This review is for the Bojangles location at the Love's Truck Stop west of Mobile Alabama…read more
It seems I'm out on this end of town a lot lately, in fact, this entire week, I ended nearly every night out that way. And after driving around town all day, sometimes I just want to go to the most convenient place on my way home.
And this is how I tried Bojangles.
I'm a big fan of good fried chicken, probably more than my doctor thinks I should be. There's just something quintessentially American about fried chicken that takes me back to a simpler time in my life, and it's most likely that notion that drives my opinion of fried chicken in general. Since moving to the Deep South, I've tried all kinds of fried chicken, and I have certain opinions about my favorite chicken, and strong opinions about whose chicken is absolutely not good.
So I walked into Bojangles, and for the record I'd tried them before, but there was quite a line and I almost skipped it altogether, but then I'd have to stop somewhere else, and I was already out of the car, so I settled on being there despite what looked like it could be a long wait time. The place was not dirty, but it definitely wasn't clean either. The soda machine area was a complete disaster and the tables and floor looked like they hadn't been cleaned in quite a while. But they seemed to be quite busy, so I could partially forgive that.
I waited in that line for the better part of twenty minutes before I got to the counter and had my order taken. Again, I can partially forgive that, because they were busy. What isn't forgivable was that the crew seemed entirely uncommitted to their job and that they seemingly had no ability to work as a team to get it done. When they took my order, I ordered a three piece meal with a biscuit, Mac & cheese, and mashed potatoes, with a lemonade to drink.
Easy, right?
You would think so. But I waited easily another 20 minutes for my food, and when I checked it, they gave me someone else's food, and had given my food to them. So they remade mine, which took another five minutes. But they're busy and things happen, right? So they give me the correct order and all I'm thinking about is that home is still twenty minutes away, and that I should be there by now. So I take my food and I go, because I'm just ready to be home.
Now, I know I have a twenty minute drive to get there, and I get home as soon as I can, and when I do, I gather my food and other things in the car and go into the house. I take a quick photo of this food for the review, and sit down to eat.
I look at the three pieces of chicken they gave me, and they must have been the smallest pieces in the batch. There wasn't a lot of meat on them. And I remember that their chicken had somewhat of a kick to it, but this was a lot spicier than I remembered it being. I have stomach and blood pressure issues, so I tend to avoid spicy food for the most part unless I find myself in Santa Fe eating Chile Releno. (If you know, you know.) The biscuit was hard and barely edible, the Mac & Cheese was dry and didn't have a lot of flavor, and the potatoes were okay, but clearly an instant variety instead of the real deal. (The gravy was pretty darn amazing, I must admit.) If the twenty minute drive home diminished the quality of this food, then that's on me, but I have a feeling based on other factors that the experience would have been sub par either way.
Maybe it was just an off day for them, or maybe it wasn't. Who knows? But I'm not sure I'll be trying this location again. The whole experience just didn't sit right with me.
