Kenny Rogers Megamall

Manila, May 12 - My family is a big fan of chicken. Our dine out routine would always involve a visit to a place where chicken is served. Last night, we decided, by majority vote, to visit Kenny Rogers and since we were in the Ortigas Center area, we dropped in on their branch at Bldg. A of SM Mega. We did not expect that this would be the stain on an otherwise flawless Mother's Day Sunday for us.

The spoiler began when, as we entered, we noticed that the place was packed. However, my daughter Joan found a group that was almost through with their dinner and made arrangements with them to 'give us their table' after. We got in line at the counter to place our order where an order taker took our order while we were about third in line. She didn't have those pre-printed tick-off sheets but wrote our orders on a blank piece of paper. Before we reached the counter, she re-wrote our orders on another piece of paper and handed it to the cashier who punched in our orders (I'm guessing that somehow she made a mistake re-writing our order). The cashier, true to form of most cashiers in a hurry, promptly made a mistake and called in her supervisor to reverse the wrong entry. We were given our drinks and a number and told that our orders will be served.

What they did not tell us was how soon the orders will come. We waited, sipping our drinks, and waited. Ten minutes - no food. Fifteen minutes - no food, more sipping. We hailed a passing waiter (all of them were zooming to and fro) and asked him to follow up our order. Twenty minutes - no food, more sipping, more follow ups (we made a total of three follow ups with three different food servers). At one point, I went to the counter, showed the guy our number (33) and was told: "Hinahanap na po yang 33 nung waiter." I know he was lying because OUR TABLE WAS RIGHT IN FRONT OF THE COUNTER." Talk about a universal reply to a follow-up.

After 25 minutes of waiting - seeing that those who were behind me in line were already enjoying their food - I approached a supervisor/manager and told her about our problem. Her response was very standard: "Ano po ba inorder nyo?" Yeah, she expected me to rattle off from memory all the combinations of chicken/ribs/sausage/rice/side dishes for five persons that included two teenagers? Good luck. She went to the counter where, I imagined, a mini-crisis meeting took place with her crew. After another five minutes or so, our food came in - in installment. The last piece was delivered 35 minutes after we placed our order. And you guessed it - it was the wrong order. I asked for 3 extra servings of Java rice and they gave us plain rice because, according to the waiter, that's what the cashier punched in. The supervisor promptly replaced the extra rice with the correct kind and waived the charge for the difference. (I could have checked it earlier but after I placed our order, they took the receipt and (mis)used it as the order slip for the kitchen crew.)

When we were finishing our dinner, my youngest son found a comment card which we filled out to give the resto management feedback - only to find out that they did not have a drop box for that. A waiter told us to "just leave the card on the table". (This is one of the reasons why I am writing this - just in case they conveniently lose our comment card.) Anyway, I gave the card to a male supervisor on our way out - and of course somebody shouted over the noise: "Thank you for coming!"

We've been regulars of Kenny Rogers at Megamall and this is the 2nd time we experienced something like this. Both happened after they changed the system of ordering. Maybe it's time for the store management to review their processes and systems.

On the bright side, the food was excellent. And, you guessed it, nobody from the store ever explained to us why our orders got delayed for more than 30 minutes.