Whether or not the food is shitty depends on the cheese used, no matter how shitty it looks.
If that's proper american cheese, it would be just cheese and something like sodium citrate, perhaps with some annatto for coloring.
If it's "cheese food" or "american slices", that's going to be shitty food.
All mac n cheese sauce is, is cheese with an emulsifer and some extra dairy. Well, technically it's fats with an emulsifier that then has dairy added, then cheese melted into it. But that's nitpicking
When it comes right down to it, if you mix some shredded processed cheese into your mac n cheese sauce, you'll end up with compliments. You might even win prizes at local group competitions and such. You just have to check what you're using, read the label and make sure you're getting what you think you're getting.
A bechamel, the foundation of traditional mac n cheese (as opposed to box versions), serves the same role as sodium citrate, just with a different texture and some shift to the flavor profile compared to just melting cheese over pasta.
I ain't mad at some good process (or, rather, secondary processed) cheese slices on top. It should be better applied than that, but it has the benefit of keeping the sauce underneath from drying out, as well as being very easy to just mix in as you scoop with no appreciable change in the taste of a serving. Yeah, bread crumbs or some shredded young colby would be better, but this is a matter of execution being so poor as to draw attention.
The potassium citrate in American cheese helps real cheese melt better. You can achieve the same result with sodium citrate and an immersion blender, but not everyone has easy access to or storage for yet another spice.
Citric acid and sodium citrate are not interchangeable, unfortunately. You could create one from the other with some aqueous baking soda, but it would be best to keep the process seperate from preparing the cheese sauce.
You can look up the Modernist Cuisine Silky Mac and Cheese recipe for more info.
I have never had any trouble melting actual cheese though when required. I have no idea what kind of scenario this kind of cheese product would be superior.
The actual sandwiches that place sells are going to either be shitty (because they don't care about anything) or amazing (because everything but the sandwiches is an afterthought). There is no in-between.
This looks like a joke, a disgruntled employee, or both.
You can clearly see that there is proper cheese sauce on the macaroni, but then there's just sixnine or ten heat lamp nuked slices of American Cheese* added haphazardly.
*For anyone lucky enough not to know what that means, imagine cheese whiz solidified and packaged into individually plastic wrapped slices.
Probably a customer not realizing the preparation and complaining that the cheese wasn't cheesey or as velveeta-ey as they were used to, and malicious compliance ensued.
"Oh no! We are almost out of Liquid Cheese Product #3. We don't even have enough to make this batch of macaroni!"
"Just make this batch with the rest of the Liquid Cheese Product #3 that we have, then add some slices of Semisolid Cheese Product #2 on top. No one will be able to tell the difference."
even on their web site you can clearly see the individual single slices of cheese product spread over the top of the mac & cheese in the picture there (it's found under 'hot counter').
and it really looks like melted fake 'singles' and not actual sliced american. from a deli.... with over a dozen actual real cheeses on their counter.
I don't know that I've ever tried any truly tasty mac & cheese that wasn't KD. Various restaurants and everyone's aunt makes this shitty "gourmet" stuff that tastes like cold, soggy noodles and congealed white gravy. People talk about their aunt's congealed gravy as though it's a succulent delicacy, but it's always as terrible as the last batch and is easily upstaged by KD.