Kindly said, I went to the new Chick-Fil-A located at 4735 W. Mobile Highway today in Pensacola. It…read morewas my first time. I was confused from the moment I drove onto their parking lot. Although I was driving in the right lane, the stop sign is far to the left, which I almost missed. I have never seen that before anywhere. Weird. Then there are confusing big arrows all over the parking lot, which is very confusing; going this way, and that way. I felt like a cow looking at a new gate.
After making some needless wrong turns because I was confused, I saw three employees manually taking orders in the right lane, which made me feel uncomfortable, so I decided to leave instead of go through their drive-thru, not feeling like interacting with humans standing right next to my car window; but even leaving was a nightmare. There were multiple lanes, the right is the drive thru evidently, and the left lane sign said "mobile thru," which was the only exit I saw, so I thought; but as I drove in the left lane I saw a device to place an order, which confused me again, and by now I had lost my desire to eat. Why were there employees manually taking orders in the right lane? Where is the exit, because it's not clearly marked? It was so damn confusing! I couldn't get out of that mess fast enough! I drove slow, confused and frustrated.
One employee walked in front of my car and I almost struck him. Thank God I was going very slow. He was standing in the median strip between the lanes, like the other three employees were 30 feet back. So how was I supposed to know he would suddenly try to walk in front of my vehicle while I was moving? What chaos! Whoever designed their parking lot should be fired! That is so frustrating. I won't ever go back!
McDonalds did their parking lots right. The drive-thru lanes are clearly and entirely separate from the parking area. Whereas you cannot get to Chick-Fil-A's drive-thru lanes without going through the parking area, which is confusing. When a driver enters a business parking lot, everything should be self explanatory and easy to figure out, not a puzzle that challenges the driver to try to understand what is going on.
Their parking lot is atrocious navigating. I never had a chance to eat their food. Furthermore, it is a safety hazard, since all vehicles entering the drive-thru have to go through the parking lot, where customers need to walk to enter and exit the restaurant building. This is a very lousy parking lot layout. Just horrible!