If Halloween is the Nightmare before Christmas, my experience at this Chick-fil-A is the Nightmare before Halloween. Though Nightmare is one of my favorite songs, experiencing one is anything but.
It was the last day to claim a free sandwich from the Angels baseball promo where if the Angels scored at least 7 runs at home, and you open the app after that game, you get a reward for a free chicken sandwich. The Angels' season is over, and so is any chance of revisiting this Chick-fil-A on the east side of Beach Blvd between Heil and Edinger.
As soon as I arrived, I immediately noticed the long drive-thru line, a norm at any Chick-fil-A you go to. What isn't a norm, however, is how they blocked off so many parking spots to create dual drive-thru lanes, which as convenient as it may sound, I would argue it could cause a safety issue. Why?
The spots directly in front of the building were primarily for mobile order, so I tried to park at the next lot over, which was empty, but for the reason I mentioned in the previous paragraph. There were a handful of delineators, with adjacent ones linked by chains. The way they set it up, they barely leave enough room for the one side of the lot where you can actually park, thus increasing the chances of a head-on collision, especially if it's after dusk, and both cars neglected to utilize their headlights. If the lot only had one open spot, I would have settled for another lot for fear of not being able to safety turn into that spot without hitting a vehicle on either side.
As soon as I got out, I tried to discern where the delineators were directing the cars to. My first thought was "massive overkill!" Oh, but it gets worse. There's a striped zone right at the entrance of the drive thru, and the words "DO NOT BLOCK" are etched on either side. This is the area where the dual drive thru lanes converge into a single lane, and it was also the area I had to cross to get to the front door. Because it was dark when I went, I had to look carefully to make sure both drivers at the front acknowledged my presence before crossing. Once I saw that, I was relieved I didn't choose either drive-thru lane because if I did, how would I know which car should go into the actual drive thru first??
As soon as I entered, I opened my Chick-fil-A app and noticed I had gotten kicked out! While not this particular Chick-fil-A's fault obviously, it was simply a precursor to a series of unfortunate events starting with several customers passing me to get in line and taking their merry time to order. After placing my order, I looked around and didn't see the usual counter of sauces, utensils, and napkins that I typically see at other Chick-fil-A locations. While I did ask for a pack of Chick-fil-A sauce, I didn't get any napkins in my order. and since I didn't want Chick-fil-A sauce on my steering wheel, I chose to eat the sandwich as is and save the sauce for later.
It was about 5 minutes before an employee yelled out my *full* name even though he only yelled out other customers' first names. That employee must have been hard of hearing because he had to yell my *full* name again even though I said I was here, just on the other side. And thanks to him, everyone in the restaurant knew who I was. Not only that, but the way he said it was akin to a school principal demanding me to report to his/her office over the intercom. Like what did I do to deserve this? Never a fun thing. Either that employee needs to be retrained on customer service, or Chick-fil-A should update its privacy policy to specify that customers' full names may be exposed to everyone inside their restaurants.
I was so aggravated that even though I would have loved to sit at a table with a Coca-Cola bottle as a flowerpot, I simply zipped out and ate the sandwich in my car.
The sandwich wasn't bad, but it was drier than the other sandwiches I've had at locations much closer to me. Definitely would have been better with some Chick-fil-A sauce, but like I said, I didn't want to drive with sauce on my fingers. Not even a knife to guide the sauce out of its pre-packed container?? I suppose that's one way to "cut" corners lol.
Oh, and remember the "DO NOT BLOCK" zone I mentioned? I actually almost blocked it because I had to wait for a car to back out of a spot in front of the restaurant. Luckily, the car was far enough that I was just outside the fringe of the zone, but with everything I mentioned up to this point, I can only imagine how much anxiety I would have driving through that area as it seems like a collision waiting to happen.
Will I return? Absolutely not, especially since I was just passing by on the 405 freeway, speaking of which, I was trying to get back on, but the entrance was blocked off for some stupid (or no) reason, thus causing me to search for a different freeway entrance on a different street. This nightmare ceased to find an ending until I ate a second dinner that evening elsewhere. read more