As someone who does food delivery part time (and worked for many years in the restaurant industry) I'd have to say that the way most fast food restaurants are run these days is downright embarrassing. A chicken place opened a year or two ago near where I live in Fern Creek and I got called there for a delivery tonight. I stood at the counter for more than 5 minutes before anyone acknowledged my presence, then waited another 20 minutes for my order. During that time I heard the person working the window tell a drive-thru customer "It'll be 7 minutes on apple pies." When the counter person handed me the bag, I asked, "Did you get the pie in there?" At that point he walked to the freezer, threw a few pies in the oven and came back and told me "It'll be 7 minutes on the pie." Mind you, this was 15 minutes after I heard someone else tell a customer that. At that point I cancelled the order and walked out in disgust.
I see something like this repeated in fast food places nearly every day. I went to a burger place not long ago (one with a king as a mascot) and was told they were out of fried items (fries, chicken sandwiches, etc.). I see some places close in the middle of the day for lack of staff, or others that turn off the outside lights and don't answer the speaker even though it's an hour before closing time. When a delivery from a fast food place pops up on the app, it's often accompanied with a note that says "customers have reported incorrect or missing items from this location in the past." (the bag is usually sealed so you're unable to check). I know most of these places are franchises, and I can't for the life of me understand why someone would invest hundreds of thousands of dollars in a restaurant and leave it in the hands of a bunch of teenagers who'd rather be anywhere else.
Although I disagree strongly with the politics of upper management, I have to say that there's one brand where this sort of stuff rarely if ever happens, and that's Chik-fil-A. Pretty much every Chik-fil-A in Louisville that I've seen has a continuous line from open to close, and it always moves quickly. The staff is friendly and efficient. They have a separate parking area for delivery drivers so we don't have to wait in line.
On that note, I noticed one of the locations had on their sign that they were hiring, with wages starting at $15/hr. I know many small business owners are of the mind that raising the minimum wage to that level will kill them, but Chik-Fil-A doesn't seem to be hurting. Actually, I heard those same dire predictions when the minimum wage went from $2.10 to $2.35/hr. Maybe there's something to be learned there.
Rant over. Thanks for listening