White House Chicken

Stopped here one night for take out. True they lost to Belgrades in food wars, but in the past their food wasn’t bad. Now… it’s horrible! The hot rice wasn’t bad but the fries and chicken gives Webster’s a whole new definition of bad. Their breading in the past was more of a thicker breading that covered the whole piece of chicken. Now it’s seems drier and where before it stayed on, now it seemed to fall off so it almost had no breading and what was left was so hard it was difficult to chew. Will we be back? only if they are the only place left on earth!

My companion and I recently watched an excerpt from a television show named «Food Feuds», hosted by renowned Cleveland chef Michael Symon. The show pits food rivals against each other in towns around America and then Symon decides who he believes offers the better product.
I am from the greater Cleveland area, my companion from the greater Pittsburgh area. We thought it would be fun to make the 1 hour drive on a weekend, to try the famous chicken.
In the mean time, we checked in on the websites of both chicken restaurants, White House and Belgrades.
White House has a great coupon offer. Provide them your email address and within a few days they send you a $ 5 coupon. Both of us provided our email addresses and each received the coupon. Next stop — White House Chicken (Tallmadge, Oh. location) next Saturday!
Saturday rolls around and we are off on a beautiful Saturday afternoon on our way to White House Chicken in Tallmadge, Oh.
We were hungry and excited to try the food. We had reviewed the online menu so already knew what we would be ordering.
The place is carry out only. The building sits way off the road in a rather remote location. We were the only customers there (3 pm’ish) which felt a bit… odd.
We walk in and to the order counter where a gentleman arrives without even greeting us. Zero eye contact. We felt very awkward. We later learned this gentleman is «James», the owner.
As he continued to stair downward at the register, he asked for our order. I thought I would break the ice and told him that we just drove an hour to get here because we heard how good the Barberton chicken is.
He didn’t make a peep… didn’t even look up from the register. He looked very annoyed. This should have been our cue to walk out, but unfortunately, we stayed.
I ordered the 2 breast and 2 drumettes dinner. With the coupon the dinner was around 9 dollars. Not bad. I took a seat against the wall.
My companion ordered the same dinner, just different side dishes.
This is where things got uglier. She hands him her coupon. He yells over to me and asks if I printed the coupon twice from the same email.
No, James… We both sent our email addresses to get the coupons. He starts accusing me of making a double copy. Are you kidding me?! This guys behavior was so reprehensible. We were in shock. He took the coupon and walked away. We sat down just staring at each other like, did that guy just behave that way? We didn’t know what to do. This guy is frightening.
After about 25 minutes of watching him literally cursing at raw chicken as he prepared our meals, he made it back to the counter with our order. Plopped it on the counter, said to my companion that her order is on the bottom. No eye contact, no thank you come again, no nothing.
This was the craziest experience I’ve ever had anywhere… hands down!
We left… bewildered.
We found a nice park with a picnic bench nearby so we stop there to eat. I open my container. Only 1 chicken breast. I paid for the 2 breast dinner. James gypped me.
My companion ordered the same dinner… her dinner had 2 breasts.
Ok…no biggie. I’m ok with 1 breast. Ain’t no way I’m going back to that place to ask James to make my order right. That owner really needs remedial training. Holy smokes.
So… Barberton chicken„ hot sauce, slaw and French fries… It all tasted great! Dunking the chicken into that delicious hot sauce is a GREAT combination. Overall, we were pleasantly surprised.
Now…Here’s the real ugly part. 9 hours later, we both find ourselves slaves to the toilet. Everything was going through us like a bullet train. This is unbelievable. All was fairly ok by late next morning. But obviously, there was something horribly wrong with that chicken. That store. That very rude, unfriendly owner.
Folks, I believe that Barberton chicken in Barberton and other satellite locations other than Tallmadge, probably put out a very good product. They have been around a very long time from what I’ve read.
The chicken and hot sauce really did appear to be great so I encourage you to try the other locations.
I don’t know or understand what is going on at that Tallmadge location. I don’t understand how any business owner could believe that the type of behavior I witnessed with the Tallmadge owner could be acceptable. He is no ambassador for the company and should not be representing them.
If I had an employee that behaved the way the owner of this location did, I would fire him or her on the spot.
If anyone from WHC corporate would like to reach out to me for further comments, I would be more than happy to help.
Cheers,
Jim

Stopped going to this WH when the old mgt was putting out crappy chicken — burned, dry, nothing like it is supposed to be. Thought I would give the new mgt a try (been going to Green location and they are awesome!) since Tallmadge is closer for me. Glad I had a B2G1 coupon. Ordered 3 regular dark — one all fries, other two all hot sauce. Got 2 regular dark 1 regular white, white was dry and burned up, hot rice was cold, fries seemed like a single order, not triple… and what the hell is with the styro take out containers? Green will have my business going forward. No more second guessing.