May 10, 2008

Sometimes the most unexpected incident happens to you at the most unexpected time and place.

This is what went thru my mind as I walked out of the McDonalds restaurant at Woodside Square on Saturday May 10, 2008

I was at the McDonalds along with my niece. We went in to quickly grab two things on our way to her house. I went into the restaurant at 7.17 pm and went to the line. There were two people in front of me ready to place my order. To my surprise there were no employees to serve them. They were rather busy chatting among themselves around the drive thru service window.

This went on for a few minute at which point two employees decided to work for the time they are being paid and came to cash. They started talking orders, and when my turn came I went to the cash and placed my order. This was at 7.37 pm. By this time my niece who is 5 was both hungry and wanted to go home.

Again the employees all gathered around to talk. To my surprise the manager on duty was among them. This included, some employees who were off duty, or I assume because they were not in their uniform but had access inside the serving area. All of their concerns were more on their plan to meet together the next day than serving their customers.

I was waiting for 20 minutes at which point one employees asked, why I was standing their. I told her that I still didn’t get my order and that I was not alone and pointed to others who were standing around for their order. At which point she asked the male employee who took my order and he looked at me surprised and asked what my order was. I repeated my order again, to which he said “Oh I don’t have that here”. I simply replied, I ordered and paid for it and showed him my receipt.

He looked around for his portion of the receipt and then took mine and went to make the order which was another 10 minutes. Finally he came back and handed me a bag, no apologies at all. Wow how nice!

When I got into the car which was parked right in front of the restaurant, the 680 News gave me the time as 8.13. I can’t seem to understand why it took close to an hour to pick up two quick orders, and it wasn’t a complicated order either. Whatever happened to the customer friendly “fast food” restaurant?

When we finally got home and opened the bag, there were more surprises waiting for me. The extra ketchup I asked for was no where to be found, there were no ketchups at all. The cinnamon melt that I ordered was not there. I found a box of chicken nuggets, which went straight to the garbage cause we are all vegetarians at my house and we don’t eat chicken.

Then I realized, I wasted an hour and at the end of it didn’t get what I wanted. This was not the first time that this happened to me at this location, but this was by far the worst experience. This is not some corner burger place, but rather one of the most recognized restaurant franchise around the World.

After all of this I came to this conclusion; I will make it a point to not walk into this McDonalds restaurant again. I will make sure that I let my family members, friends and co-workers know of this incident, because I value my time more than anyone at that restaurant care to.

Very Disappointed
Lankesh Pathmanathan

I grew up in Victoria and the McDonalds food quality is very good. Since I moved to Townsville, all the restaurants here serve dry rolls, the fillet of fish and chicken is dry, the cheese is practically non existant as is the sauces. It is slapped together like nobody cares, the service is terrible, no manners, half the things that go on the burgers are not there.
They all need a really good shake up, as the burgers do not look fresh when they are served.
McDonalds in Victoria have a good reputation, for serving fresh food, but that is non existant up here.
Its about time something was done about it.

On Saturday April 26th I went to the drive thru at Upper Gage & Mohawk in Hamilton.I got in line at 4:40p.m. approx 6 min later we got almost to the speaker when the sign blew out and just missed the side of my truck.My wife got out and put it aside, we now placed our order which was 1Mc Chicken combo>no mayo /rootbeer 2. Big Mac combo/diet coke 3. 1 Big Mac combo/diet coke 4. 2 Quarter pounders/cheese, 1 in a combo /diet coke...Big order yes but not complicated. We got our meal it was now 4:55 my wife checked the bag to make sure everything was there and without them even telling us first that there was no meat for quarter punders their were no sandwiches or fries but we got the pop. So my wife went inside to get this rectified and was told there was no meat for the sandwiches and was not even asked if we wanted a different sandwich nor speak to a manager. The store 99% of the time is great, but I've noticed that on weekends the staff are all under 20 including managers. My order was $30 I didn't get the food I wanted and by the time it was straightened out and we settled with 2 Big Macs the rest of our food was cold and barely edible. Its now 5:00 we had cold food and not the food or an explanation. How could a sandwich so popular run out.I am now or will I ever go back to that store but I will sure hesitate at any other location and I have enjoyed the food at Mc Donalds for many, many years.I spend a lot of money in your store each week and now my kids will suffer the most because I'm hesitant to go back.

Sincerley and very disappointed, Mr. Roy Shortt
50 Hardale Cres
Hamilton.Ont.
L8T-1X8
I would appreciate a response to this and something done to restore my faith and my friends who I plan to deter from going there as well.

I ordered a fish fillet and they salted it with the french fries. Totally uneatable.

On april 11, 2008 my husband & i went to the drive thru at this location. As we pulled into the parking lot we saw all the employees, including the manager, standing outside the doors. We proceeded to pull up to the drive thru and place our order.no one was at the intercom to receive the order, so we drove on around to the window that takes the money, as we were just going to place our order there, and we were met by the manager and we were then told that the store was closed due to there being storm and tornado warnings out for the community and they would try to reopen when the warnings were over. My husband and i thought this did not sound right as we have been going to mcdonalds for a very long time and have never encountered this situation before. It was raining out but no tornados were spotted in our general vicinity. There is a mcdonalds on the other side of our city and it did not close down.we are very upset and don't know if we will return to eat there again.if the storms were that bad, why were ALL employees standing outside when we arrived??? I doubt that we are the only people that found this strange and are deciding now on weather to return to do business there again.