Chef David Chang’s launch of Fuku fried chicken chain in Texas on Tuesday seems to have been an absolute mess. Dozens of comments on various social media channels resulted in late orders, cold food, maskless food service staff, and other issues with the new delivery to restaurant.
The problems started on Tuesday morning, April 6th, when the restaurant, slated to open at 11 a.m. in Houston, was unavailable on several delivery Ps, including DoorDash, Grubhub and UberEats, according to Facebook posts. When the time finally came, the guests reported orders that took between 90 minutes and 3 hours to deliver. A Twitter user said that their food came three hours late, with missing items and cold food. A commentator on Instagram Their order only had four fries and it was missing the sauce that dinner had paid extra for.
That’s when the food has even arrived. Several commentators stated that their delivery drivers canceled their orders after waiting several hours. One person wrote that their order from UberEats never arrived and another wrote that their order finally arrived – a day late.
For more comments on this post, check out the following chain on Instagram:
On Wednesday afternoon, commentators on Fuku’s Instagram page reported that the Houston site was already closed – without any response from Fuku. It’s unclear if the location was sold out or just too overwhelmed to continue taking orders. Eater has contacted the company for a comment and will update this post with more details as they become available.
Although Houston posters were the loudest about their negative experiences, the guests in Dallas also faced problems. One diner in Dallas wrote that their chicken sandwich had arrived raw and another wrote that staff at the North Texas site were not wearing masks, „although the website for Fuku is all about safety.”
Fuku’s famous chicken sandwiches were offered as an off-menu option at Chang’s popular Momofuku Noodle Bar. When the sandwich proved popular on its own, Chang opened a standalone Fuku restaurant in New York City in 2015. Since then, Fuku has grown into a chain of mostly delivery restaurants in cities like Miami, Washington, DC and now Texas.
Proceeds from the first day of sales of the Houston location were to be donated to the Southern Smoke Foundation. „The food arrived cold,” wrote a commenter on Instagram. „I’m glad that at least the money goes to Southern Smoke.”
Disclosure: David Chang produces shows for Hulu in partnership with Vox Media Studios, part of Eater’s parent company, Vox Media. No Eater employee is involved in the production of these shows, which does not affect the coverage of Eater.
