST told you it will make them sick as an apology. I literally just laughed a drove off before I started to cry.

Against my better judgement, my literal starvation won the war and I am now writing this on the porcelain throne hugging a trash can. I’ve never been so sick from Chick-fil-A and I’m actually pretty sad. I developed an eating disorder called ARFID after being diagnosed with celiac disease because it is so painful to be sick that I would just not eat out of fear. Now one of my main safe foods is no longer safe in my mind.

I am extremely disappointed by the response of the restaurant. It’s easy to change your gloves, and put food in another bag. It’s your literal job and now I get to spend my weekend living on pedialyte and Zofran because someone else didn’t want to take 60 seconds to ensure I would be safe....

Chick-fil-A is the love of my life. It was my first job and taught me everything about great customer service skills and efficiency over a decade ago. I was a cashier and dining room person. I still go to Chick-fil-A at least once a week when I lived in Ohio, and now at least five times a week, and often twice a day or sometimes even three times a day now that I moved to Austin and have a job that involves driving all day. I actually had Chick-fil-A for breakfast and dinner yesterday, and breakfast and dinner for today!

The moment I saw a sign for Chick-fil-A, I shifted lanes to come here.

That being said:

Unfortunately, I have to be honest with my review here. This is hands down the worst Chick-fil-A I have ever been to.

First, the aesthetics when walking in were horrible. ALL tables were dirty and had dried milk and sauces. This indicates a long time the dining area hasn't been cleaned.

Second, the first thing I did after driving a long distance was to go to the restroom. There were no paper towels stocked, and there was a roll of bathroom toilet paper on the sink!

Third, when I ordered my food, there were no tables clean, as I have said, so I had to walk around finding a table, but had to settle on cleaning one myself. Eventually someone cleaned some up. Unfortunately, not on time.

Fourth, the four strips I had were hardly strips. More like burnt or overcooked flat pieces of chicken in too much breading. Not even enough chicken. Disappointed.

Another unfortunate thing is since moving to Austin, I have been much more interested in a competing chicken strips restaurant, that isn't as common in Ohio, because they offer better quality chicken strips at a much better price.

I hate to give a scathing review, but I...

I normally love CFA and have excellent experience with them. Unfortunately this time I didn’t. Drive through order of two salads with Light Italian dressing. When I get home, I realize they only give me one Light Italian dressing. What to do? Go do a 20-minute round trip back to the restaurant? Or just deal with a Dry salad and a sub-satisfactory experience? So that’s what we’re doing. It’s all the more frustrating because the order taker repeated back our order correctly. So the fault was the window server who just didn’t read the order correctly. Bummer. CFA—you can do better. When I called back to complain there was no offer of apology or restitution. Felt like they didn’t care. Again, the experience is usually excellent. Please don’t let your service standards slip. Or your follow up with suggestions or complaints. That’s a slippery slope and we’re rooting for you out here in the land of conservatives. I’m sure you will do better and I will definitely give you...