Burger King product reviews

Store - CBD Hamilton

I've been a big fan of Burger King ever since I moved to a University City. Young, short on cash and have seen enough of a certain other burger place. Time for something new.

Burger King burgers have a distinctive flamed/smoky taste. I prefer their beef burgers over the chicken. There is so much variety and always a speciality burger on offer most of the time. I like that the drinks have free refills and use to take full advantage of that in my youth. Even the chips are tasty, though my favourite side is the onion rings.

Burger King is still a good place to go for the occasional dinner or lunch time meal. The price is reasonable enough to be a good dinner date meal on top of some other kind of entertainment (movies, or a play).

My daughter likes the selection of different toys and meal options for their kids meals as well. It is a little out of the way from work, but worth the walk. Overall, a great place to dine.

Store: Invercargill

Fastfood, most of us have had it at some point in our lives and I am no exception. Burger King in Invercargill is much the same as every other Burger King I have visited.

This store was renovated last year, and the updated decor is very impressive. Like another fastfood place in town, BK has been updated to a fresh and funky restaurant. The colour scheme is very appealing and the booths that this store has are also very cool, as are the old school prints on the wall. So for style and looks I give Invercargill BK a 10/10

Sadly the high scoring stops there. The majority of the staff are lovely, but there are a small few who let the rest of the team down. They are rude and obnoxious and definitely do not have a 'customers are important' way of thinking. If going in-store, and are served by one of these staff members, their body language and verbal communication shows they do not really enjoy their job and sadly they have not yet learnt to cover up the look of disgust often showing on their faces.

If ordering at the drive through, you have to listen carefully, as the speaker system is not the best, and could really do with being updated. And more often than not it pays to repeat your order because its almost guaranteed to be wrong when you finally get it.

The other flaw with BK Invercargill would be the ice-cream/sundae machine being turned up too cold and the ice-cream being very very icy... that's when the machines are even working.

As for the food, the taste is pretty much standard BK flavouring. The amount of sauces/mayo etc you receive is pretty much a hit and miss and you're almost always guaranteed dry (possibly stale) buns on the burgers. One thing they do get right though is the fries... Perfect amount of seasoning, not over or under cooked.

I really believe that the staff could do with some friendliness training, and much of the equipment could do with being replaced. And fresher food would not go astray either.

If you're after a quick and cheap meal (they have some great $5.50 deals) then I would recommend BK in comparison to the other fastfood restaurants in town. But if you want freshness and quality then I really would check for somewhere else to go.

Store: Takanini

If you're heading into the Papakura/Takanini area the totally by pass the Takanini Burger King. I've had so many problems with it, I've given up complaining.

They include staff who have unclean food handling practices, to talking to other staff members out the back so there is no one to serve, no safety mats on wet days, undercooked meat patties - yes I do not kid it was blood red raw and the dog loved it & finally staff who cannot understand a basic order which was my last & final visit.

I went in and asked about a certain meal, I was told it was no longer available. I asked out of all the meals what is closest, now this is where the fun started. All I got was "classic" & he stood there. In the end I got two meals the same & a sundae, with both meals sized up. First he put in two Sundaes, I said no & repeated it for him, he then removed both of them & I had a normal meal. After another 3 goes I finally thought I had it sorted & paid. But no I had gone back to the normal meal. By that time I just gave up, once again as I've been told to do I've complained. But all I get is a phone call, a pathetic excuse & a promise of "...it will get better." From now on I will be going up the road where at least I have the choice of two burger places and they know the value of customer service.

Store: Tauranga

I have eaten at many a fast-food outlet, and usually I find they are trying to stay to a corporate norm, whereby you can walk into any branch of that brand, almost anywhere in the world, and not counting some regional preferences, find the same food at the same quality for a similar price. Consistency and uniformity are their two main goals.

Here we found a Burger King outlet determined to stand out from it's peers, fighting hard to be noticed amongst the kin and clones... by being quite possibly the WORST outlet imaginable! My family and I stopped in as a pitstop during a 11 hour drive home after a holiday up in Whitianga, just looking for a quick dinner before we resumed our journey south.

As we entered, I was hit by a smell of stale cooking fat. As we waited to get to the counter to order, I watched the woman behind the counter dealing with the customer ahead of us, and her attitude left me cold, it was very clear that she would much rather have been chatting to her team-mates, as she did at every chance, to the point of missing an item off the customer's order. When it came to order our food, I made sure that every time she started to turn away, I coughed so that she turned back by reflex. This tactic ensured that our order was taken uninterrupted, but it was clear she was annoyed at me because I wouldn't let her slack off.

While waiting for our food to arrive, my son and I took a trip to the restrooms to 'lighten to ballast tanks' and found, to my utter horror, the dirtiest public toilet I have seen outside of a student pub! On top of that, the urinals wouldn't flush, and the air-dryer was not working at all! By the time we dried our hands using a wad of napkins I had to sneak from the counter dispenser (easy to do, since all the staff were gasbagging instead of being attentive) it was time for our food to arrive. We sat back down and tucked in... to some of the least appealing food I have eaten. The chocolate thickshake tasted rancid, and the strawberry sundae was crap. The rest was just below average without anything specifically wrong.

Overall, quite possibly the worst place to eat in the Bay of Plenty region, and though we plan to return to Tauranga to visit friends again in the near future, we will be sure to avoid this place like the plague... in the end we departed with relief, and sought out a fish'n'chip shop to sort out our hunger... -shudder- BK HQ, this branch gets