Bobbie U.
Yelp
As a result of very poor service at a Lakewood location, we hadn't been to a KFC in over 20 years. Due to the new 8-pc for free coupon, we thought we'd give the Havana location a try.
Issue #1. We arrived and discovered that to get the promo, we had to order through the app. We did so and told the guy at the counter, so they'd know we were already in the store and waiting. He confirmed that he could see the order pending. He gave us our soda cups and we sat down to wait. The app said that it might take up to 20 min for our order to be ready. After 15 min, I noticed that there had been an order sitting in the pickup area for a while, and I got suspicious. I stood in line for 5 minutes to find out that WAS our order, sitting there getting cold. Before going on break, that guy had not told anyone else that we were already there waiting. Whatever. Mistakes happen, right?
Issue #2: Pulling out all our food onto the table, I was upset that there was so much waste created by them packing it up thinking it was a to-go order. I still cannot believe how much trash came out of just one order. There were plastic bags, paper bags, an overabundance of napkins and sauces, a big handful of wrapped plastic forks, a cup carrier, as well as three more filled sodas, even though we already were given our soda cups at the beginning. Then, each food item was packed in its own individual food container, a box or plastic bowl. I'm not a tree hugger by any stretch of the imagination (child of the 70's and 80's), but even I felt guilt over how badly the environment was being treated here.
Issue #3: One of the items on the app that we ordered, the mashed potato poppers, was not provided, so I addressed the issue at the counter. The person nonchalantly said they weren't available anymore, but corporate hadn't fixed the app yet, so they had unilaterally decided to give us an extra side of mashed potatoes instead. I found and returned that side to them and requested instead fried pickles that were reported on the internet to now be available, but weren't on the app yet.
Issue #4: Now that we had our food all settled, we sat down to eat. Oh, the disappointment. I wish I would have taken photos!
The biscuits were super hard and dry, like they had been made the day before and left out overnight. They went straight to the trash.
Note: Their buttery sauce is mainly oil and contains a trace amount of milk solids. Their honey sauce contains only 7% honey and is primarily high fructose corn syrup. Absolutely unacceptable.
The chicken nuggets were so tiny, only a toddler might be pleased to be served this ridiculousness due to the novelty of being the size of the end of your pinky. I am not exaggerating. I could have placed all five nuggets in my mouth at once and still spoke clearly without anyone guessing that I had any food in my mouth. Please do not waste your money on their "nuggets".
The fried pickles ranged from decent to so overcooked that I couldn't even chew the dry, shriveled up, piece. Again, like the nuggets, they were served in an oversized box, that screamed, "I enjoy killing the environment with my excessive waste!"
In the store, their menu says that they have cherry pie poppers, but they really only have apple....well, maybe they had apple filling in them at one point in time. By the time we received them, they were hollow and stale pieces of pastry that even Walmart wouldn't sell. (And let me tell you, some of Walmart's pie pastry's aren't fit for human consumption.) After a bite of those apple pie poppers that had clearly been prepared many hours before, they went straight to the trash.
The Fried Chicken, Mac and Cheese, Mashed Potatoes, and Corn were exactly as expected, decent.
The bowl had too many mashed potatoes and not enough 'other' to counteract.
The clear winner in our visit was the Pot Pie. Even thought it was a little lacking in the amount of filling, it hit the spot quite nicely.
So, the take away from this visit is if you are going to visit KFC, stick with the basics and steer clear of all the new gimicky food. If you go into the store, order at the register, tell them you are eating there so you don't need all the extra packaging, and wait at the counter for them to serve your food, so you can ensure you get exactly what you order, and you can eat it while it is still hot.
