A quick run to Clayton and it’s time to head through the White Oak Chick Fil-A so Katie and I can redeem our free sandwiches thanks to the Hurricanes winning at home at PNC Arena!
Katie needed to make a quick run into Target for a birthday gift which is why we were approaching the conga line from that direction rather than the more usual approach from the main entrance near McDonald’s.
The reason for the title will soon become clear when we arrive in the conga line which is four cars deep on the road from the Target approach and about an equal amount towards McDonald’s and US-70.
Normally, the Target-side cars will go to the inboard lane and the McDonald’s side cars will go to the outboard queue.
This seems to be going well when space opens up on the inboard queue and Subaru SUV (“Jerky Subaru”) quickly gives their engine the beans and *CROSSES OVER* from the McDonald’s side to go inboard.
The Honda and Prius ahead of me end up crossing over to the outboard queue and I then take up position behind Jerky Subaru inboard.
Keep that in mind when we track Jerky Subaru through the queue as I’m thinking of my Traverse flying inverted over Jerky Subaru much like that rather famous scene from the original “Top Gun”… 😉
Ready? Launch CAT-1! 🙂
- 1503 – Mobile order entered in White Oak Target car park.
- 1505 – In the Target-side conga line, #4 in the queue for the inboard side of the drive-through.
- 1507 – Squeezed into the inboard queue (barely!) behind Jerky Subaru
- 1508 – Order takers seem to be staying under the covered area rather than walking down through the queue. 96 degF indicated certainly makes that a smart move! Their choice to stay near the order board seems to be having a negligible impact on the queue speed. I would have expected the queue to move a bit faster as the kitchen should be keeping up with a reduced rate of order intake but the orders likely not starting until the order taker is done is seems to be negating the gains. The outboard queue does seem to be moving a bit faster making me wonder if there is a Karmic SmackdownTM in Jerky Subaru’s future! 🙂
- 1513 – 12m to order board, order taker is about 6m away under the edge of the pavilion.
- 1515 – Order taker Summer was *ABSOLUTELY PERFECT* and made sure she knew how appreciative I was for that and was rewarded with a “my pleasure”.
- 1517 – At the order board ready for left turn, order supposedly ready.
- 1518 – Jerky Subaru looks like they’re slotting in between the Honda and Prius that was in front of me so their antics of screwing with the usual queue etiquette gained them absolutely *NOTHING* over just staying on their side and if anything may have delayed their departure a bit.
- 1523 – Turning in toward the window.
- 1524 – Delivery at the window and time to fight our way out to US-70 and continue on to Clayton.
Nineteen minutes on this trip through the conga line but it didn’t seem to take anywhere near as long as that might indicated thanks to the antics of the impatient drivers in front of me and Miss Summer perfectly nailing the greeting.
Time to do the numbers…
- Initial greeting: Miss Summer is absolutely perfect. In fact, she’s so nice and pleasant and uses the “my pleasure” after being complemented that I’m sorely tempted to award a bonus point here but that’d skew the ratings and I’m trying to keep them consistent as I can between the full reviews and the abbreviated ones where I just get a sandwich so only two points are in play). But if there was any order taker yet that would have made me chuck consistency to the wind, Miss Summer was certainly the one. She is exactly the sort of person they should have working the conga line!
- Order correctness: spot on for the full point.
- Waffle fries: the fries were a touch cooler than I prefer but not enough for me to whinge about it too much. It’s probably a case of it taking seven minutes to collect the order from the time it was reported ready and honestly those fries didn’t even make it to the White Oak and US-70 intersection. Full point here.
- Sandwich: Sandwich was nice sized and properly breaded…full point! 🙂
White Oak is continuing their strong run of form with another perfect 4 out of 4 (and honestly I’d seriously considered giving an extra half point for Miss Summer alone).
Great job all round, especially by guest queue participant *KARMA*. 😉