Back in 2021, Chick-fil-A made a quiet menu change that still causes headaches for employees years later. They dropped the large milkshake size. Seems minor, right? But that one small decision opened the door to a recurring argument at drive-thru windows across the country — and it’s just one of many things that Chick-fil-A workers wish customers would stop doing. The chain consistently tops the American Customer Satisfaction Index, and its employees are famous for being polite. But behind all those “my pleasure” responses, there’s a whole list of frustrations that staff members have been venting about online for years.
The Milkshake Problem
Here’s the thing about the large milkshake situation: Chick-fil-A used to sell two sizes — a 16-ounce and a 20-ounce. Not exactly a dramatic spread. But when the chain decided to cut the larger option to make room for future menu items and speed up service, customers did not take it well. There’s literally an online petition begging the company to bring large shakes back. Which, honestly, over four ounces of milkshake? That’s kind of wild.
The real problem isn’t that the large was discontinued. It’s what happens at the window. Employees have shared on Reddit that customers still order large milkshakes, and when told there’s only one size, some of them get genuinely angry — at the person handing them their food. One worker described customers arriving at the pickup window, seeing their shake, and snapping: “THIS IS A LARGE??” The employee then has to explain, again, that no, it’s not a large, because large doesn’t exist anymore.
Staff members say they often don’t even know how to handle the request gracefully. Do you just ring up the only size available? Do you stop and explain before completing the order? Either way, it slows things down and puts the worker in an awkward spot. For a four-ounce difference that most people probably wouldn’t even notice in a blind test.
“Extra Sauce, Please”
That brings up another thing workers can’t stand, and this one is so specific to Chick-fil-A it almost feels like parody. Customers love asking for “extra” Chick-fil-A sauce with their nuggets. Makes sense — the sauce is genuinely good and arguably the chain’s most beloved condiment. But the way people ask for it drives employees up the wall. They just say “extra.” No number. No indication of whether they mean two packets or twelve.
One worker put it bluntly on Reddit: “I don’t know why but when people ask for nuggets with extra Chick-fil-A sauce, it frustrates me, because I have no idea what extra would mean. Why not just give me a number?” Another commenter in the same thread said this was probably the single most annoying thing they dealt with on a regular basis. Not rude customers. Not complicated orders. Just the word “extra” with zero context.
Think about it from the employee’s side for a second. They’re juggling multiple orders, watching the kitchen, dealing with a line of people. And now they’ve got to play a guessing game about sauce quantities. If they guess too few, the customer’s disappointed. Too many, and it’s wasteful — those packets aren’t free for the restaurant. A simple “can I get four Chick-fil-A sauces” solves the whole thing instantly. Three words save everyone a headache.
The Breakfast Standoff
Anyone who’s had a Chick-fil-A Chicken, Egg & Cheese Biscuit knows why people lose their minds when they miss the breakfast cutoff. Those Chick-n-Minis alone are enough to make someone show up at 10:28 in a cold sweat. Breakfast ends at 10:30 a.m., and that line in the sand creates one of the most common — and most exhausting — confrontations Chick-fil-A employees face.
Customers walk in after 10:30 and claim they were already in the building before the cutoff. Some of them get emotional about it. Workers on Reddit have described customers actually crying to try to score a breakfast order. Not kids — grown adults, turning on the waterworks over a biscuit sandwich. The employees see right through it, but they’re often stuck because they don’t have the authority to override company policy, no matter how convincing someone’s performance is.
The fix here is almost embarrassingly simple. Show up earlier. If you want breakfast, get there by 10:15 at the latest and give yourself a cushion. The menu switches to lunch at 10:30 and that’s that. No amount of theatrical sadness is going to change the register screen. And the employee who has to absorb your frustration? They didn’t set the cutoff time. They just have to enforce it while staying polite, which honestly sounds miserable.
Manners Cost Nothing
Along the same lines of general awareness, a lot of Chick-fil-A workers have talked openly about how rude some customers are — and how the restaurant’s reputation for excellent service seems to make it worse. Because Chick-fil-A employees are trained to be unfailingly polite, some people apparently take that as permission to treat them like they’re not even there. One employee described a common interaction on Reddit: they say “Hi, how can I serve you today?” and the customer won’t even look at them. Just stares at their phone. Or they make eye contact and say nothing.
Others talked about customers rolling their eyes when asked to clarify an order. Or carrying on a full phone conversation while simultaneously trying to place their order — half-talking to their friend, half-mumbling menu items at the register. It creates confusion, it slows the line, and it makes the worker feel like they’re invisible. These employees are people. They’re standing right there. A two-second “hey, how’s it going” before you rattle off your order makes a bigger difference than you’d think.
This isn’t unique to Chick-fil-A, obviously. Fast food workers everywhere deal with this. But the contrast is sharper at Chick-fil-A because the employees are held to such a high standard of friendliness. They can’t snap back. They can’t match someone’s attitude. They just have to absorb it and keep smiling. The least we can do as customers is make eye contact and say please.
Rush Hour Disasters
So picture the lunch rush at a busy Chick-fil-A. The line is wrapped around the building. Every station in the kitchen is firing. And someone walks up and places an order for their entire office. Twenty sandwiches. Fifteen nugget trays. A handful of salads with custom modifications. Employees have named this as one of their absolute biggest pet peeves, and it’s easy to understand why. A single massive order in the middle of peak hours doesn’t just slow things down for the person ordering — it backs up everyone behind them.
What makes it worse, according to workers, is when the customer who placed the giant order then gets frustrated that it’s taking a while. You ordered food for fifteen people during the busiest hour of the day. Of course it’s going to take a minute. Meanwhile, the people behind that order — the ones who just wanted a sandwich and a lemonade — are now waiting too. And some of them aren’t shy about letting staff know they’re unhappy. So the employee is catching heat from both directions.
If you genuinely need to place a big order, calling ahead is the move. Most Chick-fil-A locations can work with you on timing if you give them a heads-up. Or try coming during an off-peak window — 2 p.m. on a Tuesday is going to be a completely different experience than noon on a Friday. A little planning saves the staff a ton of stress and probably gets you better food, too, since the kitchen won’t be scrambling.
Just Check the Bag
This last one is almost funny in how simple it is. When you order a drink for takeout at Chick-fil-A, the employee puts a straw in your bag. They do it every time. It’s part of the routine. And yet — constantly, relentlessly — customers grab the bag and immediately ask, “Can I get a straw?” One employee summed up the frustration perfectly on Reddit: “I’m not gonna hand you your drink and bag and tell you to have a great day, THEN hand you a straw.” It’s already in there.
The straw question is part of a broader pattern where customers ask if certain items are in the bag before even looking. Sauces, napkins, utensils — all of it. And sometimes the employee at the window didn’t even pack the bag, so they genuinely don’t know exactly what’s inside. They just have to stand there and say “it should be in there” while the customer stares at them skeptically.
The solution is so obvious it barely needs saying: open the bag before you pull away from the window. Take five seconds. Peek inside. If something’s missing, ask then. But don’t assume the person handing you a fully packed bag forgot the most basic item in it. These workers are handling hundreds of orders a day with a level of consistency that most restaurants can’t touch. Trusting that they did their job — or at least checking before doubting them — is probably the easiest thing on this entire list. And honestly, if everyone just did that, plus said “please” and specified how many sauce packets they wanted, Chick-fil-A employees would probably have 80% fewer complaints. The bar really isn’t that high.
