God, I Love It When They Get My Fast-Food Order Wrong
It’s Fast-Food Week! Get the Yuca Bites.
As we pull into the drive-thru of Pollo Tropical, a fast-casual Latin-Caribbean food joint in Miami, my family knows exactly what to expect. Our order is unchanging: an Original Family Meal composed of a whole grilled chicken, fluffy white rice, black beans, four dinner rolls, and an extra side of sweet plantains. We’ve come to expect the Styrofoam platter holding the toasted chicken, a brown paper bag with the rolls, and numerous small, oil-soaked containers carrying the array of sides.
But there’s also one unspoken rule about the Pollo Tropical location we frequent: They get our order wrong nearly every single time. A wrong order is to be expected—a correct one is a rare delight. If we walk out of the restaurant with exactly everything we paid for in the to-go bag, we take it as a sign of good fortune for the day. Not all Pollo Tropicals are prone to these reliable mistakes, yet we still keep coming back to our neighborhood spot, expecting the worst and hoping for the best.
Everyone’s developed their own way of dealing with the disappointment of getting the wrong order. I grew up on the check-your-bag-before-you-pull-away method, which I absolutely hated. My parents would call out our order to me like generals: Yuca Bites? Check. Whole chicken? Check. Oh, they forgot the rolls? “Excuse me, but you forgot about the little breads,” my parents would shout from the driver’s seat as I sank deeper into the car’s leather, hoping it could swallow me whole.
These days, I live far from the Pollo Tropical empire in South Florida, and mostly visit fast-food venues with a different cast of characters: alone, with friends, or with my fiancé. So now, I have free rein to enact my preferred, tried-and-tested solution to the age-old problem of wrong fast-food orders: Accept the meal you are given and move on. Next time you’re visiting your poison of choice, give it a try: Take what they give you, and don’t you dare look inside that bag again until you get home (unless you’re fishing out a fry).
Hear me out. Is the alternative any better? Did any of us really mind if we got a TropiChop bowl instead of a chicken platter? No one should be checking multiple little cardboard fast-food boxes to ensure there are indeed “no pickles” on a sandwich before stepping away from the counter. This is how trite that sounds: “Actually, I ordered a Crunchwrap Supreme, NOT a Cheesy Gordita Crunch.” Hear yourself?! The difference is what, the shape of the tortilla? No one should have to say those words out loud in earnest.
Getting the wrong fast-food order is simply a rite of passage for anyone who demands hot and ready food in under 10 minutes. In one survey from last summer, McDonald’s was thought of as the biggest offender in this space—about 30 percent of respondents pegged them as the fast-food chain that gets orders wrong the most. Taco Bell came in at a close second, with Burger King trailing not far behind. But you’d be hard-pressed to find someone who hasn’t experienced the mysterious wonder of getting something they definitely didn’t ask for from a fast-food chain. Some have been subject to egregious examples. My fiancé once ordered a breakfast sandwich at Dunkin’ Donuts only to receive exclusively the croissant buns making up the outer layer, with a completely empty center. (He followed my rule of acceptance and just added his own cream cheese once home.) But I’d venture to guess most run-ins are more innocuous mistakes: the wrong coffee order, onion rings instead of french fries, rice swapped for beans. We are all partaking in a long tradition of fast-food roulette. Lean into the risk.
Putting aside the humiliation of having to utter ridiculously named Taco Bell orders twice, consider the folks who work behind the counter. The average fast-food worker makes $13.53 an hour according to a U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics estimate from May 2022. Anyone who’s tried to buy groceries lately knows that’s not enough to get by. Not to mention the slew of other violations they’re subject to: being refused overtime pay, blocked from taking their breaks, placed in unsafe conditions, or even subjected to harassment and violence like assault and robberies. Fast-food workers are not paid enough—or protected enough—to swap your cheese curds for chili.
And if your order is arriving after any sort of late-night escapade? You’ve definitely vetoed your right to make demands. Be grateful someone’s around past 2 a.m. to make your order at all.
Sure, you might have food allergies or dietary constraints. And yes, you did pay money for this and want exactly what you asked for. But in situations where it’s possible, it’s a worthwhile pursuit to be more malleable. Where better to be spontaneous and try something new than in a place with four nearly identical things on the menu just featuring slightly different toppings and sauces? Treat your order like a horoscope. What does it say about me that I look like an Oreo McFlurry girl and not a baked apple pie one? Does the size of my fries say anything about the kind of summer I’m about to have? It’s fast food, not precision science.
Open your minds and heart chakras to the idea that the universe has something better in store for you. Next time I pull into my cherished Pollo Tropical drive-thru, I’ll take the extra carton of Cheesy Yuca Bites with pride, knowing that the person packing my order knew exactly what I needed.
