Ben Thanh

TERRIBLE MANAGER

I've been to 3 locations of Ben Than in London. This location is by far the worst restaurant I've ever been to. Their menu has 2 pages of different cocktails. They kept coming back saying they did not have basically any of their drinks available. They had maybe 1 or 2 drinks that they could actually make. The drink was so terrible I could not drink it. The manager was yelling about my table to the waitress right in front of our faces. he is a terrible, rude manager. Terrible to his staff.

UNACCEPTABLE customer service!

I went to Pho Ben Thanh at the London, ON location on the evening of May 30th, 2012 with my boyfriend for dinner. What a mistake! We had the most UNACCEPTABLE experience there ever. I am not one to complain nor have I ever wrote a “review” for anything however this experience leaves me so flabbergasted I couldn’t help but try to make others aware of the HORRIFIC customer service there. I have had pad thai from many other restaurants in the area with great enjoyment. When I was presented with the one from Pho Ben Thanh I was overcome with great disappointment. I calmly informed my server that I didn’t like the pad thai at which point she started to verbally attack me in a loud voice in the middle of the restaurant for all to hear stating repeatedly that there are so many other people in the restaurant who order this dish and I am the only one who is complaining. It was made obvious to me it was ‘my fault’ I didn’t like this dish. I calmly asked if she would be able to return this dish so I could order something else instead since I didn’t like it. She continued to speak in a loud and disrespectful voice for all in the restaurant to hear that she cannot do that because she would get in trouble by the management and be made to pay for my returned dish herself. I asked her then if I could speak with the management and was told they weren’t present. I asked if I could leave my phone number for them to contact me with at their convenience and was declined my ability to do so by the server. Becoming upset at this point I informed the server this was the worst customer service I have ever received and could not believe I was being treated and talked to in this manner in the middle of a restaurant. I didn’t care at this point if she had to pay for the dish herself or not after how she had been treating me so disrespectfully and I told her I was not going to be paying for this dish because I was not going to be eating it. She then informed me fine she would take the dish off my bill but again made it clear she would be punished for doing so and it would be coming out of her pay. I am an owner of three independent businesses myself personally and am appalled that someone would show such disrespect towards a customer in a public way over something that is not their fault and that they were calmly bringing to a servers attention. I would never treat any customer that would walk into any of my businesses in any manner even remotely in the way I was being treated at this restaurant and if I found any of my employees doing this I would have them terminated immediately. Unless you enjoy being verbally harassed loudly in public STAY AWAY from Pho Ben Thanh!!! I will be making it a point to spread this word publically in a variety of manners in hopes of saving someone else the humiliating experience I was made to endure at this restaurant.

I come to Ben's usually to catch up with my family since we all love it there. I don't deviate much from my standard lemongrass chicken + pork dish since I love it so much, even if it is pretty straight forward. I could live off the crispy wontons ommm nom. The smoothies are delicious as well. Service is consistently friendly, have to admit I always had a little bit of a crush on one of the servers there hahah :)

Big Portions, Friendly Service

We have never visited this place so we weren't sure what to expect. The atmosphere is limited with hard seats and plain tables but all in all not too bad. We order shrimp stirfry, chicken stirfry, chicken rice noodle soup, and green curry. The soup was huge and excellently done -- not too salty. The other meals were served piping hot and large portions. We were a little surprised by the heat of the chicken stirfry but happy with it all the same. It would have been nice to have our tea filled more than once but our waitress was very helpful and patient. Funny enough, I think it would be better if their menu was smaller. It is so big you get lost in it!

The food is very delicious, but the service is bad, and oh!, the place is absolutely disguising. We sat in the middle aisle, and there was stains, spills and garbage on the floor! I would recommend this place only if you are used to this kind of conditions!