I would say that this might be a location kind of thing. It so much depends on who is working at any particular location.
“I would say that this might be a location kind of thing. It so much depends on who is working at any particular location.”
This is the case locally. I’m not a fan of Hardees but in a little town near here we were stuck going there and it was surprisingly clean and friendly. Went back several times.
Meanwhile in a town about 25 miles away the place is a mess and sometimes takes almost a half hour to get your order. Run by people in perpetual panic mode that mostly just shuffle around in the most inefficient manner accomplishing little.
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.