Ezell's Famous Chicken — Restaurant in Woodinville

Just reread my last review from 5 years ago… and seems NOTHING has changed.

They are STILL forgetting items. Except tonight was the final straw for me. I called to attempt to allow them to correct the mistake because 1. I was hungry and tired from working & 2. I didn’t want to waste gas and time driving down there.

Unfortunately I called, and called and called. 19 times. When I walked to the counter and asked the girl if they ever answered their phone, she acted like she couldn’t hear me; and then laughed and said “Oh our phone must be dead!”.

So I told her, well I tried calling multiple times to try and get this corrected, but no one answered, I’m hungry, tired and I just wasted an hour here, for your guy’s mess up. I want my money back.

So she grabbed the bag with my food and asks what I’m missing. I told her - all the sides of macaroni and cheese, my sauces….

Do they NOT double check orders before bagging them up? They weren’t busy when I ordered.

If I wouldn’t have had to drive back and they would have answered the phone I would have just shrugged and asked for a partial refund. But by this time I’m irate because this isn’t the first time they’ve done this to me.

How do you have a business, post a phone number and rarely answer it / charge the phone?? When you call, and no one picks up, it goes to an automated message that says “The voicemail box of _ is full.” How is there no business greeting?! I don’t know, as a business owner myself I would die if any employees ran my business so carelessly. Clearly nothing gets done with these feedbacks posted.

I emailed the company directly but I know nothing will change. So yes, the food is good, albeit, guaranteed to make you sick hours after eating it. But the customer service gets a negative 40 stars.

After this visit I won’t be back. I’m done wasting my time with a company that doesn’t care about themselves or their customers. Additionally, if I have to go in there and see sloppy, unkempt people working there (esp their management), I’m going to vomit.

On more than several occasions I’ve seen people with greasy hair, in their face and handling the food without gloves. Please save your time and money and avoid this place...

Update: Foolishly went back to see if things were any better. Walked in, ordered 8 piece spicy and a pound of gizzards. They were out of spicy, so that was going to be a 20 minute wait. Ok, no biggy, but they should have it on hand and fresh at 6:00pm... That's primetime. I watched the girl tell the woman in the back what i ordered, and saw her acknowledge it. I come back 20 minutes later... "Oh she got sidetracked and forgot to cook the gizzards." Sigh. So bad. Free rolls and cobbler though -- both overdone. It should not routinely take 45+ minutes to get 8 pieces of chicken and a few gizzards. Especially if you have to shell out $30 for it.

This location has the worst customer service you will probably experience among any restaurant in the area. I've been here 3 times. Don't bother calling ahead -- they will take your order but wont bother starting to cook it until you show up. That wont stop them from telling you it will be ready when you show up. It is very common for the small waiting area to be packed with 10-15 people standing around. You can see the chicken on the heat lamp, people are moving around in the kitchen doing stuff, but no food will come out for like 30 minutes. So awful. They need to bring in new management with some experience. The food quality is sketchy too -- when they are backed up...

I used to eat at this ezells every week or two back in the beginning of 2023 thru summer 2023 and it was always fresh, juicy, and good. Due to some circumstances, I didn’t eat here for about 5 months or so. I’m not sure if they got new cooks or new ownership, but it isn’t good anymore. The last three times I’ve tried to eat here again this year, the chicken was well overcooked, chewy and not moist at all. Very, very dry and just unpleasant. After this third attempt to eat there again tonight, I am now done. I don’t know what y’all did to change the quality so drastically or if the new cooks just don’t know how to cook chicken properly but it is immensely disappointing, as this location used to be tasty. You can see how dry the chicken is in the picture, there’s no glistening from moisture at all. It had the consistency of an Overcooked thanksgiving turkey with the chewiness. I will not be giving this location another shot...