M Chá Bar (Hwy7 & Warden) — Restaurant in Markham

EDITED: Ontario gift card laws do not apply to gift card balances under loyalty card and programs such as Snappy (which is the platform M Cha Bar uses to load your “gift card”. I initially looked up the promotional terms and conditions when they rejected my gift card payment and didn’t see an expiration day in their Instagram post. Upon checking again today I saw an expiration date. While their practice is not illegal, it is still distrustful to the core.

If I could give 0 stars I would. I am sure the owner is either completely unaware of Ontario’s gift card laws or taking advantage of a loophole regarding digital gift cards. During their gift card promotion I loaded $100 and received the bonus $100 for a loaded balance of $200 onto my Snappy account. About two weeks ago I visited M Cha Bar and tried to pay with my gift card balance (I had about $40 left). I was told that they were no longer accepting the gift cards as the “promotion was over”. I let it go as I had used up the initial $100 I loaded and was then using the bonus amount they loaded during the promotion. However, that may not be the case for others. It is theft at the most and a scam at the least for the business to “no longer accept gift cards because the promotional period is over”. What if someone loaded $25 and didn’t finish using up the credit they loaded? Gift cards, by law, are not allowed to expire in Ontario. However, I am unsure if that’s the case for digital gift cards. Regardless, it is disgusting to try to acquire cash flow for the business through gift card promotions only to no longer accept the funds loaded onto a customer’s account (regardless if the amount was personally loaded or a “bonus”).

Business practice legalities aside, the drink quality has significantly decreased. The sugar levels are not consistent (half sugar sometimes tastes like full sugar and sometimes no sugar) and toppings are left out (my boyfriend ordered a mango pomelo taro ball but didn’t get taro ball).

I will never go to an M Cha Bar again after such sketchy business practices and low quality drinks. I advise you not to support businesses that are potentially stealing from their customers. Absolutely abhorrent and I will continue looking into the legalities of their gift card...

Extremely unpleasant third experience going to this location today (Jan 12 3:17PM) due to the lack of transparency and empathy surrounding an online pickup order placed via SkiptheDishes.

Skip gave me a $10 off coupon on my next order, which was automatically used when I placed an order for 2 mango pomelo drinks. I did notice that throughout my entire 17 min drive to get there, my order was never moved past the confirmation stage. Once I arrived, I was told by the front-facing employee that they have had issues with people using Skip coupons which allowed them to receive "2 drinks for $5" and that the maximum discount they can do is $5 so if I wanted my order made, I needed to pay an additional $5 on top of the $8.98 that was already charged to my credit card at the time of transaction.

Please note that I have had paid for these drinks for full-price in the past, but wished to cancel my order after being delivered this information due to the lack of transparency at the time of this transaction. The only effort that was made to contact me about this was an email from Skip support 10 min after my order was placed (which I cannot read while driving) versus a simple phone call that could have been much more effective.

What made the situation even worse was that I then had to spend another 15 min at the store, totalling to a time of 33 minutes dealing with this issue as both the store and I were unable to cancel the order on our end and had to wait for a Skip Support person to do so, on top of refunding my credit card charge. During this time, no apology was made during such inconvenience, but fortunately the Skip Support person was more empathetic to the situation by doing the above and giving me a $5 credit for my troubles on top of an apology.

Please go to the North York Centre or Eglinton locations instead for a better experience, where my boyfriend had a seamless transaction through Skip just the...

I want to share a ridiculous experience. Today I went to M Cha Bar on Hwy 7 and bought a cup of today's special. The price was $5.99 plus tax, which came to $6.76. I gave the cashier $20. $20 - $6.76= $13.24. However, he gave me $11 in change. I thought, "How did the daily special become $9?" When he came back, I asked him why he only gave me $11. The young cashier, who I suspect might be the owner's son, had a really bad attitude and said, "There was also a $2 coin I gave you. Did it fall on the floor?" I looked and said no. Later, I discovered that the $2 coin was stuck under the card machine. Then he just walked away. I called after him and said, "What about the 25 cents?" He was extremely impatient, opened the cash register, shrugged, and said, "We don't have 25 cents." So what now? Why didn’t he inform me that he didn’t have a quarter or suggest adding a topping instead? And there was no apology, as if I was in the wrong for asking about that 25 cents. Bad attitude and ridiculous service.

To the owner,

Yes, I agree that your employee definitely needs good training. Also, tell him to stop lying; he didn’t offer free tapioca because he was short of change. He made three daily special drinks for my friend before my order, and all those drinks included tapioca. Clearly, he forgot that there’s no tapioca in the...