Wow. This place was a trip. Quite possibly one of the worst dining experiences in my entire life.
I went with my coworker to get some pho from this place during our lunch break. I looked at the Yelp and Google reviews and pictures, looked good! We drove over ready to order food to go. As I walked in I held the door open for several parties (this will become important), and we ordered our food to go from the cashier/server. All is well.
Well, about 10 minutes after we order our food, we can see bowls of pho coming out for all the dine-in customers, which included the people I held the door for who ordered after us. "Huh, that's weird" I think to myself. From this point, the sole cashier/server keeps bringing out bowls of pho to the dine-in customers, most of which seated themselves after us. At this point, I wasn't assuming the restaurant was acting in bad faith, but I was increasingly confused why our food hadn't come out. The cashier/server knew we were waiting for our food, we were literally sitting right in front of her.
Finally, after about 25 minutes of other people being served, my coworker gets up to ask if our food is coming out. Cashier/server tells her that the kitchen "prioritizes" dine-in servers over the to-go orders. Excuse me, what? Yes, this is the insanity of how this restaurant operates. We, people ordering take-out, were continually cut in line by absolutely anybody who walked in the door. We ordered our pho first, but that couple behind you who are dining in? Served first. Sure we should be next, but another party dining in just walked in the door, served before us. This is an absolutely insane way of doing business, I've never heard of a restaurant operating like this in my life. And yet it kept happening, people walking in 20 minutes after us were served first. I guess take-out is not a concept here.
Finally, we have to leave, lunch break is only so long. I ask the cashier/server if our food is ready, she once again explains that the kitchen prioritizes dine-in customers first. We have been sitting in front of her for 30 minutes waiting for our food while she delivered food to the entire rest of the restaurant! She knew we were waiting! So I say we have to leave, will the food be ready to go in the next few minutes. I was this close to asking for a full refund, which knowing what I know now should have happened 20 minutes ago.
Now I am standing at the register, point blank asking after our food. And finally, finally it comes out. They hadn't even started making our order, they only made it because I was telling her we have to leave. To add insult to injury, after they started making it it was out in two minutes. Why did we have to wait 30 minutes for our food while we were literally sitting in the restaurant? Why was every single customer served before us before we asked where our food was? After the cashier/server brought the food out I say, "Look, I am not blaming you, but you have literally served everybody else in the restaurant other than us."
"Yep, that's how the kitchen does it." No apologies, or understanding, or anything, really. What kind of restaurant operates like this?! Absolute insanity.
We get back to work with no time to eat the food we did have. And here's the absolute kicker. Look at the picture of my to-go pho. They didn't even put it together! And, yes, I realize this is preferable for to-go pho to mix it all together when you get home, but we had waited 30 minutes for a meal that should take 2 minutes to put together, and they hadn't even done that! What kind of business operates like this?
Was it good pho? Possibly. I wouldn't know, I had to wolf it down in the few minutes I could get away, and it was awfully bland eating it like that.
I hate to bad mouth businesses, but this place chose to make our experience bad every step of the way. Take our order? Cool. Choose to deliver food to the dine-in customers before us? That's what they did. Didn't have to, they CHOSE to. Watch us patiently waiting for food but server other first? Yep, they chose to do that, too. De-prioritize take-out customers to the point where they haven't even made the food we ordered before we complained? Once again, a specific action that this place CHOSE to do. When fielding a complaint about the service the cashier/server fired back with "that's how the kitchen operates"? Yep, once again, a choice on behalf of this restaurant. Despite what I said before, I now blame the cashier/server and the kitchen. At no point did they value us as paying customers, paying UP FRONT by the way!
This place might have good food, but that was among the single worst dining experiences of my entire life, and I eat out a lot. Just a failure on every level. I may not know the best place to eat pho in Phoenix, but I know the one I would never recommend to anybody, and I will be telling everybody I know.
Thanks, Pho Noodles, it was an experience. read more