ALERT: BUG IN MY DEL TACO FOOD…read more
I went to this. Del Taco on Warner Ave. yesterday (which I've frequented for years) and found (what I think is) a cricket in my Epic burrito!
But the almost more mind blowing experience I had was how that Del Taco dealt with the situation. I find the bug (had bought the food via drive thru), go back in to alert them of what happened, and this is what ensued:
Me: "look at what I found in my burrito."
Female manager (whose name I won't say, but she's the usual manager on staff there): "what is that?!"
Me: "I don't know. That's what I was hoping maybe you could tell me. What happened here that this got into the food?"
Manager: says nothing in reply, but wraps up the burrito and chucks it into the small wastebasket behind her and curtly ask me, "do you want me to remake it or do you want a refund?!"
Me: "uhh, a refund; I don't want another burrito made for me from the same supply that that one just came from."
Manager: says nothing more; takes my receipt which I had brought back in with me, and does her thing on the register. She proceeds NOT to give me a full refund, but refunds only the one burrito, telling me, "your refund amount is $7.75. Do you want it in cash or on a card?"
The original tender used was cash so I tell her cash. She puts the money on the counter, still says nothing more, and coldly does an about face and goes back to the assembly line for a short moment and then disappears into the back area.
I stand there in disbelief (have three children with me who are asking if they'll give us a free drink or some donut holes --they're kids), and am just kind of processing the whole situation.
The gravity and mis-handling of the whole thing hits me, and I catch a second wind.
Me (to the only visible employee at this point, the guy handling the drive thru line): "you know what, can you get the manager back out here?"
Me (once manager returns): "I gotta tell you, I'm pretty shocked at how you just handled this whole thing! I come to you with a disgusting bug in my food.; a bug!! This isn't a 'you put onions in my burrito when I said no onions,' and this is way more egregious than even a hair. This is a dead insect in my burrito! And you act as if I'm inconveniencing you! You don't even have the decency to apologize or issue me a full refund, only a partial refund!"
Manager: "I did say sorry. You must've not heard me." (Her piss poor attitude is starting to make a 180 degree turn around as she sees that I'm now pissed and calling her on her audacity.)
Me: "No, you never once uttered the word sorry or any sort of apology (I was on weighted breath listening for one), expressed zero shock, as though I'm the seventh person today with this complaint, and you made no effort to ask what you could do to make up for this, made no effort to offer an explanation, whether you could perhaps offer something else from off the menu for the mishap, that you would investigate this and whether I wanted a call back from upper management--something along some professional and courteous lines--NOTHING! Maybe if this bug had been in YOUR mouth you'd be more upset or sympathetic!"
To sum this up, after I pitched that mini-fit, she tells me how she WAS looking into it, that that's why she went back to the food trays to look at them (big whoop, she didn't do that as I stood there) and she then shows me some blue gloves that she had curled up in the palm of her hand--whatever that was supposed to mean to me. In her 180 degree attitude adjustment that I forced on her, she also started to offer me "something else from the menu."
[Note: I reluctantly went ahead and asked for a strawberry shake and order of French fries because my girls were pushing for this. Had it been me, after that shameful altercation, I would've just left because it's the principle of the matter and I'd do the adult thing and leave with my dignity intact and not take their resentful handout, but I went ahead and appeased my children's cravings.]
BE AWARE of what you're eating here at this Del Taco, folks. I know this location of theirs has been there forever and is practically an HB historical site, but that's irrelevant, as it's whoever is on staff and under what management the place is, that determines what you're going to get there, how much they're going to care and take their jobs seriously, and how you're going to get treated there any given day. For shame.