Jack in the Box

Great fun.
Waited 20+ mins at drive thru for our order to be filled.
We were the only ones in line, restaurant fairly empty.
Not a big order, about 12 items tops for the four of us.
Attendant asks us to park the car while they work on the order.
Fine.
Random woman comes to car window to ask for 5 bucks, gets extremely hostile when I decline (if i give a fiver to one i'm gonna have to give a fiver to all, right?).
We continue to wait a loooooong time -- the one who needs the fiver takes full advantage of this, making random trips to our car to communicate how much she doesn't like me.
Finally drive-thru person tells us she's ready to give us our order.
We swing around, but for some reason she's actually not ready.
She's still slowly putting things in the bag then starts furiously trying to secure the bag.
We beg her to just let us take the bag and leave cause we're starving and we're on the way to the waterfront to try to catch the sunset before it drops entirely.
Nope, she keeps working on it.
Now when I say secure the bag, my meaning here is literally she is winding industrial strength tape all up and down the sides and over the top of the bag.
After 5 mins of this she passes the bag over.
Getting the bag in our hands makes all of us feel a bit better.
I try to peek in to check contents against the order, but realize we're kind of stymied by all the tape.
The paper bag is also industrial strength, impressively so, and with all the tape we realize we can't get in without making a mess or taking another 15 mins to pick at it and pull it off.
So we trust that the 20+ mins they took was sufficient for them to get everything we ordered into the bag.
Off to the sunset!! Not sure where we actually went but it was nice, lots of hotels looking out over the water, shops, and big rocks against the waterside, and stretches of green grass behind with folks and dogs prancing.
Still a little sun left.
We find a nice spot and then all of us start furiously picking and pulling at the tape to get at our dinner.
Now I've been living in Japan for awhile and they don't have JIB there.
So this was a first for 3 of us and we learn that JIB is very tasty.
And we are really enjoying the experience -- I mean really enjoying.
We are eating our burgers and fries and watching the sunset and the party boat and dogs and kites.
And then my son, fries eaten and ready for his burger, roots around at the bottom of the big bag and pulls out one of the most pathetic things I have ever seen any restaurant produce: 2 circular cheese-covered and very dried hamburger slices wedged between 2 leaves of lettuce, carefully assembled and placed into some folded paper to hold it.
LOL, gotta hand it to you JIB, you got us pretty good!! No bun, clever!! Made sure we didn't notice at the drive-thru so we'd get the full effect of your prank.
Well done!!

Owner response

The food is a bit below what you would expect from JITB but hey, you can understand that sometimes.
What I had more trouble with was the bad service, specially in the drive thru.
I don’t know if their system is failing but I ended up screaming and repeating myself so many times before she sounded and looked upset.
I’m the one who should be more upset since the one paying for a service is myself.
These things could be easily fixed if they keep their team, and equipment up to date.
Sorry but I’m not coming back!

Owner response

Jack in the Box should be ashamed.
They have a skeleton crew working at this site.
They are next to a trolley station in the middle of downtown, and it only had 4 workers.
From what I observed, it was one person taking the drive-thru orders, one at the counter, one making the food, and one other person cleaning. This location is extremely busy, and it's unacceptable that they would have the workers like this.
JACK IN THE BOX, if you don't want to pay your crew a fair wage, and rather have a skeleton crew, then do us all a favor and just shut down your business in expensive cities. Having a skeleton crew affects the quality of food, the working conditions for your crew, and customers.
This is meant to be fast food.
Now it's only fast made food whenever they get to your order.
In my case, my order sat at the back counter because they didn't have someone to help with the online orders. If your customers can't rely on your "fast food" being ready in less than 25 min, just shut this site down.

Owner response