An open Letter to Taco Bell
Written: Jun 15 '00 (Updated Jun 15 '00)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: cheap, decent food
Cons: they NEVER get our order right. NEVER. inattentive, insufficient staff
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| tesserae's Full Review: Taco Bell |
(Note: I actually sent this letter to Taco Bell headquarters. It isn't the style of my usual reviews for this reason.)
To whom it may concern at Taco Bell Headquarters:
It is a very difficult thing to write this letter.
I have been a customer of yours since 1989. I remember when a couple of good friends and I, on our college student budget, would take $5.00 to Taco Bell, eat a complete feast, and leave feeling full and happy and taken care of.
Back then my favourite choice was the Nachos Bell Grande, but I frequently caved in to the Mexican pizza, as well. Both meals were delicious: the meat well-cooked and spicy, the cheese fresh and abundant, there were olives and lettuce, sour cream and beans -- my discriminating taste regularly enhanced the flavour by ordering jalapenos on the side.
I still love the food today, though my order has changed. Now I can afford to spend a little more, so I opt for chalupas or a 7-layer burrito. I was filled with a great joy when my daughter decided she loved both the meat and the taco shell, and I've finally convinced my husband that mexican food from Taco Bell is a -good- thing and not just a trendy thing.
We always drive through, mostly because our experiences in the dining room have been consistently bad. They are often unclean, with tables scattered with splattered food and leftover trash. The air conditioner is either blasting cold or non-functional. Usually you are out of utensils or napkins and when I stand at the counter to ask for them, I am greeted with a sneer and a very long wait. The music is usually tolerable -- some pop with occasional ballads included, but the rest of the atmosphere makes it uncomfortable and not worth going in.
Instead, we drive through and take our food to a local park. Fresh air, picnic tables, grass and trees -- a good place to enjoy a good meal. Sometimes, that is.
Whenever we drive through your restaurant, we order the following items:
A #1 Combo: taco supreme, burrito supreme and a large drink
A #6 Combo: 2 chalupas (chicken santa fe), one taco and a large drink
2 crunchy tacos
1 quesadilla with no sauce
1 7-layer burrito
1 milk
This comes to a total of 9 food items and 3 drinks. Not so difficult, is it? Especially not so difficult considering that there is a television set hanging right above the preparation bar. The set lists the order on it, in approximately the same way that I've listed it above.
I regret to inform you that the past 3 times we have gone to Taco Bell, they have gotten our order wrong. And it has really upset us.
We order through the drive through, so we are very careful to enunciate properly and have the order taker read our order back to us (we always do this).
The first error was made at the Taco Bell .81 miles from our house (I'll refer to this as TB#1) in the middle of May, 2000. I had spent the day with my 2 year old daughter and promised her tacos for lunch. At the park, I told her that she could have tacos, at the store I told her she could have tacos. A little after noon, on a very hot day, I went to TB#1 with my daughter and placed my order. They read it correctly back to me over the speaker, I paid the money, received my food and drove away. After we'd lugged our food, our personal items and ourselves up the stairs and into our air-conditioned apartment, I opened the bag to discover that they'd forgotten my daughter's 2 tacos. I was too tired and sweaty to pile us all back in the car and return to TB#1, so I decided to let it go. I gave my daughter hot dogs.
The next week I decided to take my daughter to Taco Bell again. This time, the person taking the order wasn't paying attention. When I asked her to read my order back to me, it was completely different than what I had ordered. I re-ordered, and when she read it back to me -again-, it was still wrong. On the 3rd try, we managed to make our orders match, and I drove up to the window. I asked to re-read the order one more time, paid, and drove home. As I unpacked the bag at my dining room table, I realised that they had forgotten my daughter's quesadilla. This time, I was furious (so angry I was trembling) and I phoned 1-800-Taco-Bell and spoke with Tatania. I was very upset by now, and she apologised for the error, then promised that she would send me 2 coupons for free items on my next visit.
Yesterday (June 9, 2000) we went to Taco Bell for dinner. We chose to go to a -different- restaurant this time (TB#2), one that was 1.69 miles from our home (we didn't want to risk the bad service we had come to expect from TB#1). We waited in the drive through line for 23 minutes. The person taking our order was not paying attention and it took 2 different read-backs before he got it right. By the time we pulled around the corner and away from the speaker, we saw that the person 2 cars in front of us had cursed loudly and driven away without his food. The car behind us honked.
We ordered the 10 items and 3 drinks listed above. They handed us our 2 sodas, but forgot our milk. My husband said, "you forgot the milk," and as they went off in the back to -search- for a milk, we searched the components of the plastic Taco Bell bag. We counted carefully ... only 8 items. "Let's see, 2 chalupas, 4 tacos, 1 quesadilla, 1 burrito .. what's missing?" After a process of elimination, we realised that they had forgotten my husband's burrito (a primary component of his combination plate). The sullen teenage boy returned to the drive-through window, handed the milk out and started to turn away.
"Wait!" My husband called out, "you also forgot the burrito that goes with Combination #1."
5 minutes later, we had all of our food and drove to a local park for a picnic. As we happily ate our food, we opened our daughter's quesadilla to discover that it looked differently. Usually we order it without the green sauce, and it's burned because they cook it for the same length of time, but without the sauce it doesn't need as long to cook. This quesadilla was cooked perfectly, no burned sections at all. I raised my eyebrow at my husband and we tore off a piece. It had -extra- green sauce on it. Once again, my daughter was gypped.
I am not writing this for extra coupons. I am not writing this for a free meal. I am writing this to tell you that you blew it. You had regular customers who appreciated your food, ate there regularly a few times a week, and kept coming back. We came back the first few times that your employees ripped us off. We complained, and then returned again. Now, we're just letting you know that we're not coming back.
I told my husband last night, "I don't want to be a jerk. I don't want to be an overbearing person who has to scrutinize the contents of the bag or insist on having things done right." At the same time, I am sick and tired of being cheated. I am tired of looking through the order, deciding it was right, driving away, and then finding extra green sauce on my specifically order "no sauce" quesadilla.
In order to spare us all, I will not be returning to your restaurant. And by the looks of the other angry people in line at the drive through last night, I can guarantee that others won't either. You see, it goes beyond even getting the order right or missing an item. It comes down to the point where you want to be respected, as the customer. It comes down to thinking that they should -listen- when you're talking and respect you as someone ordering from them. That's their job.
I've decided I'm quite happy to let them (mis) serve somebody else.
RA
southern CA
Recommended:
No
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Epinions.com ID:
tesserae
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Reviews written: 53
Trusted by: 46 members
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