I've been super mindful of what public-facing employees deal with during the pandemic, but every now and then, you run into an employee who is just doing it all so wrong. In this case, my son and I went up to WingStop in the late afternoon, and it was set up for take-out only, understandably. There were two parties ahead of us, waiting, and one group had yet to order and was growing impatient. There was a crew in the kitchen of about 3, and two more employees came in around 5 p.m. The manager was sitting just out of reach, toying around on an iPad, in the area that was once the dining room.
The customer ahead of us who had not ordered yet, challenged the manager. "Why aren't you helping up here?" The manager claimed that the business was not set up that way for her to help: she didn't have a register login. The customer persisted: "You could help pack orders, or get people their beverages?" The manager was polite, but ridiculous, and said, "I'm sorry, it doesn't work that way." Honestly, who knows what she was doing: she could have been playing Angry Birds, but she could have been making schedules or communicating with her corporate overlords, but really, whatever she was doing could have have waited until a less busy time. What manager puts computer work above customers?
Two more groups came in to order, and two DoorDashers came in to pick up orders, and the manager continued to sit. The tension was palpable. Everyone just waited. And waited. And waited. I asked my son if he wanted to bail, but he explained that he had watched a TikTok video review of the establishment and the TikTokker said it was worth the wait.
The same frustrated customer addressed the manager again: "You're telling us you can't do a single thing to help?" The manager replied, "Thank you for your comment."
I could see there were a couple of cooks, along with a young lady who started getting beverages and packing napkins and such into the bags that were starting to come up front. But the star of the evening was a very harried young man who handled a little bit of everything on the front end: dispatching the orders to the Dashers, taking orders, assisting the cooks, making sure everyone had straws and napkins, and patiently explaining the sauce and spice options to anyone who had questions.
He was a thoughtful and impressive kid and is the reason why this place gets 3 stars instead of 2; if it were not for the manager, this would be a 5 star review, for the type of establishment it is. My son ordered wings with a spicy rub, and I went for the tenders glazed with Korean bbq sauce. We both got fries and a drink to complete the meal.
It did take a looong time to prepare the meal, and because we would have to use Olden Avenue during rush hour to get home (a congested unpleasantry even during the Plague Era), we opted instead to head over to TCNJ where we found an open picnic table behind Brewster dorm (where I lived for two years, many moons ago). It was such a nice night and I'm sure my newly-minted teenage son only tolerated my tales from the Lakeside dorms...and The Pit...but he tolerated them without fuss, and a bit of wing sauce smudged on his face. He said they were some of the best wings he ever had.
My boneless meal was a perfect blend of sweet and spicy, a lovely marriage of garlic and ginger, and the fries provided a delicious carb-y base to sop up all the sauce.
We were very happy with the food and have talked about going back again some time soon. We definitely will, and I will do so with the hopes of bumping WingStop up a star or two. Hopefully management gets it act together. read more