Mcalister's Deli Lee's Summit

Great value for the amount of food you get: a full sandwich with a side included and there is a large selection of sides to choose from, ranging from healthy and light to rich. The kids under 12 meal can't be beat for price at $1.99. I got a very bad first impression the first time I went here. I got the Smoky Pepperjack Turkey Sandwich with a side of mac and cheese. The sandwich quality was okay, but it came with no vegetables at all and was basically just meat and cheese with mustard on bread. The mac and cheese was creamy, but bland and tasteless. I gave a two star review and did not plan to return. After giving that review, the restaurant group contacted me to get more feedback on my experience. They seemed genuinely interested in what I had to say and I was given the opportunity to try another meal at McAlister's. My second visit was overall a good one. I picked one of the items recommended to me by the customer service rep, the BLTA (bacon lettuce tomato avocado) with a fresh fruit salad side and unsweetened ice tea. The tea was not very good, and the fruit salad was just oddly small pieces of unripened cantaloupe and honeydew melon with one piece of pineapple. Apparently some customers ask for 'just pineapple' and the pineapple gets picked out of the fruit salad mixture for those customers leaving just the melon. The sandwich, on the other hand, was fantastic. LOTS of avocado, nice bacon and not too much, fresh vegetables on decent bread with a nice light-handed mayo spread. I noticed on the menu board that normally salt and pepper is added to this sandwich, so I asked them to hold the salt. Overall, if you know what you're doing, you can get a very good meal here at a great value. My chief complaints though are that: there are too many very unhealthy items (a piece of cake is 1100+ calories alone), salt is added to many of the sandwiches unnecessarily, too many of the sandwiches don't come with vegetables at all, the fruit salad melons were unripe and not proportional. This would generally lead me to giving a 3 star review. But due to the stellar customer service both digitally and in-restaurant a 4-star review is warranted. If you have a poor experience or something is wrong, McAlister's will work with you to make things right and that goes a long way with me.