Give it a rest, Wendy's

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

This isn’t Pit-worthy, but I’m getting really annoyed by a practice I’ve encountered a lot lately at multiple Wendy’s locations. I have no idea if this is happening nationwide, nor have I noticed it at other fast food restaurants, but maybe someone else can enlighten me.

When I get to the drive-thru window to pay and then get my change or receipt, I am immediately asked to pull forward, away from the window, so that someone can bring my food out to my car when it’s ready. Now, I’ve had this happen at other restaurants where I’d ordered something that might take a while, and there were people behind me who could get their food faster if I got out of the way. I have no problem with that. But in these cases, no one has been behind me.

Well, I guessed what the reason was, I asked about it, and it turned out I was right. As you probably know, most fast food drive-thrus have a clock that measures how long customers are sitting at a window before they get their food. These employees are apparently padding their numbers by having customers move away from the window, thereby making it look like the customers are getting super speedy service, when the reality is that the customer is waiting just as long as before, except in a different spot.

This process irks me for two reasons. First, if the numbers weren’t being falsified in this way, it’s possible that a higher-up would actually seek to find ways to genuinely improve service time, whereas under what’s happening now, there may be an assumption that improvement is unnecessary. Second, why the hell should I, as the customer, be inconvenienced just to help you lie to management/ownership? No, it’s not a major inconvenience, but I’m supposed to be the priority, and instead, I’m being shuffled off to wait elsewhere. It makes me feel like I’m a nuisance instead of the focus of the business. It’s also annoying that someone comes out and hands me my food and walks away before I have a chance to check that I got the right order, meaning that if there’s a problem, I have to now get out of my car and go inside the restaurant to fix it (defeating the whole purpose of having gone through the drive-thru to begin with).

Anyway, I haven’t felt confrontational enough to refuse to move forward, but I’m not happy that this is now happening every single time I go.

2

That’s not happening to me at my Wendy’s. Why, just a few days ago that didn’t mind me sitting at the second window for 5+ minutes while they got my food ready.

If you don’t feel like talking to someone perhaps there is an address (physical or digital) that you can send some sort of correspondence to?

3

Look for the sign with the customer complaints number. A lot of our fast food franchises have the store manager’s name and number posted, call them and ask them why it seems like you have to park every time you have to go through the drive through. If you remember dates and times from when you stopped by, he can look to see who was on the drive thru that day.

That’s if you want to make a fuss about it. I emailed a store owner at one of the fastfood places here because at night they refused to take anything but cash, but wouldn’t say why. A month or so later a new night crew and now accepting debit cards.

4

There’s a reason (aside from the fact that the food’s pretty good) that I generally go to a nearby Arbys on those occasions that I get fast food. The drive through lane is only one car wide, with a wall beside it. The crew can’t pull that “please pull ahead” thing. Of course, if anyone has a mechanical breakdown in the lane, backing out will be a PITA.

5

I’d be tempted to just say, “No, I’ll wait right here.” But then again, I don’t want my cheeseburger raked across the grill cook’s bare anus out of spite.

6

Well, some of us aren’t quite that picky, Mr. Pretentious!

7

My ex-girlfriend’s young son would admonish his mom for being picky at the drive thru, insisting he didn’t want to end up with a “Mucous Burger with Sneeze, extra bunions”.

I never, ever, contest a drive thru order. No no no, take your time, I’ll just pull up and wait…

8

My guess is that the manager not only knows about this, but requires his employees to do it.

A friend of mine and her mother works at Hardees, my sister worked at DD up until yesterday, and my mom worked at KFC last year, and all the managers had their employees do this to make the check out time seem quicker.

9

Your ex-girlfriend’s son was smart. I’ve had way too many orders go wrong not to check before I leave. (French fries instead of the apples that were on the friggin screen, for Og’s sake! Or missing sandwiches/chicken nuggets.)

And because it seems appropriate, here’s Joe Pesci complaining about the sorry state of drive-thru service. (Warning: NSFW language.)

10

This is actually standard practice at Culver’s. They have numbers they hang from your car’s window so they make sure (or attempt) to give you the right order. The burger’s are made to order and that’s the reason/excuse.

11

So all in all not any different than the airlines pulling away from the gate and parking on the runway for 2 hours so they can still claim to be “on time”.

12

That happened to me all the time at the two Wendy’s locations I used to frequent. It was annoying, but I put up with it without getting too irritated until they started forgetting my chicken nuggets. The last straw was when I opened up my chicken sandwich and found half a chicken breast in there. Instead of a normal-sized chicken breast slightly overhanging the bun, as it usually was, someone had hacked a large chicken breast in half so there were several bites of that sandwich that were nothing but bread.

I don’t do Wendy’s anymore. I guess I should have complained, but it was easier to just eat less fast food.

13

Oddly enough the vast majority of the times this happens to me, it’s at an Arby’s. Because I like their potato cakes and they never have those available. I, too, don’t mind if there are cars in back of me. But why should I have to pull up just to make the numbers, if I am not slowing anyone down behind me!

14

That boy’s going to grow up to be a comedian, right there. :smiley:

15

This shows the problem of remote management and going just by numbers. It is so common it today’s society and very dehumanizing.

16

[Bruce Willis as ‘Harry Rydell’] “Ya know, I think I taste a little sh-t in this burger…” [/Bruce Willis as ‘Harry Rydell’]

17

Seriously? They claim to be on time based not on when the flight arrived, but instead on when it left the gate?

18

Sounds like a particular franchisee might be trying to pad their stats. If you feel the need, tell their customer relations people about it:

Wendy’s Consumer Relations - United States
Wendy’s International, Inc.
One Dave Thomas Blvd.
Dublin, OH 43017

Phone: (614) 764-3100, ext. 2032

19

“Dave’s not here, man.”

20

Of course they track ‘on time’ departures, just like arrivals. Duh.