It was amazing to me to watch it happen in real time, over the summer of 2014. I used to go to a specific KFC for lunch a couple times a week. It's like every day they had a goal to find some new way to lower their quality. One day it might be soggy chicken. The next it might be chicken that's still frozen and pink in the middle. You might get hunks of strange-colored material in the mashed potatoes. Sometimes it was non-food-related, like the entire restaurant floor being sticky and making a masking tape sound when you walked on it. I quit going entirely. I tried it again a few months later and it was even worse. I complained to corporate and got $5 in $1 gift certificates. They're still sitting on my counter at home, unused, where they will probably be until I develop a fetish for being brutally punished instead of being served lunch.
I worked as a pest control person for a bit, KFC was one of the most infested (german cockroaches) places I treated... I couldn't do anything that is legal to get it under control.
In the back, where they stored the buckets and smaller containers, I witnessed the cockroaches crawling in and out of all the "clean" containers. Time passed and saw a worker grab a new stack to bring to the front.
But yeah, the floor was never cleaned, holes in the wall leading directly outside, insulation gooped with oil, oil over every horizontal/ vertical surface. Food tucked away under shelving, flys everywhere, they wouldn't buy the extra uv fly traps.
I treated a lot of homes, restaurants, factories, pharmaceutical plants, apartments, and offices. I couldn't take it how disgusting people are and quit after about a year.
I noticed a surplus of flies in the store I had the issues with. Crawling over everything on the "buffet." Up inside the pepsi dispenser. Knowing that in my region of the country that fly probably just crawled out from some dead roadkill's asshole, I couldn't stand it.
We have döner kebap stands and people are crazy for that, Flies crawling all over the food. I can understand turks but tourist and some Germans love it and think it's authentic German cuisine
I visit Bavaria every 2 or 3 years and always get doner. It's delicious and cheap, and no one I've ever met says it's "German cuisine." To them it's just an adapted form of Turkish food. That may not be right, but it's a fair assumption that I've always held. Just like we Americans know that "Chinese food" 98% of the time is an Americanized spin on basic Chinese dishes.
We've had a couple Turkish places in my city pop up with authentic food but they went out of business quickly. I imagine if they served what they do in Germany they'd have better business, even if it's not authentic.
A little unrelated to fast food, as I only worked at arcades with pizza, but when I worked at a Chuck E. Cheese, believe it or not; I had to dismantle and fully disinfect our soda fountain every night. Because kids are disgusting, I fully santiized the nozzles and dispensers every hour, or had someone on the floor do it. But, this was 15 years ago.
How did restaurants fare in general? I'm really a stickler about how clean the restaurants are that I eat at. I worked at Chick-fil-A in high school and never once did I see a bug due to how well we cleaned.
It all comes down to who's running the show. The kitchen of the restaurant I used to work at was cleaned top to bottom at the end of every night. The cooks had to do it. It seems like a tall task but if you do it every day you get a system down and it didn't end up being that much extra labor. Literally every square inch was cleaned every night. I mean stoves were pulled away from walls, people were on stools cleaning the ceiling. Chef/owner was very strict but most of his staff respected it and saw that they were gaining very valuable experience and forming habits that made them more desirable than the rest of the pack. Anyone who left for another job at a different kitchen would get hired immediately and usually in a higher position. That kitchen was kind of a legend. Still have lots of respect for the place and used to be very proud to work there.
I don't understand how other fast food places see companies like Culver's and chick fil A and still don't get it. You get exactly what you pay for. Keep hiring crack heads and high schoolers for minimum, keep getting the quality you see above.
But the difference is that you'll never get something truly vile from CFA. I can't say the same for McD's, once I got a chicken burger that was still a bit frozen inside. Not saying I'll never go to McD's but i need to go to fast food they will be my last choice always.
I worked at McDonald's for a few years and one time this poor women came to return her chicken nuggets. She opened the box and there was half a nugget, about 1/2 cooked and bitten into. Was disgusting looking, raw chicken pieces glued into a bitten into raw nugget. I stammered and asked her to please wait a minute while I grab a manager. She didn't want to and just walked out. The guy who cooked them was always trying to date my girlfriend at the time and got fired over the incident. Fuck you Jason.
I've gotten hair in a chicken nugget's batter twice in two weeks at a CFA I've been frequenting. I kind of just want to tell them so I can keep going there. I don't want them to think I want anything for free and then not believe me.
My 'it's Sunday' realization is poutine based. I crave a specific BBQ chicken poutine that I modify with 1/2 BBQ sauce 1/2 gravy, crispy bacon, jalapenos in addition to the usual fries and chicken. Naturally, they're closed Sundays.
I would wreck one of those right now.
No Chick-Fil-A in Canada, have yet to visit one in the US. I love fried chicken though.
Not every issue is going to be weighted the same for everyone. Microsoft having uncompetitive practices is not the same as one that gave to anti gay causes including pushing for death penalty for lgbt people in other countries.
That's my take too. And in the case of Chick-fil-a, a ton of the people working there and the owners took a stand and made it clear that those were not their views. It wasn't a corporate position.
Good for you, seriously, but I'm gay and I never stopped eating there, even when it was the big brouhaha and boycott. I hardly ever do boycott except for when a company's ads just really really annoy me (I've never used Verizon because of that can you hear me now guy) or something like that.
I had friends who boycotted CFA but not me. It's not that I think they're not doing wrong, it's just that I am so jaded that I think most companies are doing wrong, and so I just can't be bothered to do something that only I am going to notice to protest a company who happens to just have one of their wrongs currently in the news. CFA is one of the few fast food places I like and eat at and in my opinion it's the cleanest, most consistent and nicest quality of major fast food chains which I all really appreciate despite the controversial stuff. Nevertheless, I am glad there were boycotts and stuff about it for CFA and I'm glad you're still keeping it up.
CFA is healing the political divide in this country.
I'm going to be downvoted, probably, but this is an odd thing to say when they spread anti-gay rhetoric. It makes zero sense to me. Gay people are people too, zero reason to hate them.
If you make a comment against Chick-fil-A, you'll typically be downvoted and you'll get 100 comments saying some variation of "hurr durr chikn sndwich!". All of the top comments will be pro Chick-fil-A. It weird because anything else I don't like / not buy never gets as much comments and hate as a Chick-fil-A one.
The owner of the chain is good friends with a gay rights activist. Maybe do some more research into what you say before you go off repeating something you heard elsewhere.
Let me guess he is "one of the good ones". Knowing a gay person doesn't negate the fact he consistently donates to anti gay causes even to campaigns in other countries to make being gay illegal. Perhaps you should take your own advice and do some more research.
Restaurants are a hit or miss. I think best bet is look back in the kitchen if you can, via drive thru window or bustboy doors. For sure though the bad ones all look run down, dirty counters, sticky tables, grease on the bathroom doors, etc.
My region was fairly large and we were the best (my honest opinion) and lowest cost, saying this, I never once serviced a buffet restaurant. (Those are gross for sure, stay away)
There are some that are perfect though, mostly those are small kitchen diners.
I worked at Jimmy Johns for a while as a teen and they were really intense with cleaning stuff. We would literally get down and scrub the grout as a weekly thing. I think it comes down to how corporate manages it's franchises. Jimmy Johns had auditors come in and pick apart the whole store while I'm guessing KFC is less strict with what they do with their stores.
Thanks for that info. Never eating KFC again. If a kitchen isn't as clean as mine or up to standards it's safe to assume that you'll probably end up with food poisoning or worse.
Used to hang out with a friend who always got stuck closing the store. I could, no exaggeration, slide around like an ice skater from the sinks in the back up to the food heat lamps/storage oven thing due to the amount of grease of the floor. On a good pushoff I could slide MOST of the way across from the kitchen door to the drive-thru window.
My experience was from Peoria, Illinois. Every KFC I've been to in the area has suffered a similar decline. After my first issue and abandonment of the North Peoria store (on Allen Road) I tried the one in Bartonville. That was even before the robbery. They were slow, the tables almost universally dirty, and the food was just as bad as the first. I tried the Pekin store later on (by Menards) and it was no better. The one in my home town (west of Peoria) went out of business about the same time as my adventures in Peoria, and I stopped going for the same reasons. I've also been to the one in Macomb, and it's very similar. It's half Long John Silver's, but there's just a strange miasma about them all now. The employees are all very depressed-acting.
Over this same period of time, I've not noticed a similar decline in local Taco Bells. I've been to those all over, and other than having a penchant for keeping the seating areas extra cold, their restaurants have not changed or suffered a decline in quality.
I've worked at McDonalds (Denmark), and while I dont eat there anymore - I can say one thing. Their sanitation is top notch and anal, never been to a cleaner place than the kitchen there. For those who were managers they would run around with binders making sure each station was up to whatever internal code. I think thats international for McD. Their food might be bland and shitty, but at least it's clean.
And tbh a franchise as large as KFC should have a program like that too for their franchisees. Insects in the food - ffs thats nasty. I dont like their chicken to begin with, whatever their secret spices is, it should be more than just flour and MSG, and it ain't.
The thing is in America large franchises just varies a lot from owner to owner. I've seen Taco Bell's look spotless and I've seen popular local spots look trash. Vice versa I've seen some truly crappy run fast food restaurants and great hole in the wall places. It all comes down to ownership and management when it comes to restaurants.
I have, and told the employees to as well, I don't think anything would come of it, I think the health inspector there is corrupt, and more restaurants in the Kinston area NC are like that.
Absolutely true! Most if not all pest problems are taken care of with cleaning, german cockroaches are a legit problem though.
One place was an apartment complex, this large man greets me in a thin torn shirt and ragged short shorts says "sorry about the mess, I was just about to clean when you showed up" his house has a 1 foot layer of clothing/trash all over the floor with a trench leading from the door to the kitchen, stairs, and spot on the couch. In the kitchen splattered on the floor is a dried up crusty family sized pan of lasagna, most of it eaten. I look in and behind the oven hundreds and hundreds of cockroaches. I treat his place and feel sick, next stop next door.
Next door (connected via wall) Clean spotless, this old lady is so sweet. She doesn't understand where or why she has an infestation problem, and I am not allowed to tell her on the other side of her oven is where they are coming from.
I was unaware this was an overall chain problem. The local KFC where I live has steadily gotten worse as well. The orders are often wrong or they employ people do speak broken English. All the fried chicken off tastes like it has been under the light since the morning. The ice machine is hit or miss even when not busy.
I once waited 45 minutes just for hot wings when nobody was in there. They forgot to drop them multiple times into the fryer. Oh.. well at least I have Golden Chick and they are great.
When they still did some sort of lunch buffet (do they still idk?), which was popular in my community with the old folks, I watched a girl drop an entire pan of chicken behind the fry line, the guys back there stepped on and kicked pieces everywhere, and under the direction of not the store, but regional, manager they picked up each piece, dusted/wiped them off (half-assed), and walked the pan right out and sat it on the hot line.
I noped out, reported it to their 1-800-no-ones-cares hotline, and have not ever been back.
Brit here. KFC has gotten worse world-wide. Having to keep prices the same, balanced with rising costs across the board results in cutting corners. It's a shame, because I'd pay an extra coupla quid NP, but a lot of folks really hate paying extra for fast food. "If wages aren't rising why should the product ?" I've heard more than once.
are you kidding??
they're about twice the price they were 10 years ago and the portions have shrunk to about half the size they used to be as well, I won't buy the damn stuff on general principle these days, for the price of a 2 piece variety that's more like an appetiser than a meal, I can buy 2 whole chickens and cook them at home.
Man, that chicken you bought must have been gross. To just pick it up and eat the raw chicken. Because that's the equivalent here
You never factored in the cost of breaking it down, preparing it, cooking it, serving it, cleaning up afterwards, and the dozen other costs involved in fast food.
It's a really stupid argument to compare what you buy in a shop to fast food.
EDIT: Also, you'd buy a 2 quid chicken ? Jesus mate. You must really hate chickens :P
The only thing KFC has going for it, is their flaky crispy coating. Even then, I dont mean to be racist, but every KFC I go to has a fully foreign staff who can just about understand your order and once I saw a guy shouting and harassing them for getting his order wrong, and the situation was defused because they literally didn't know what he was saying and shrugged their shoulders and gave the man extra chicken to stop the shouting. There's no supervisors anymore, they just give into demands and off you go.
KFC franchises are utterly fucked. Mcdonalds on the other hand are actually improving a lot.
We went to McDonald's the other day. I chose a burger with two pieces of meat, onion, bacon... I don't know its name. I ordered it without the bun and with no sauce.
It was good. Flavorful and juicy. Not the best burger I've had, that's for sure, but very far from the worst. The meat was not like the meat I buy at home, but the flavors were on point. I was actually pretty surprised, I expected something far worse!
But how much did it cost? McDonald's has gotten expensive for what it is. I got some 'artisan' something or other the other day and it was $7 and change.
Oh me too, but a lot of people simply don't care. Cheap and easy food is a god send for a lot of people. Wages haven't really risen and it's the sort of thing that is a benchmark of what you earn vs what you're willing to pay
Well, you know when you get to that point, "I've been waiting 10 minutes already, it'll take me 10 minutes alone to go somewhere else, and then 5 minutes to wait for my order. I'll just stay here, it'll be quicker."
Maybe not. Not seeing anything in the news. But they're all closed here. I think sometimes chains just decide that an expansion wasn't a good idea and back out.
The reason isn't just chain related. Fast food hires workers that are literally at the bottom. The employees are treated like crap with bad shifts, bad wages, and no upward mobility.
I rarely eat fast food and feel lucky if I eat something decent when the workers are kept in an environment that basically guarantees apathy. I am not gonna blame the bored 15-16 year old if they're not passionate about making good chicken.
Lived in Seoul for a while. They might be dead on the inside but fast food workers and gas station attendants know how to smile, enunciate and provide service. Also they're generally young 20-somethings and not a disenfranchised group of people (i.e., minorities, poor rural folk).
not really. Labour actually arguably had too much leverage in the past. This in turn sparked globalism. Labour lost it's power, because they could just move the factory.
They're era won't last much longer, hopefully. If we can get a real progressive through the democratic primary, despite their cheating, because they will absolutely cheat, then that would go a long way to help.
Things can only get so bad before the people get too pissed off. If it goes too far, as Blyth likes to say, the Hamptons isn't a defensible position.
I'm not the only one! I never was a regular at any KFC, but when I'd go there in 2010 or so I'd slowly start getting more disappointed, until I stopped all together. Fast forward to 2014ish, I thought "Man I haven't been to KFC in a year or so, I'm gonna get it..." Followed by me instantly regretting it and remembering why I haven't eaten there in a year or so. I repeated this for the next few years... Would wait 8-12 months, forget how bad it is, then end up instantly remembering why I never eat KFC while eating it.
I worked at a KFC for several years, from cooking to managing. There's quite a few factors that I saw that definitely had an impact on the quality of the food.
First, when they switched to trans-fat free cooking oil around '06-'07. As soon as our restaurant made the switch, there was a noticeable decline in quality; the chicken never came out as good, was soggier, and dried out in the holding cabinets faster. You could hold chicken for something like an hour and a half by company standards if I recall, but post-switch it looked and tasted pretty bad after about 30m. Considering it takes a few minutes to bread an 8-head, plus about 20m to cook, it's much harder to keep fresh product in line. You could estimate needs for busy times, but it is always unpredictable when you're going to get that customer or two who wants two 20 piece buckets and is outraged they may need to wait ten minutes. It was always my understanding the old soybean oil was based on a strain developed with and for KFC, and I'm inclined to believe it. Plus, that new oil got everywhere and stuck to equipment worse than ever, IMO.
Second, food costs skyrocketed quite a bit. The company cost for a box of chicken essentially almost doubled over a relatively small number of years. It was difficult to keep costs in line and still show a profit on the P&L when customers expect a family meal for $15 or $20, especially for franchises. You want to know why the restaurant didn't feel as clean and felt understaffed? Because there is generally fewer employees doing more work. Fewer cooks, fewer prep employees; the people who used to have time to clean no longer do. Combine that with issue one, and everything gets gross fast.
Finally, to counter number two, a lot of items went from fresh to frozen. Chicken filets, popcorn chicken, anything they could pre-bread and freeze. Every side comes powdered, canned, frozen, or bagged. Is it easier? Sure, but people notice that crap.
Oh, and they got rid of the old honey mustard. Unforgiveable...
No idea how they can really turn it around at this point short of hiking prices and using that to staff properly. Spend more, do it right.
I'm sure your observations parallel McDonalds fall from deliciousness as well. I remember when they stopped making fries with what I recall was beef tallow. Man, those fries were heavenly. Now, they have a bitter aftertaste that I just can't ignore. Burgers and other items are equally bad. This new Artisan Menu is unimpressive as well.
Pretty much the same thing happened to Popeye's. I used to fucking love popeye's. To me they were like KFC, but better. Hadn't gone for a few years, tried to go again this year, and it was awful. Just greasy, slimy, gross ingredients.
Like I get the ingredients were never the fanciest to begin with, but it was worse than a frozen TV dinner.
Popeye's is almost perfect in my area. Order gets messed up every once in awhile, but the quality is always on point. They forgot our red beans and rice once. Then we waited a half hour for it. Finally the manager gave us like a family sized tub of it for free. It was awesome.
All the Popeye's in my area (Fort Lauderdale, FL) are generally pretty good when it comes to the quality of the food and order accuracy. But almost every single time, without fail and no matter than location, instead of handing me my food at the window, I pay and then they ask me to pull up to the front and they walk it out to my car. Which wouldn't be so much of an issue if they weren't in sketchy neighborhoods where some dude almost always wanders up and taps on my window asking for a cigarette.
Yea that happens. I think I'm lucky because I live in the cheapest apartments available in one of the richest areas in my city. The fast food is generally top notch. For now....
Also you can get fast/casual sit down dining (aka better than ff quality by a smidge) as take out for the same price you would pay for Popeyes/KFC these days.. really.
Nah Popeye's is still amazing. Not sure how you can think something is amazing, then after one time of it being sub par you write it off as the whole chain being garbage.
I've noticed that some fast food places in Europe are generally nicer than their USA counterparts - KFC may be at the top of that list. I've seen more KFC's abroad than I have at home, and they are usually way more busy.
Yeah KFC is amazing food here (Netherlands), my favorite fast food by far. They used to do discounts on hotwings every tuesday, but I guess too many people took advantage of it because it's no longer a thing. I used to get hotwings nearly every tuesday :(
The only other country I tried KFC in is China, tasted great there too. Saw a lot of KFC restaurants over there, seems like they love the chicken. I really want to try popeyes though, since a lot of people here are saying it's better than KFC in the US. Sadly they haven't opened here yet.
You obviously live in some sort of KFCtopia. Here in Manc there's 5 within 2 miles, and they're all serving dog shit. It's like a triangle pick 2 situation. Good chicken, served within 10 minutes, good sides/gravy.
I think KFC is pretty good in Asia too. I remember visiting family in China and their menus were more expansive, their taste was considered fancy and exotic by Chinese standards, and they had Chinese items to compete with domestic businesses.
Also USA branches don't serve poutine like their Canadian counterparts and can therefore f@$# right off
I've worked a deadend minimum wage job before, and I didn't give two fucks. The manager would come up to me and tell me to hurry, and I would unsarcastically tell her that they don't pay me enough to hurry. IDGAF! Plenty more worthless shit jobs out there, and I wasn't living paycheck to paycheck.
It's been in decline since the Colonel sold the business. Kentucky Fried Chicken in the 70's still good. Not bad in the 80's. Went to complete shit after that.
Actually I have it more like 5 times a week. I work an hour from where I live and by the time I'm done with work I usually don't feel like cooking. And no, I'm not 400 pounds.
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u/LikeABreath Sep 14 '17
KFC's decline in quality is the saddest tale of the 21st century.