KFC Complaint Letter
Dear Kentucky Fried Chicken,
After resisting temptation whilst everyone else flocked to the brand new KFC that opened in Bromsgrove in July, we finally decided to give it a go tonight.
We were very hungry, and so opted to use the Drive Thru, carefully selecting a nice easy choice of the most popular meals that would be fast and pretty-much impossible for – and forgive me for my language here – even the most useless of staff to cock up.
Two Flaming Zinger box meals. They each contain a Zinger Burger, fries, two spicy wings, and a drink and side order of our choosing. I know you SHOULD know the contents of your own box meals, but my need to clarify this will become apparent.
Knowing side orders and drinks can be tricky to get right, we each asked for the same – Pepsi and corn on the cob. Ok? Two Flaming Zinger box meals, each with Pepsi and corn on the cob. Nice and easy.
We thought we’d risk things further (and this may have pushed things over the edge), and asked for two lots of BBQ sauce. I was pretty surprised to be charged 10p each for these, considering how you charge 300% more for what is essentially a can of Pepsi, but let this go as I eagerly looked forward to getting something quick and simple to eat.
Arriving at the final window, we were given the Pepsi’s and told to park up in the Orange Bay and they would bring the food over shortly. All ok so far – a bit strange that we literally just got the drinks. We noted that we were not given straws at this point, but didn’t realise this would turn out to be the same kind of taunting undertaken by Joseph Mengele as he handed people a bar of soap as they went into the shower block.
We parked up and waited.
And waited.
Others were also directed to the bays, some complaining about their wait, and eventually Manuel brought out their food and they left. I refer to ‘Manuel’ – this may not be his actual name. I dub him Manuel not because he was from Barcelona, but because the poor young lad was scurrying back and forth as the sole person bringing angry customers their long awaited food like something out of Fawlty Towers. Also because he will undoubtedly be the one who gets beaten up by hypoglycaemic people waiting in those drive thru bays.
After we’d been there over 15 minutes one couple who had complained about their own wait pointed out that even they had arrived some time after us, before getting their food and driving off.
Part of me feels sorry for Manuel – but if this is his first job at least it will harden him to the world. After his shift tonight, if his next job is as a parking warden, prison officer, or crash test dummy at least he won’t be fazed by the hardships of it. He’ll always be scarred more by his experience working at KFC on this Saturday night.
I did plead with Manuel to get them to give us ‘free stuff’ after we’d been there for 25 minutes (he had been over to apologise several times), and he scurried back inside to try and get them to, you know, give us some of this promised ‘fast food’ and stuff.
I haven’t sat watching so many people enter and leave a building whilst sat motionless, bored, and starving in my car since I used to work in surveillance.
After 29 minutes – TWENTY NINE minutes!!!!!!! – I’d decided if Manuel brought out anyone else’s food but ours, I was going to beat him to death, take the food he was carrying, and demand a refund AND our food for free from the bunch of incompetent idiots inside. Luckily, this time (did I mention this was after 29 minutes, according to our receipt?) it was our food that he brought over.
We sped off home after glancing in the bag to make sure it had 2 boxes in there, and admittedly should have checked more thoroughly… Especially as we realised nobody had given us straws for the drinks. Too hungry to risk a fight at the drive thru window, we cut our losses and headed off.
Have you ever tried to drink a ‘fast food’ Pepsi without a straw? Go on – try it. Once you eventually manage to get enough ice out of the way to get a drop of Pepsi into your mouth, the ice freezes your teeth and gives you an instant headache. If ‘interrogation specialists’ have not yet discovered the values of this as a form of excruciating torture, you might want to market the idea to them.
Unpacking the food back at home, we noted straight away that our 20p worth of BBQ sauces were nowhere in sight. Sauces we bought, in the bag? No.
Opening the boxes, we found not corn on the cob, but some filthy great pots of gravy! I don’t know who even eats a pot of gravy with their fried chicken, but let’s just say we’d rather eat our own legs than order gravy as our ‘side dish’. I can see how you’d want to replace our near-healthy choice of vegetable with a pot of fat as the next best thing. They are a close fit. This is sarcasm, by the way.
Free stuff? Oh, no. We were not given even a solitary piece of chicken to try and compensate us for waiting longer than most of those chickens probably lived.
Then to REALLY rub it in, one of the spicy wings was about 2″ long. Seriously?! Was that little budgie wing deliberately selected by your staff who KNEW we’d been waiting for 29 minutes after deciding NOT to give us any free stuff??
Can you see my frustration, here?
As such, I’ve taken even more time out of my day in order to tell you about my KFC experience, and how, contrary to the slogan on the bag in the picture, it bloody well ISN’T ‘So good’!
It’s pretty damned poor!
So I’ll leave it for you to reply and tell us just what, exactly, you plan to do about it to put things right?
After the wait we had tonight, I won’t hold my breath…
Yours with much anger,
Nasty Evil Ninja
Nasty Evil Ninja's Playpen of Doom 