Category Archives: Fast Food Fail

Wendy’s in Dormont (Pittsburgh, PA) – W. LIBERTY #5

Posted on by Standard 13

Heh. This is an older amusing one that wasn’t covered in my post about past W(aL)D insanity.

This one isn’t really completely in the W(aL)D category, as it’s a legitimate complaint… but still, it’s ridiculous enough to share. Below is the my initial email regarding the incident, and I actually broke my “no calls” rule to talk to a regional manager who was not amused.

You can see what she had to say as it all played out in a thread at PittsburghBeat.com.

At any rate, it pays to make problems like this known.

Enjoy!

-mE.
.seitilibasid gninrael fo nuf ekam ot ynnuf ton yllaer s’tI

Forwarded Message —-
From: Eric Carroll <me@myaddre.ss>
To: dnstech@wendys.com; dnsadmin@wendys.com
Sent: Mon, January 26, 2009 11:45:04 AM
Subject: Wendy’s in Dormont (Pittsburgh, PA) – W. LIBERTY #5

Hello,

I’d like to share with you a review of my experience at a local Wendy’s (W. LIBERTY #5 according to the Wendy’s store locator), also posted on UrbanSpoon.com. I don’t have very many “bad” reviews up, but this Wendy’s location has gone slow and messed up my order countless times.

I’d like to know how Wendy’s as a corporation feels about restaurants like this, and what (if any) measures are taken by corporate to see that this kind of thing doesn’t go on.

The full text of my review can be viewed here: http://www.urbanspoon.com/r/23/1346715/restaurant/Far-South-South-Hills/Wendys-Old-Fashioned-Hamburgers-Dormont-Pittsburgh

But I will also post it here for your consideration:

4084prime

“Dave Thomas would be ashamed…” by ERiC AiXeLsyD (63 reviews)

January 26, 2009 – Doesn’t like it – Seriously. I know I”ve said these words before about McDonald’s… I get that it’s only fast food, it’s cheap, and that I shouldn’t expect much… but holy cow, is this consistently one of the slowest “fast food” restaurants that I’ve ever been to. Of course, like an idiot, I keep going back hoping that it might someday be an actual convenience. Let me share with you my latest adventure…

Sunday morning, my wife & I were on our way out to my Mom’s house in the ‘Burbs… so we thought we’d get a quick bite to eat. It was nearing the 11:00am mark, so I knew we were going to hit the breakfast/lunch changeover. We skipped the McDormontonald’s because the drive-thru line looked like rush hour in the Liberty tubes. Thankfully, Wendy’s appeared to be a ghost town. There was hardly anyone inside, and there was one car ahead of us in the drive-thru but they were all the way up at the window.

As we pulled up to the speaker to place our order, I asked if they were serving breakfast or lunch, & was informed that they were serving both. So, I ordered the breakfast chicken sandwich combo, and the wife ordered the #2 bacon panini combo.

After receiving the order in what would be considered a long wait in a normal fast food environment but translated to remarkably quick at this location, I pulled into a nearby spot to inspect the goods. (Sadly, a must any more.)We discovered that my order was fine, but the wife had received a sausage panini instead of the ordered bacon panini. I checked the receipt to see if I had mis-ordered the # of the combo. Nope. The receipt clearly stated BACON in that nifty dot-matrix receipt font.

My wife’s not a big fan of sausage patties, and she was reluctantly leaning toward just eating it because time was of the essence. I know I like to eat what I ordered & paid for, so I went inside to get what I thought would be a simple swap-out.

Oh my, was I wrong.

My first encounter was with the young girl at the cash register. I politely stated that we had just gone through the drive-thru and that I wanted to exchange the sausage panini that we had received for the bacon one that we ordered.

I was told that breakfast was over & that hey couldn’t make a bacon one. After a slight pause of disbelief and bewilderment, I told her that I had just been handed the sandwich less that a minute ago through the drive-thru window… and it had been made just seconds before that.

She then yelled for her manager, and I stepped aside so she could help the next customer.

Now, while never working at a fast food establishment, I do understand that changeover time is changeover time… something to do with eggs on the cooking surface and kitchen setup and all sorts of things that are surely beyond my comprehension as the average fast food consumer.

After a wait the manager (coincidentally the very same person who handed me the order through the drive-thru window) came over and I again explained my situation… and he looked at me. Yes. Just stared blankly at me. For an awkwardly long time. I actually started to wonder if he understood English & was capable of hearing. Compelled to break the silence, I even showed him the receipt that clearly said BACON. All caps. No confusion!

Again, I was met with “we’re serving lunch now, we can’t make that”. OK. I understand. I get that. The point now is what can you do for me?

I asked if I could get something else as compensation, and/or get my money back. (I think I was growing visibly frustrated by this point.)

I called the wife, explained to her the complexity of the situation, and she decided upon a Jr. Bacon Cheeseburger. So, I asked for one of those… and waited… and waited… While a guy who had gone in line in front of me had ordered during my exchange with the manager was waiting too.

After a while he exclaimed with multiple expletives that it was a ridiculously long wait, and how it was un-f’n-believable that a fast food restaurant with 3 people in it and a packed kitchen could go so slow.

I could hardly contain my laughter as I was also driven to the limits of my patience.

After what was surely sufficient time to cook & assemble 20 Jr. Bacon cheeseburgers, I received that, AND my money back for the sausage panini (which was now in the trash right behind the counter). So, I guess I got a free cheeseburger, hash browns & a drink.

I never did get any kind of apology, or admittance that they had messed up the order. (Which bewilders me that one can read bacon off of a screen and put down sausage… but I’m certainly not above making mistakes… so I can’t fault anyone for that.)

I just find it amazing that they weren’t apologizing from the start and presenting a solution instead of waiting for me to come up with one.

You’d think they’d have a “keep the customer happy” policy in place. Don’t they teach you any of this when you go to school to be a manager at Wendy’s?Take mom n’ pop shops… if they screw up an order or take too long, they’d give you a discount or a free drink or a coupon for next time… and they’re certainly taking more of a profit hit than a chain that would do the same thing.

At any rate, don’t go to Wendy’s in Dormont if you’re in a hurry, or if you actually want what you ordered.

I like Wendy’s. I grew up eating at the one in Murrysville, I frequent the one in Canonsburg for lunch. You have decent food for a cheap price, and I generally feel that the quality is better than that of other fast food chains.

I’d love to be able to eat peacefully and grab a quick bite to eat at the Wendy’s closest to where I live.

I’d love to hear your thoughts on my experience, and I look forward to your reply.

Thank you for your time, and listening to my story.

-Eric Carroll

me@myaddre.ss

Insanity.

Wendy's Old Fashioned Hamburgers (Dormont) on Urbanspoon

If we’re keeping score, that’s Subway 1 and Quiznos 3½.

Posted on by Standard 4

Wow, amazingly… Quiznos is still on the job, and Subway is still not.

The W(aL)D inbox was empty today, save for this…

From: HelpDesk <HelpDesk@quiznos.com>
Date: Fri, Nov 20, 2009 at 2:36 PM
Subject: FW: The Quiznos Toasty TorpedoT ads?
To: FO Marketing <FOmarketing@quiznos.com>
Cc: world.and.lunar.domination@gmail.com

Thank you for your response back. Greg is currently out of the office so I will forward your comments on to our marketing team for you.

Rebecca Chamberlain

Help Desk Associate

QUIZNOS®

Subs • Soups • Salads

Our friends at Subway have still not written back… even though I was told by Mack Bridenbaker that Paula Gomez from Customer Care would address my concerns.

We also have another Quiznos email address to add to the collection.

If you need to catch up, here’s a time-line on this one:

  • I write to Subway about allergens, cross-contamination, hygiene, the $5 footlong campaign and Jared:  $5 Foot Up Your Ass. [Oct. 28, 2009]
  • Subway (Anna Seely, Customer Care) sends back a form letter that I in turn reply to: Customer ID: 1918316 [Oct. 29, 2009]
  • I send it to Quiznos to get a comment, and they (Tony Jones, Vice President for Quiznos representing the Ohio/Indiana/Pennsylvania/Illinois region & Gregory Boudreaux, Help Desk Lead) do:  Quiznos writes back before Subway – To put this in perspective I also tried to get comments from Sheetz, Jimmy John’s, & Jersey Mike’s – w/o so much as even a form letter generic response (wtf? seriously.) …and re-sent the concerns to Subway noting that it had been a while since they’d received my mail with no reply. [Nov. 1o & 11, 2009]
  • Response from Subway (Mack Bridenbaker, Subway Spokesperson) saying someone (Paula Gomez, Customer Care) will address my concerns:  Sort of a response from Subway [Nov. 13, 2009]
  • Since I have a good already open dialogue, I write to Quiznos about the little hands in the Toasty Torpedo Ads:  Are those midget hands? [Nov. 17, 2009]
  • Quiznos (Tony Jones, Vice President for Quiznos representing the Ohio/Indiana/Pennsylvania/Illinois region) writes back, amused:  Have you ever thought of getting into an independent consulting capacity… or maybe franchise news journaling? [Nov. 17, 2009]
  • Today, Quiznos (Rebecca Chamberlain, Help Desk Associate) writes back, to tell me that she’s passing on my email, and that someone else from the marketing team will get back to me.  Awesome.

If we’re keeping score, that’s Subway 1 and Quiznos 3½.  (The responses saying you’ll get a response are only worth ½ in my point system, OK?)

So there you have it.  Quiznos is awesome.  Subway is not.

What is “FO Marketing” though?

At any rate, please let me know what you think of the insanity… and where I should go from here.

 

 

 

The Quiznos Toasty Torpedo™ and the diminutive hand model…

Posted on by Standard 3

So, I recently wrote back to Quiznos at the suggestion of Jon on Twitter, and with the editing help of Dave once again. Jon has apparently been following the Subway saga along with a handful of other people… and thought that it may be an appropriate next step. I couldn’t agree more. In fact, I’ve had this thought myself, and if I remember correctly Jon had posted about it previously on Facebook or MySpace or Twitter or some social media site. Memory and my Googling skills fail me in finding that now, though.

I have high hopes on getting a well thought out response or two. I sent the message below to Mr. Jones, the same message to Mr. Bordeaux, and a slightly modified one to a few other email addresses that I managed to dig up. I enjoyed the candid reply from Mr. Jones before, although I was unable to get any further comment from Mr. Bordeaux or his team with whom he was going to share my email.

From: ERiC AiXeLsyD <world.and.lunar.domination@gmail.com>
Date: Tue, Nov 17, 2009 at 10:07 AM
Subject: The Quiznos Toasty Torpedo™ ads?
To: “Jones, Tony” <TJones2@quiznos.com>

Hello Mr. Jones,

I would like to thank you again for the response to my email last week regarding Subway’s lack of allergy awareness, cheese tessellation, appropriate responses to customer feedback, and poor decisions in general. I understand and have learned first hand that good communication is a key component to the Quiznos way of doing business. I also appreciate your expedited replies, and hope that you can gain something knowing how cavalier your competitor’s attitude is toward genuine customer concerns. I am glad to be a gauge of what you do at Quiznos, and I would like to hope that my feedback is valuable.

In sharing my recent adventures in email with some friends, I have noticed a theme that has come up in suggested queries for your fine establishment… and I must say that I have indeed wondered the same thing myself.

Are you using “little people” models for the toasty torpedoes ads, perhaps children or pygmies? I did get a turkey torpedo a while ago, and I did make a mental note that it seemed to be nothing more than a bread stick made into a sandwich. I thought that the toasty torpedo looked bigger in the ads… but I didn’t quite connect why until recently.

A quick Google image search led me to this photo, perfect for a reference for our purposes…

File?id=dfj6n44r_6fcvsjhd8_b

I’m sure you can also see it now that I’ve pointed it out. I, my friend, cannot un-see it. There is no way that the hand in the above graphic is correctly proportioned to the Toasty TORPEDO™. I’m actually tempted to go get another one in an attempt to re-create this photo to see how accurate it may be. I can guarantee though, that if I did in fact hold a toasty torpedo like that, that it would most certainly fall apart. Mine lasted for about a bite and a half before it fell apart.

In Googling, I found multiple odd references to this ad campaign. Does Quiznos make any official statements to counter these goofy bloggers? I found one guy that thinks it looks like a cigarette ad. One guy seems to have a Freudian problem and these people seem to think that one commercial purposely compares your torpedos to a cup of human excrement. Okay, I have to give them that one. I mean… you did hear of 2 Girls, 1 Cup right? I’d find it and link to it, but some may find that offensive/distasteful and I’m sure you know how to use search engines. These people even seem to come to the same conclusion as I have toward the end of their blog… as well as a commenter on this blog.

I understand that all advertising is not one hundred percent factual, and that things tend to be exaggerated, but I really find this image rather misleading. While I understand that I’m not going to walk into a Quiznos any time soon and find a HAL 9000’s creepy sexually suggestive oven cousin, two gorgeous scantily clad women eating a sub rather suggestively, two naked rednecks in a tub of water over a campfire, a baby with the voice of a grown man, anyone suckling on any wolf teats, or even genetic mutations with Latino accents and tiny guitars floating in the air singing praise of your sandwiches… I feel that you owe some level of honesty to the customer.

While the other ads are easily discernible as attention grabbing goofiness, this one seems rather straight forward at first — yet dishonest upon further inspection.

I would love to hear your thoughts on the matter as well as the thoughts of any other marketing people or regional managers in the Quiznos family.

If I didn’t feel that I was already taking up too much of your time, I wouldn’t mind getting into a discussion on the violent phallic imagery that the shape and name of these subs not-so-subliminally suggest. I mean, really? Torpedo? Bullet? How many feminists have already written to discuss this? I feel that this topic is a less pressing issue though, to be saved for another day.

Torpedoes away!
-Eric

If you feel the need for a background to any of this, this is where it all started, and how it played out:

That’s my initial message, Subway’s official non-response response, me sending it to Quiznos for comment and getting one, and finally a response from Subway telling me that someone else will respond… which as of yet, has not happened.

…All of which leads us to this posting.

Subway Customer ID: 1918316

Posted on by Standard 7

Gonna try this forwarding-an-email-to-my-blog thing out again.

My original message, the first non-automated reply from Subway, and my 1st response, all below. This is the follow up to my blog post entitled Five. Five dollar. Five dollar… foot up your ass. Please see that if you need more of a back-story.

-E.
.seitilibasid gninrael fo nuf ekam ot ynnuf ton yllaer s’tI

From: ERiC AiXeLsyD <world.and.lunar.domination@gmail.com>
To: Anna Marie Seeley <seeley_a@subway.com>
Sent: Thu, October 29, 2009 10:40:28 AM
Subject: Re: Subway [Customer ID: 1918316]

Hello Ms. Seeley,

Thank you for your swift reply! I am glad to see this is not an automated response. As I’m sure you’re aware, the bulk of my message was directed at the culmination of Subway’s identity as a corporate entity, its choice in advertising, and visits in general to restaurants in the Southwestern PA area over a number of years. My comments were meant for the eyes of someone on a higher corporate level. I feel that this is the level that needs to be made aware of who and what exactly is representing the Subway brand surrounding Pittsburgh.

I have included the full text of my original message below your reply for reference, as it was cut in half by the 3000 character limit, and not included in this message chain.

Below are the addresses of Subway restaurants (obtained form your store locator) that I can remember visiting over the years…

3147 Banksville Rd
Pittsburgh PA 15216
412-344-1345

4613 Centre Ave
Pittsburgh PA 15213
412-687-0701

4516 William Penn Hwy
Murrysville PA 15668
724-327-9255

4145 William Penn Hwy
Monroeville PA 15146
412-380-0380

195 A Sheffield Drive
Delmont PA 15626
724-468-1018

302 N Center Ave
New Stanton PA 15672
724-925-1898

1200 Corporate Dr
Canonsburg PA 15317
724-743-3200

2200 Washington Pike
(Located in Wal-Mart)
Carnegie PA 15106
412-279-2782

Eastgate Plaza
5126 Route 30, Ste 320
Greensburg PA 15601
724-836-2311

As for the specific location of the deathfish-flinging incident, that would be the Subway located in the Banksville Shopping Center on Banksville Road. The limited-menu location that I discovered in Wal-Mart is the Washington Pike address in Carnegie, PA.

I hope that you get a chance to review my first message in full, and are able to pass it on to the appropriate parties for a reply.

Thank you for your time, and care in directing this to the appropriate people. I hope to get another response as quickly as yours!

Sincerely,
-ERiC AiXeLsyD

On Wed, Oct 28, 2009 at 5:25 PM, Anna Marie Seeley <seeley_a> wrote:

Dear Mr. Aixelsyd:

Thank you for taking the time to share your comments with us. Our customers
provide us with valuable input, which we use to improve our operations. As
part of that commitment, we know that we have to continuously seek
improvement and monitor our performance.

All restaurants are individually owned and operated. In order for our local
regional office to investigate this properly, we need to know the exact
location of the SUBWAYR restaurant that you have visited. Can you please
reply by e-mail or by calling me at 1-800-888-4848 to provide me with a
complete address of the location you visited? Please refer to the Customer
ID listed below when replying.

I appreciate that you took the time and effort to contact us and am looking
forward to hearing from you at your earliest convenience.

Sincerely,

Anna Seeley x8201
Customer Care Representative

Customer ID: 1918316

My original message in full:

Hello Sandwich Art Dealers,

I’d like to start out by saying I find that web submission comment forms are generally a letdown. As the submitter you’re usually sent a ‘form letter’ type of reply that doesn’t address any specific issues, and thanks you for the input. Less often, it’s followed up by a seemingly more caring missive that really doesn’t address anything specific, and sometimes attempts to placate the sender with some coupons, a T-shirt or something to that effect. It’s also generally a letdown, because I can’t cc myself a copy of what I sent, and it’s a 50/50 shot of whether my original comments are to be included in any future correspondence. Then there’s the issue of the dreaded “Your message exceeds XXXX characters” error message. When did someone’s opinion become relegated to a set limit of letters, numbers, and punctuation, my friends?

At any rate, I should move on to the point of my web form submission, as I’m sure you’ll agree by this point. I write to you today to express my general dissatisfaction with the state of Subway as it stands today.

At the top of the list: the inclusion of the seafood sub on your menu. This has plagued me for years. I have a severe shellfish allergy, and will go into anaphylactic shock if any food that I ingest were to come into contact with crab, lobster, shrimp, oyster, etc., or even the same food prep area. I have seen more than a few Subway employees who aren’t exactly sanitary in their sandwich artistry, flinging microscopic bits of crab (or imitation crab) meat all over the adjacent meats, cheeses, vegetables, and cutting board area. The last time I had this discussion with a slovenly employee at the Subway in the Kuhn’s Plaza on Banksville Road in Pittsburgh, PA… as I explained that my sandwich must not touch any shellfish or remnants of shellfish she touched the eternally-damned-to-the-wrong-function ice cream scoop that had been sitting in the red and white pile of mushy death and swung it all around spewing certain doom to the immediate food prep area and all the while exclaiming something to the effect of “Well, that’s OK, no one ever orders this stuff anyway.” I just stared blankly in disbelief as a reply. If she didn’t already know what her sandwich-baggied hands had just touched and distributed the contaminant that I had previously noted was a toxin to my system, then there was no way I was going to be able to impart this wisdom to her. I found myself having to exit on that occasion, to never return to that location.

Are sandwich artists trained in the ways of sanitary work stations, cross contamination, allergens, and general good hygiene? One would hope, but the question has been raised.

How can I complain about Subway if I never eat there, you ask?

I did discover that I could get my Subway fix due to the limited-menu Subway located inside the WAL-MART in Heidelberg, PA. After all, as I’m sure you know… the smell of your bread baking is intoxicating. Sadly my friends, that is where the romance ends. I used to applaud the meatball sub from Subway, and held it as the standard to which all meatball subs were to be measured. This was once upon a time when the bread was doughy, the triangle was removed from the top, and replaced… keeping the meatballs secure in a blanket of cheese to ensure safe delivery to my digestive system. I know, this was a lifetime ago, but it still burns, amigos. It still burns. (I even remember the waffle fries that went through their own tiny toaster oven which have sadly gone the way of the Dodo.)

Have you seen the Left-Handed Cartoon about Subway, cheese tessellation, and soul-crushing disappointment? A friend of mine posted the humorous drawing on a message board a while ago… and sadly it rings true of the current state of Subway. (It’s located at http://www.lefthandedtoons.com/77/ for your reference if needed.)

Lastly, I find the current crop of five-dollar foot long commercials to be among the most annoying in the world… especially the one with Jared and the football players. What advertising company actually took money for that? Hopefully it was an in house idea. If not, then you were played (as they say in the streets).

As noted in my opening paragraph, I understand that is customary to include a trite reply and coupons in apology for dissatisfaction. If so inclined… please make sure they’re for Jersey Mike’s, Quiznos, or Sheetz. (FYI, Sheetz touts a far superior foot-long sub for only $4… This reminds me of when you guys started toasting subs after Quiznos moved to town.) I would include W.G. Grinder’s, but they recently started serving a crab-cake sub, so they’re also on ‘the list’. Perhaps a Jimmy John’s coupon would work? They’re fairly new to the Pittsburgh area, and I’ve yet to go to one… I wouldn’t mind trying them out! Jersey Mike’s is by far my favorite though. They’re not the cheapest, but worth the price in quality! Being a national chain, you may not be familiar with local Pittsburgh area heavyweights Carhops or Uncle Sam’s. They would be sandwich makers to emulate!

If you’re not comfortable providing a coupon to a direct competitor, I understand completely. I would also appreciate any discounts from Qdoba, Chipotle, or the Pita Pit.

Thank you for your time, I look forward to your personally tailored reply, and perhaps a continuing dialog on Subway’s sandwich artists, advertising, and overall quality of the name brand.

Best Regards,
-Eric AiXeLsyD

(I reviewed this Subway last year on Urbanspoon.)

Five. Five dollar. Five dollar… foot up your ass.

Posted on by Standard 13

So last night, I snapped. I have finally seen and heard my fill of Subway commercials.

Granted, there are certainly more annoying ad campaigns out there right now, and there will be in the future. But this snap sparked the ignition of the realization that I used to love Subway, and now I hate it. There’s no one reason, or even a real reason. There’s nothing that a rational person can do to change any of it or for it to make any difference or have any significance.

That’s where World (and Lunar) Domination steps in.  You may have seen my letters to companies on past message boards or blogs… maybe not.  From time to time I get goofy, and take it out on corporate America.  Sometimes the responses are serious, boring, nonexistent, intentionally funny, or unintentionally funny.

I have been encouraged to keep these rants somewhere, hence this WordPress blog.

I submitted the following (with some editing help from my friend Dave) via webform at Subway.com:

Hello Sandwich Art Dealers,

I’d like to start out by saying I find that web submission comment forms are generally a letdown. As the submitter you’re usually sent a ‘form letter’ type of reply that doesn’t address any specific issues, and thanks you for the input. Less often, it’s followed up by a seemingly more caring missive that really doesn’t address anything specific, and sometimes attempts to placate the sender with some coupons, a T-shirt or something to that effect. It’s also generally a letdown, because I can’t cc myself a copy of what I sent, and it’s a 50/50 shot of whether my original comments are to be included in any future correspondence. Then there’s the issue of the dreaded “Your message exceeds XXXX characters” error message. When did someone’s opinion become relegated to a set limit of letters, numbers, and punctuation, my friends?

At any rate, I should move on to the point of my web form submission, as I’m sure you’ll agree by this point. I write to you today to express my general dissatisfaction with the state of Subway as it stands today.

At the top of the list: the inclusion of the seafood sub on your menu. This has plagued me for years. I have a severe shellfish allergy, and will go into anaphylactic shock if any food that I ingest were to come into contact with crab, lobster, shrimp, oyster, etc., or even the same food prep area. I have seen more than a few Subway employees who aren’t exactly sanitary in their sandwich artistry, flinging microscopic bits of crab (or imitation crab) meat all over the adjacent meats, cheeses, vegetables, and cutting board area. The last time I had this discussion with a slovenly employee at the Subway in the Kuhn’s Plaza on Banksville Road in Pittsburgh, PA… as I explained that my sandwich must not touch any shellfish or remnants of shellfish she touched the eternally-damned-to-the-wrong-function ice cream scoop that had been sitting in the red and white pile of mushy death and swung it all around spewing certain doom to the immediate food prep area and all the while exclaiming something to the effect of “Well, that’s OK, no one ever orders this stuff anyway.” I just stared blankly in disbelief as a reply. If she didn’t already know what her sandwich-baggied hands had just touched and distributed the contaminant that I had previously noted was a toxin to my system, then there was no way I was going to be able to impart this wisdom to her. I found myself having to exit on that occasion, to never return to that location.

Are sandwich artists trained in the ways of sanitary work stations, cross contamination, allergens, and general good hygiene? One would hope, but the question has been raised.

How can I complain about Subway if I never eat there, you ask?

— Message 1 of 2 — To be continued

Hilariously enough, their webform did only allow 3000 characters, so I had to split the message into two parts…

— Message 2 of 2 — Continued from previous message

I did discover that I could get my Subway fix due to the limited-menu Subway located inside the WAL-MART in Heidelberg, PA. After all, as I’m sure you know… the smell of your bread baking is intoxicating. Sadly my friends, that is where the romance ends. I used to applaud the meatball sub from Subway, and held it as the standard to which all meatball subs were to be measured. This was once upon a time when the bread was doughy, the triangle was removed from the top, and replaced… keeping the meatballs secure in a blanket of cheese to ensure safe delivery to my digestive system. I know, this was a lifetime ago, but it still burns, amigos. It still burns. (I even remember the waffle fries that went through their own tiny toaster oven which have sadly gone the way of the Dodo.)

Have you seen the Left-Handed Cartoon about Subway, cheese tessellation, and soul-crushing disappointment? A friend of mine posted the humorous drawing on a message board a while ago… and sadly it rings true of the current state of Subway. (It’s located at http://www.lefthandedtoons.com/77/ for your reference if needed.)

Lastly, I find the current crop of five-dollar foot long commercials to be among the most annoying in the world… especially the one with Jared and the football players. What advertising company actually took money for that? Hopefully it was an in house idea. If not, then you were played (as they say in the streets).

As noted in my opening paragraph, I understand that is customary to include a trite reply and coupons in apology for dissatisfaction. If so inclined… please make sure they’re for Jersey Mike’s, Quiznos, or Sheetz. (FYI, Sheetz touts a far superior foot-long sub for only $4… This reminds me of when you guys started toasting subs after Quiznos moved to town.) I would include W.G. Grinder’s, but they recently started serving a crab-cake sub, so they’re also on ‘the list’. Perhaps a Jimmy John’s coupon would work? They’re fairly new to the Pittsburgh area, and I’ve yet to go to one… I wouldn’t mind trying them out! Jersey Mike’s is by far my favorite though. They’re not the cheapest, but worth the price in quality! Being a national chain, you may not be familiar with local Pittsburgh area heavyweights Carhops or Uncle Sam’s. They would be sandwich makers to emulate!

If you’re not comfortable providing a coupon to a direct competitor, I understand completely. I would also appreciate any discounts from Qdoba, Chipotle, or the Pita Pit.

Thank you for your time, I look forward to your personally tailored reply, and perhaps a continuing dialog on Subway’s sandwich artists, advertising, and overall quality of the name brand.

Best Regards,
-Eric AiXeLsyD
W(aL)D

I hope the emails go to the same person, and aren’t split across some you-take-this-one,-I’ll-get-the-next-one kind of automated system.

Thanks again to Dave for the editing and re-arranging help, the chaos needs reigned in every once in a while.

Can’t wait to see if we get a reply to this one!

Fast Food Fail – Need Help!

Posted on by Standard 2

Yeah, so I did what I do a lot.  I got something 90% ready to go and then forgot about it.

I think I may need some help to rekindle my interest.

Can anyone help me with the submission form for http://fastfoodfail.com?

It’s currently here:  http://fastfoodfail.com/fail/?page_id=26

And I got the script from here:  http://www.dagondesign.com/

I might even get to writing in this thing again too… if anyone’s interested in reading?  Ha.