Sure, they came up with a chicken sandwich, finally. A couple weeks ago, myself along with my daughter & her friend were driving through the south side of Milwaukee and noticed a Popeyes Chicken restaurant that did not appear to have a long line of cars in it’s drive-thru considering on how popular their new chicken sandwich has been. Not only that, but the fact that it was about 3pm on a weekday and thought that would be a good time to “sneak” in and try the sandwich while their drive-thru nor their dining room appeared to be busy.
So we pulled into the drive-thru and only noticed one car present and that was at the outside menu board (with the two-way order speaker & all that) in back of the building. So we wait thinking that it won’t be long (believing the customer in front of us at the menu board was in the process of ordering) despite the fact we saw no brake lights on from that particular vehicle (red flag). Without counting, at least a few minutes have passed and no action. I heard no ordering, no voice from an employee coming from that aforementioned speaker at the menu board and the car in front of us remained stationary, so I begin to politely yell out of my window asking if the drive-thru is even working? Noone answers me. So a few more minutes go by, say a total of five minutes since when we first got there, then my eighteen year old daughter suggests that we should just leave. I then proceed to yell out of my car window for a second time if there is indeed a problem with the “drive-thru”? This time, the female employee working the drive-thru answers me through the speaker with a rather rudely sounding response saying that she’ll be “right there!” while sounding like this was not the first time with the same customer present (or so she thought) that she will be “right there”. I then waived to the customer in question (that same car parked by the menu board with her brake lights off the entire time) as an apologetic gesture as we then promptly left the fast food restaurant. Oh by the way, there was also one car sitting at the drive- thru WINDOW we did notice as we had to pull around to get back on the street to leave.
It really should go without saying that someone as who we witnessed* just parked at the fast food menu board in the drive-thru for AT LEAST five minutes is unacceptable, period. Even for understaffing, PERIOD! (They should pay more). It would have to suggest that the Popeyes’ top management might be telling their employees to “stall” in order to create long lines of people waiting working off of the introduction of their new chicken sandwich in a successful attempt to garner free advertising through extensive media coverage. We are not blaming the actual employees for this as we are a proponent of the “Fight for $15” movement, this is Drinks In The Seats®. I did finally get to try the sandwich (from a friend who brought one over) it was not bad in my opinion granted it was probably made about an hour earlier. You do get a big piece of meat with that and it may have tasted better had I would’ve consumed it right away a la a “Krispy Kreme” original glazed donut. But the whole point here is, that hype might have once again prevailed over product even in this instance and at the customer’s expense.
*Image was recreated from what we had witnessed in the Popeyes Chicken drive-thru