Jonathan P.
Yelp
Let's just call it Dragon Not Well. The food? It doesn't matter, when the service is dirt poor, it leaves a bad taste in your mouth. Truth be told, we ordered takeout from DW before and thought the food was good. The first time, we called to place our order. However, this last (and I mean last) time, we ordered food for pickup through DoorDash. I placed the order at 12:52 pm with a requested time of between 1:55 and 2:05 pm. I received a text confirmation and was told to come between 2:05 and 2:10 pm. Having hit traffic on the way, I called at 1:26 pm to let the restaurant know we'd be running a few minutes late and wanted to have them wait before filling the order so the food wouldn't be cold when we arrived. To my surprise, the woman who answered the phone said, "your order is ready." "What?" I asked, "how can that be?" I explained we requested a later pickup time. She said, "we get the order from DoorDash and we make the food," adding "there was no indication of a later time request." She blamed it on DoorDash and made no effort to make it right, even though we were still 40 minutes away, while our food was sitting on a counter, getting cold and who knows what else.
When we arrived, my wife showed the woman the text messages (attached here) from DoorDash, that indicated we ordered with a specific, later pickup time. Her reaction was to argue with excuses, but never taking responsibility. Her half-hearted apology for the mistake at the very end of the "discussion," was pretty useless, as my wife walked out with over $100 (plus a 15% tip) of cold Chinese food.
Whether the mistake was DoorDash's or not, Dragon Well should have immediately apologized and refilled the order, so that it would have been hot upon our arrival.
Needless to say, we will not be ordering from Dragon Well again, and will never use DoorDash for ordering food with a scheduled pickup time.
The one star I gave was generous.
UPDATE: Well I stand corrected!
The poor customer service exhibited by Dragon Well is even worse than I thought, and clearly comes from the top down. The response (attached below) I received from the owner of Dragon Well is further evidence of just how poorly managed this restaurant really is. Rather than trying to make things right, she doubled down on the bad excuses, again placing all the blame on its third-party online ordering service, DoorDash, for which she bemoans having to pay the "high fees" the service charges. By admitting she pays those fees, she is also admitting she is in a business relationship with DoorDash, as opposed to DoorDash just working on its own, with no connection to the restaurants for which it provides its services. And as for backing her staff for not offering to remake $100 worth of food that doesn't cost the restaurant anywhere near $100, I say, "give me a break!"
I'll also pass on her offer to contact DoorDash on my behalf, as I could do that myself but won't because I believe the restaurant should be responsible for any mistakes made by its employees and/or the third party services they employ or pay high fees to. For example, had we dined at the restaurant and requested a dish to be prepared less spicy, but it was served with the "normal" amount of heat, would the server offer us the contact info of the chef so we could complain directly about his or her failure to properly execute our request? I would hope the server would have been trained to apologize for the mistake and bring the dish back to the kitchen to be redone, no questions asked or arguments made. The same should go for how the restaurant deals with the online ordering services it uses, and that in effect become extensions of the restaurant. Sadly, that is not the case with Dragon Well. The owner should be the one to contact DoorDash, not to "recoup" my money, but to ensure the mistake doesn't happen again with future orders from other trusting patrons.
I'll close with this: rather than blame DoorDash for its alleged failure to indicate a later pickup on the order, and then suggest to me that should there be a future opportunity (there won't be) I should call the restaurant directly instead of using DoorDash, why not add the disclaimer on your Website that Dragon Well bears no responsibility for mistakes made by its delivery/ordering services, so proceed at your own peril.
If only I could amend my rating to zero stars, I would.
Response Message from Dragon Well's owner is attached.
