Meesai’s Thai Kitchen — Restaurant in Ontario

Food is incredible, I've been many times, however we had by far the worst service I've ever experienced in my life. I have never been made to feel so unwelcome in a restaurant. We arrived at 8pm (they close at 9) the young white girl in glasses with brown hair at the counter says last order went in at 7:20 and we couldn't stay. Again, this is still an hour before they close. One of the other servers goes back into the kitchen and comes back out to say it's ok if we'd like to eat in. Glasses girl doesn't give us a menu and stops us on the spot at the counter wanting our order in that moment, so we ask for a menu and she is annoyed. We place our order and she tells us we have to pay right now so she can cash out. We go sit down to wait for our food and she starts putting the chairs up on the tables around us... It's maybe 8:10 at this point. Then sits on a bench at a table and just plays on her cellphone while intermittently glaring at us. Our food arrives, we eat quickly and decide to take the rest home because we are being made to feel so uncomfortable. We ask for take out containers and glasses girl brings one, so I ask for another and she sighs, retrieves it and then just drops it on our table from her standing chest height. We were back in our car by 8:37 - still more than 20 minutes before closing!!! I cannot believe this could ever be tolerated. This girl absolutely should not be working in the service industry. She should be ashamed of herself. Her parents certainly would be. I have wanted to come back several times since this incident because we LOVE the food, but the thought of running into this awful human keeps us away.

Edit - the owners have replied to me and are going to address the issue with training the staff member. I'm so glad to hear this, and I'm looking forward to coming back. I'll change this one star review to 5 just for that. We truly do love the food. All the other staff have been great. I'm glad this issue was heard and will be managed appropriately....

Called at 7 and asked what time was closing … the women said 9.

Get there at 8:05 to be told we are closing at 8:30pm. Now I could have went 2 other Thai restaurants, cause I was in the Masonville area chose to drive across the city meet my friend and remind you we’re pregnant to only be turned away at the door and be asked if we want take out.

The girl at the front first said oh we’re closing at 8:30 because we only have one table.

These restaurants in London have no customer service no common courtesy. They just think that they could just do whatever they want when we have Google and yelp and all these other things that could answer questions for customers if they just took the time to do their social media and their digital platforms properly.

It’s not even like we can go to another Thai restaurant. It’s Flippin 8:34 PM. Everywhere is closing at nine like this is pathetic and ridiculous. The city and their restaurants are just so lame.

The response ….

I walked into your restaurant at 8:25 but I called your restaurant at 8:20 to speak to the girl that was behind the counter on her phone. When o walked in a young man in a white T-shirt walked thru the kitchen door. Your staff employee lied to you hun. !!!

Pls Don’t try to make me out to be a liar. I have no reason to lie she told me she lives in the Masonville area and understands the distance that was driving. She offered the take out again and i said no because it’s not the same. Tried that already it just wasn’t satisfying.

Pls also don’t make it seem like i don’t know what I’m talking about.

No, we did not indicate if we were sitting or taking it to go usually when you call a restaurant and you ask when you close the person that answers usually gives out the information we close at nine but our kitchen closes at 8:30 🤦🏾‍♀️ … it was just very irritating for two pregnant people to drive so far and be turned...

Meesai Thai Kitchen is a lovely addition to the Byron community in that it has a great family run restaurant charm to it and offers up something quite rare in London: good Thai food.

For a Thai restaurant the interesting thing is that the menu selection is very limited. Not many choices - just several flavors of curry, a couple of stir frys, Phat Thais, and appetizers. But the dishes they do make are quire lovely, mostly owing to the great sauce and the crispy vegetables. The meat is nothing to write home about. I beleive the chicken breast might be frozen? Hard to say, but it's overcooked. What's anything but overcooked however are the vegetables, which are always cooked perfectly. The sauces are delicious.

The waitstaff is lovely and friendly and the atmosphere is warm.

The biggest issue however is poor space management. They will often assign a table for 4 to a party of 2, and will hold reserved tables very far in advance of the reservations. I once had the experience where despite the restaurant being less than half full, there were no tables available when we arrived, because all tables for 4 were either reserved (even though the reservation wasn't for another 45min-hour - we wanted a quick eat-and-leave meal, we weren't planning some kind of all night romantic thing - i was with my in-laws and 5-year old) or occupied by parties of 2, despite tables for 2 being available. One would simply think asking those parties to move wouldn't be that big of a faux pas. This has happend 3 times now. We cannot decide to come here on a whim because we are hungry. We need to reserve. We would have eaten here maybe 10+ additional times if this weren't the case - we don't plan out our dinners that far in advance.

I hope management reads this review and takes these suggestions into consideration because i enjoy the food and want this place to...