Posted on 05/23/2025 9:42:18 AM PDT by Signalman
Fyoutube
Agreed. I like Popeye's. It's actually my favorite fried chicken chain, and that is an area in which I claim serious expertise. We lost our local Popeye's, however, when it was closed down for health code violations. Apparently the inspectors came in and found an epic roach infestation. This would be a matter of quality of employees, which reflects ownership and locale, and customers.
This Popeye's was next door to a social services building to which people reported for their social worker and therapist sessions, and prescription refills for their cornucopia of better living through meds necessities. A lot of these people then lingered in the immediate vicinity all day, having nothing better to do. If it was too hot to sit outside, or if they were drunk and needed somewhere to sleep it off, they could stroll over to the local branch library, which the homeless had taken over. There was even a Starbucks, catering (mostly) to a different clientele, which provided cleaner bathrooms than the Popeye's or the library, just in case they needed a quiet place to shoot up. It was truly a full-service street corner.
This is why no neighborhood wants social services buildings. This one was an artifact from ancient days going back to Marion Barry. Back then, it might have catered to a walk-in local client base, as there were still big housing projects close by and the area was a lot rougher. Today the area is thoroughly gentrified, and the clientele is definitely not local. But there is a metro stop on the next block, and geniuses who plan these things for the city probably see keeping the site open as an opportunity to share the blessings of diversity more widely. This is a neighborhood that now has to import its homeless people and street crime, and fortunately the city is intent on helping.
Anyhow, the place was always littered, and the staff was invariably very young and who you would suspect. It is the only fast food restaurant at which I've ever seen an actual fight break out between customers over a chicken order. Iirc, they were running out of extra crispy and neither guy wanted to wait, so naturally they settled the dispute on the field of honor, ghetto style. I'll grant that Popeye's is good, and I respect a man who knows his fried chicken, but even I have limits.
This never stopped me from swinging by to pick up chicken, because Popeye's, and I was confident that things would probably not get too far out of hand because there was a fire station across the street and a Dunkin Donuts on the corner, so the police were often on the scene as well. My favorite memory of the Dunkin Donuts is the time I got there very early, right at opening, and there were ten -- yes, ten -- police cars clogging the parking and double parking. No crime had been committed. It was just police and Dunkin Donuts, a sacred tradition.
Anyhow, I wonder if preferences in fried chicken vary among our various ethnic groups. This would certainly affect location, ownership and staffing as well as clientele. I almost hope Popeye's is a black thing, because it would be one more point of cultural identification, along with watermelon and basketball (hey, I grew up in southern Indiana) that may qualify me as black the next time the democrats are in charge and the reparations train rolls into town. I figure I'm blacker than Elizabeth Warren is Cherokee, and there should be some cash in it for me too.
Thank you! I hate having to scroll through or watch something to get to the answer just because the title is cryptic!
I visited the Golden Corral in Midland, Tx back in 2014. The “clean” plates on the dish rack as you came in were stuck together with dried food, and the utensils had clumps of food stuck to them. I asked a waitress what was going on and her reply was, “The dish washer broke.”
I’ve never been back in one. The Cracker Barrel chain is rapidly headed down the toilet too.
Fast food jobs are entry level, how does someone not earn a position there? 🤔
It was the most efficient and clean place in memory. And those Russian kids working there. Polite, well dressed and well mannered.
Same experience in Sharm el Sheikh, Egypt. Fresh flowers on the tables. Spotless employees and premises! I brought a comment card to the counter and they looked very worried until the manager translated what I wrote. All smiles and thanks after!
That’s funny because I’m almost there with CB as well. Where I live, CB & GC are right next to each other.
Not in my city. CB is always good.
We went to a Golden Corral about ten years ago and I vowed never again. The place smelled like urine and the tables were filthy.
Video of rats running wild in a Popeyes.
One time at Taco Smell I got my food on a tray. It turns out that they didn't even bother to wipe the remains of the previous user's meal off the tray, much less wash it.
That was bad enough, but my worst ever experience was at a Burglar King. I went into the rest room to wash my hands. There were no paper towels so I went into the stall to get some toilet paper. There was none, then I observed that someone had smeared excrement all over the walls of the stall. I complained to the manager and walked out.
Waffle House is Waffle House. They don’t hide anything from anybody. Somebody who doesn’t like it shouldn’t go there.
I think that is mostly Asian restaurants.
lol, but I did watch the video
I’ve turned this one in Jacksonville, NC in for a low sanitation score and the dirt hanging in the overhead vents. During a trip a couple of weeks ago, we got a motel in Flatrock, NC and visited the next-door CB. The couple behind us were complaining about their biscuits being burned (I got raw ones once in Franklin, KY), and our food came out burned as well, not just the cornbread. BTW, their score was even lower than the one here in Jax.
In the past thirty years I’ve eaten in CBs from Miami to Flagstaff, and even at the home office in Lebanon, Tn. They used to be great, but that time has passed for me.
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