Tossing Salt Review:
Bojangles Of Laurinburg
October 11. 2021
DougMaynard.com

Maybe I should leave the fast-food restaurants alone, but I decided that I didn’t want to cook tonight and decided to head over by Bojangles, located at 1226 S. Main Street, Laurinburg, NC. All I wanted was a box of chicken. So how did that go? Prepare to find out.

I started off by pulling around to the drive-thru. It’s 9:14 pm and I wait for a few minutes until a voice comes on the speaker saying, “Order When Ready!”. Okay, no greeting, but I really didn’t expect one so I placed my order. An 8-piece box. She repeated my order and said hang on. And then… nothing. About thirty seconds later, she’s back and says “Order when ready!” And I was annoyed, but said, “just the 8-piece box I already ordered.” She got a little snappy and said, “I said to drive around” but she had said no such thing. She said hang on and then nothing else. A little smart-ass to be sure, but the help at this place and quality of customer service have really gotten bad over the past few months and it’s why I had quit coming from once or twice a week to maybe once a month if that.

I drive around to the window and a boy is there and he asks, “8 piece box?”. I hand him my card and he quickly runs the ticket and hands me a box of chicken. Okay, my fault here. I didn’t check the order before leaving the window, but it’s just eight pieces of chicken and four biscuits. How bad can they mess it up, right? By the way, their health inspection score was an 85. It used to be in the high ’90s, but the place is looking nasty, at least in my opinion, and the Health Inspector seems to agree. Back to the story.

So I drive to the house. I’m tired, hungry, and in pain, ready to just eat dinner and call it a night. So I go into the house carrying the box of chicken. I wash my hands and go to prepare a plate. I open the box and count the pieces of chicken. They’re kind of rough-looking, but it’s eight pieces. And the biscuits? They’re not there. They forgot to include the biscuits.

So I grab the box of chicken, my receipt, and get back into the truck. We’re headed back to Bojangles. And I walk into the restaurant this time and go up to the counter. It was a different woman there at the front and not the one who took my order nor the one who gave it to me. I told her that I had been there about fifteen minutes ago and gotten an 8-piece box and asked isn’t it supposed to come with biscuits? She said yes. “So where are they?”, I asked, my annoyance very apparent in my voice. She went into instant apology mode and quickly prepared me a box of six fresh biscuits, being extremely friendly and apologetic the entire time.

So the manager on duty was great. But the girl who was walking around the back, the one I assume took my order in the first place, had her head down snickering about something. And a tall, skinny boy who worked there, but was standing on the customer side of the counter when I came in, muttered something about “I can’t believe he brought it back, hommes” to himself, or maybe it was his imaginary friends, but he was just talking stupid until I gave him a quick glare. He shut up fast and just backed away from the counter. Meanwhile, the manager on duty was still apologizing and putting my chicken and the fresh biscuits that had been forgotten before into a bag for me. I told her thank you and walked out. And that skinny boy was saying something as I was walking out the door, but I didn’t stick around to hear what. As I got into my truck, I could see him talking and keep looking out to where I was parked.

And I came home, ate chicken and a biscuit, and here I am. So I made the mistake of not checking my order before I left, but the poor service and just blatant disrespect that I felt in that place, it’s fallen a long, long way from what it used to be. The people are poorly trained, disrespectful, and it’s just a sad reflection of what customer service has become. The manager on duty was the only positive thing about this entire experience. It’s not worth the headaches though and I will NOT be going back to this place. Why do most people quit going to a store or restaurant? Bad employees. And this place, Bojangles of Laurinburg, NC, they’ve got a bunch of them. So my review and rating? Of five stars, I might stretch it up to two stars and that’s only because of how apologetic the manager on duty was. The rest of that crowd? Oy vey!

And there you go. At least they are faster than the Hardees and the food wasn’t cold, but the help and service leave much to be desired. Thoughts, comments, and any questions are welcome. What are your experiences eating at the Bojangles in Laurinburg? Does anyone have a story to tell? Let me know. And with that, I’m out of here. My thanks for reading. I’ll see you at the Drive-Thru… but it won’t be Bojangles.

Ubuntu!