Jen J.
Yelp
This Nando's location (18th St NW) has been declining for a couple of years now and seems to be worse most recently.
The food quality remains good enough, but the service and food options are diminishing.
1) Food Options - No matter what day of the week or time of the year, it seems that this location cannot seem to support the full menu. For example, today, you were not able to order any option that had chicken thighs or chicken wings. I don't know if it's an issue with mismanagement or improper ordering, but this location has this issue often (seemingly once a month). They also do not communicate with each other so the cashiers do not know what is/is not available, therefore only after the order is being placed and getting ready to be cooked, do you find out that they no longer have what you ordered. And instead of honoring a refund for a cheaper order, they will give you a free soda - which is ridiculous.
2) Service - I think this location would benefit from retraining their staff on how to behave, especially during peak times. I came in for dinner around 7pm for a takeout order. Even though there were two members of the Nandos team available, they asked a full line of people waiting to order, to continue to wait while they argued about who would go on a break next. Additionally, their etiquette is not up to the standard that I'm used to from Nandos - the team members shout out to each other from across the restaurant, don't pay attention to waiting customers, and take personal calls often. I waited 35
minutes for them to prepare one takeout order for a chicken sandwich and two sides. I should note that they did not have a lot going on except other takeout orders - they purposefully put the chairs up on the tables after 6 pm at this location to discourage customers from dining in.
This is the closest Nandos to me so I put up with it but I wish corporate would take a closer look at this location.