The good, the Bad, and the UGLY:…read more
For starters, I got sucked in by marketing. They make that pepperoni pizza meatball sub on a toasted garlic butter roll look so good on TV. That's what drew us in. For complete transparency, this is only the second time I've ever been to a Firehouse. The first time was nearly a decade ago in Smyrna & it was subpar, at best.
The good: We went in today for lunch. Walked in around 10:45-ish. To their credit, the store inside was nice. Seemed fairly clean, well lit, & overall a nice spot. That's where the good ends.
There were 3 employees there at opening, clearly struggling. We were the only ones in the store when we walked in, & nobody said 'hi', "Be with you in a moment," "Kiss my foot," nothing. Ok, whatever. We waited for the girl to get off the phone at the register. She was very nice.
The Bad: We ordered at 10:50 & sat to wait, & wait... We were the only ones in there. I get it, they had a lot of mobile/Uber eats orders, etc. The 3 employees stumbled all over themselves. One girl, Summer - from her nametag, was clearly the one in charge of the other 2. She was trying to do everything & tell the other 2 what to do at the same time. Once our food was ready (about 15 mins after we ordered... ridiculous), we picked it up at the counter & walked outside to eat at a table in front of the empty store. Why, you might ask? About 2 mins before our food was done, 3 more employees came strolling through the door. One of them, who I assume was a manager guy in a black jacket, strolled straight to the back & turned on some, much needed, house music, but blasted it so loud I couldn't hear myself think. We had to get out of there just to enjoy our meal. My wife and myself shared a large pepperoni pizza meatball sub. Advertising shows this on a TOASTED garlic butter roll. They just took a normal roll, sliced it, rubbed a little cold butter on it, & slapped the ingredients on top. They did NOT toast the roll at all. Once we started eating, it was a soggy mess. It may have looked pretty in the photo (attached), but it was not. Additionally, they seriously need to check their food safety standards. Our sandwich, while the cheese was melted on top, was stone cold in the middle. STONE. The marinara was less than lukewarm, but the biggest detractor for me was the meatballs. They were SO cold. There is no way that they should ever be that cold unless they were just taken out of the fridge. Wasted sandwich.
The UGLY: Staffing, management, competency, humility, & appreciation. ALL severely lacking. Remember that girl, Summer, that was the only one of the 3 employees who knew how to make sandwiches? Well she was apparently the shift leader for opening that morning. We got so annoyed listening to her literally yell and demean her coworkers we got up and took a pic of the sign under the register about letting management know about your experience. (The link doesn't even work.) As a matter of fact, the very first thing we heard as we walked in to this location for the very first time at 10:45am this morning was her YELLING at a poor guy in the back, "Hurry up and get out here, you're taking too long!" Literally, word-for-word. The younger guy stumbled from the back, clearly nonplussed with her demeaning choice of words & attitude. He was new & clearly still learning. He hadn't been taught well whatever task it was he was doing. He came and stood right next to her, didn't say a word the whole time we were there, & barely moved unless directed EXACTLY what to do. Poor guy. Seemed like he was ready to walk out. Example 2, girl yelling at her employees: Several people walked in about 10 minutes after we'd been there, before 3 others came in at 11. She clearly felt overwhelmed & yelled at the other 2, "Do ya'll not know how to do ANYthing?"
When the 11am shift walked in, she (in front of every customer & other employees) loudly exclaimed, "Finally! We need some help, none of them know what they're doing!" How tacky, demoralizing, & uncalled for. I would have quit immediately. I have always been taught, from my much younger retail and customer-facing days that you NEVER have those kinds of conversations or comments in front of customers. It's just terrible. Some folks clearly cannot handle any positions of authority or holding 'power' over others.
This particular Firehouse is in DIRE need of competent management & some form of a training program. These employees were floundering being left on their own. You may ask why we didn't refuse the sandwich, go in & talk to a manager? They were too busy to care. We didn't get a 'hello, welcome in' or a 'thank you, come again'. We were also on our lunch break & didn't have another 15-20 minutes to wait on them CORRECTLY making a new sandwich. We'll just have to hope these cold meatballs were properly stored & that we don't get sick because of poor food safety standards.
This is my 2nd, and unfortunately, FINAL time to ever go to a Firehouse.
