Nando's at Middlebrook Retail Park is a pretty large branch serving halal chicken only. I consider myself a Nando's regular, so I was looking forward to finding out how this branch compared as one thing I've found with Nando's is their branches and food tends to either be excellent or terrible and it is rare that a branch is in-between.
On a personal note, this ended up being my final review of 2019 and was #937 for my yearly total and #2973 since joining Yelp in April 2014.
Firstly, the store was rather busy so there was a short wait for a table before I came in, the waiting area wasn't too nice as it was in a small drafty porch with no staff on hand to greet you straight away or even nearby, which as you don't directly walk straight into the restauraunt would have been nice.
One thing I noticed straight away was the high amount of staff in the store and most of them were students, I've never seen so many young people working in one place at once, there probably wasn't a single staff member over 25 which is an interesting observation.
I liked how the store had two small stands with water and fizzy drink machine as well as some sauces and cutterly, this is especially needed in such a large store and made it easier.
When my food came originally, it was drowned in sauce, when I had to pick it up to put it on my side plate to send it back to the kitchen (as it was cold), the sauce just seemed to drip everywhere and even the plate underneath the chicken was covered, it was sliding and rather unpleasant.
My chicken which was originally served cold was returned to me back as a new piece in a few minutes, it still had slightly too much sauce and I also didn't like how they wouldn't put my sides under a hot plate or something similar to keep it cold, as obviously I ordered sides to go with my food, not as a starter.
A large Nando's store which was almost full - they had so many staff on that even being almost full shouldn't have affected them but sadly it seemed like it did with the food and waiting time seems to be much worse than other branches, I also don't like the fact they serve halal chicken either and don't even offer regular chicken (I understand some people need halal but why not offer both?). 2* read more