Al-Karam Sweets — Restaurant in Toronto

"Quality Down Price Up-customer respect nil,That is Al-karam Sweet today".

For the past 24–25 years, Al-Karam Sweets on Markham Road in Toronto has been running a sweet business within our community. When they first opened their shop, this line of business was dominated by Hindu and Sikh owners. As Pakistani Muslims, we were genuinely happy to finally see a Pakistani-owned sweet shop, and since then, we regularly bought from them—whether for family celebrations, visiting friends, or special occasions. Over the years, I alone have spent thousands of dollars purchasing sweets from this store.

Unfortunately, in recent years not only has the quality of their sweets declined, but their customer service is practically non-existent. Despite making thousands of dollars in sales every single day, there is no one in the store to listen to customer complaints. The sales girls dismiss concerns by saying, “We are just employees, the owners want it this way.”

Just two days ago, my wife and I went there to buy about 20 boxes of sweets to distribute among friends and relatives. The sales girl packed all of them into just three plastic bags. I requested either to pack each box in a separate bag, or at least give me the same number of bags so I could pack them myself. To my shock, she demanded 5 cents per bag.

I told her this was unfair and that I would not pay for plastic bags when I am already purchasing sweets worth hundreds of dollars. An argument followed. I asked for the manager—there was none. I asked for the supervisor—she said, “I am the supervisor.” During this exchange, even two other customers in the shop came to me separately and said they agreed with my stance. In the end, my wife told me to just let it go, so we paid and left, because we had to distribute sweets in about 66 homes and didn’t want to delay.

Let me make one thing clear: Al-Karam Sweets is not a grocery store where customers are expected to bring their own bags. Sweets are a premium item, and across the world, every confectioner provides them in proper, elegant boxes and bags. Here, however, despite charging $15 per pound, they are shamelessly squeezing customers for extra cents in the name of plastic bags. This is not only greed, but also disrespect towards loyal customers who have supported them for decades.

I am fully aware that my decision to stop buying from them will not hurt their business overnight. But I am equally confident that with this kind of dishonesty and greed, their sales will decline, and they will eventually pay the price for alienating their...

We go to this place Al Karam Sweets all the time but today we had a real bad and worst customer service experience. This girl Ramandeep was really rude and have absolutely no respect for the customers and seniors. She doesn't even know how to use the cash register as I can see when she is putting the money in just pressing the No sale button and putting the money inside and offering no sake receipts to the customers.

I was buying the Samosas from her while she was selling the same samosas to another customer and using the calculator to ad up the price and took cash from him with no sale receipt and didn't charge the tax from him as I heard the conversations.

I asked her to get me the same samosas with same price and she told me after calculating on a calculator $8 plus tax which comes up to $9.04. I asked her politely why you're charging me taxes when you didn't charge the previous customer for buying the same food? She started arguing with Mr very disrespectfully and told me that he was a student customer. I said all the customers are same you should treat everyone with dignity and respect with same discounted prices, she still misbehaving and telling that every customer is different and he was the student that's why he got the discount and she was saying something I didn't hear properly only thing I heard is you're so and so and I was just shocked and told her not to make any rude comments and show some respect. Please treat everyone with dignity and respect to your...

My family frequently goes to this place, and I like their sweets. Last time I went, there were only five customers ahead of me, but I still had to wait almost 40 minutes to buy sweets. Meanwhile, I politely asked the young girl working there if she could call for another person to help, since many people were lining up and we had already been waiting longer than expected. She did not respond and just continued with what she was doing.There was no courtesy or sense of customer service. It felt like they just wanted to sell the sweets without caring about the customers. I have never experienced such poor customer service anywhere else. If they are not able to handle this number of people, they need to have more workers. At the very least, staff should talk to customers and let us know to please wait a few more minutes, so we feel acknowledged.I felt insulted and ignored, and it ruined my mood for the evening.

I also want to point out that there was a child who asked for napkins because his family had bought samosas. The storekeeper did not respond. The boy went back and asked again, but she still didn’t give him any napkins or even acknowledge him.

I have never seen customer service this poor. A business is not just about the taste of the food it should also include good...