Slow service and bad service are different in my eyes. If they are just slow, but making sure you are kept up with things and explain whats going on etc I am pretty laid back. If they are rude because they think you are complaining, thats when I will get a little pushy back. Only happened 2x in my life. 

1 of those was at Chiptole. I cannot do cilantro. I ask for plain rice. She ignores, then gets angry when I ask her to start over. And she out of habit did it again. I ask her again. She throws the tortilla and rice in the trash and says we cant do that, its premade. As if I havent been ordering Chipotle this way for years. I know how its prepared. I ask her to go to the back and see if there is any white or brown (I didnt even care which this time). She comes back after not actually looking and says nope. I told her Ill just do the beans then. When I went to pay, I told the cashier I wasnt going to pay full price because I didnt get what I wanted. He heard the story at this point and then took my burrito, threw it away, went to the back and got the plain brown, made my burrito for me and told me to have a nice day. Free chips and burrito.

Sounds like you were between the first scenario, where they werent rude to you, just slow...but then maybe didnt realize they were so slow or lost your order or something.

posted by justincredible

Ran to McD's for lunch earlier and had to wait... and wait...and wait...for 35 minutes until I got my food. This location is notoriously bad, I had already complained once and had the ownership group call me to apologize. Since that complaint it seemed like service was okay. They finally opened up for indoor dining and my last two orders were fine.

I wasn't in a hurry and figured it would be 15 minutes based on the drive-thru line and number of people inside. Talk about a miscalculation. I was visibly annoyed when the guy putting together orders asked me what I was waiting on. I told him the order number and mentioned it had been 33 minutes since I put in my order. He apologized, said there was no excuse, and put my name down in a book for a free meal credit. At this point I'm not sure I'll go back unless I drive by and it's basically empty. Any sort of line and this place crumbles to the ground.

How do you handle bad service? Complain while there? Complain afterwards thru a website or social media? Do you just let it go?

Unless it's egregious I usually just write it off. It takes multiple bad experiences, or a really bad single occurrence, before I'll complain.

35 minutes at McDonalds?!?! Some sit-down places are quicker than that.

I won’t complain in the place unless it’s egregious. But I will definitely complain on their contact us page, or social media if I can’t find a way to contact. (Mainly chains, I wouldn’t shit on a local place unless it was awful). I complained to Chipotle a few months ago for not adding the milk and fruit to a kids meal (yes, my wife didn’t check), and they gave us 3 free kids meals. I do understand the slow service currently because of staffing, but there is no reason for the food to be shitty or the meal not to be complete. 

Funny I pull this up as I sit here with my XC team at a B-dubs type place and the waitress keeps saying she’s never had a big group before and she’s messed up about 1/2 of everything and said sorry 329x. It’s all good but funny.

For the most part, these instances that are occurring over the last two years are the result of the lack of help.  Some of the places sometimes only have 1 or 2 people working at times and they simply can't keep up.  The lack of help because several million people won't work and 11 million jobs remain open is a massive problem we face.  

posted by QuakerOats

The lack of help because several million people won't work

Damn. If we only had some immigrants to fill these low paying Jobs…..

I went through Frisch’s drive thru a few weeks ago. Tried to order three different things, was told they didn’t have any of them. Just gave up and went on my way. Thought about complaining to their social media but what’s the point. I have very low expectations for ordering food anymore. 

I don't have anything else better to do tonight so I am reviving old threads. I have had exceptionally poor service with:

1. Budget Rent-a-Car. Rented a car from them at two separate locations in recent memory. Both times it was a hassle and something was wrong, either with the staff or the vehicle itself. Just seems like a really terrible operation overall. I've sworn them (and their partner company Avis) off entirely because of it.

2. Chipotle off of Fishinger in Hilliard. I used to regularly do pickup orders from this location and it was fine. A year or two ago they remodeled the location and added a "chipotlane" which I thought would make things easier because I could just use the drive thru to pick up my orders... except it wound up being hellaciously slow every single time I went. It took a few visits, but I finally figured out that they're not preemptively making orders... they're just waiting for you to show up at the window and then making your order, which completely defeats the purpose of the Chipotlane. I chalked this up to staffing issues or them just getting used to having a Chipotlane or whatever but the wait times got longer and longer each time I went. The final straw was a ~20 minute wait for an order that was practically frozen, despite being made then and there.

Wrote them off and haven't been back.

posted by MontyBrunswick

I don't have anything else better to do tonight so I am reviving old threads. I have had exceptionally poor service with:

1. Budget Rent-a-Car. Rented a car from them at two separate locations in recent memory. Both times it was a hassle and something was wrong, either with the staff or the vehicle itself. Just seems like a really terrible operation overall. I've sworn them (and their partner company Avis) off entirely because of it.

2. Chipotle off of Fishinger in Hilliard. I used to regularly do pickup orders from this location and it was fine. A year or two ago they remodeled the location and added a "chipotlane" which I thought would make things easier because I could just use the drive thru to pick up my orders... except it wound up being hellaciously slow every single time I went. It took a few visits, but I finally figured out that they're not preemptively making orders... they're just waiting for you to show up at the window and then making your order, which completely defeats the purpose of the Chipotlane. I chalked this up to staffing issues or them just getting used to having a Chipotlane or whatever but the wait times got longer and longer each time I went. The final straw was a ~20 minute wait for an order that was practically frozen, despite being made then and there.

Wrote them off and haven't been back.

Gave thumbs up just because you used HELLACIOUSLY.