Swensen's @ Bukit Panjang Plaza — Restaurant in Singapore

Saturday 18 June 2022 @ 230pm

So ... its the weekend. Decided to head down to Bukit Panjang Plaza for a bit of window shopping and late lunch. Been ages since we had Swensens so decided on it pretty quickly.

We were approached by a server who welcome us in and got us our table. Gave us our menu and left us alone to decide. Quickly enough we made our choices and tried calling for a server to place our order. Here's where is got a little iffy. A male server finally came and took our orders. I guess this server must have had his energy sucked out of him because he sounded so bored. I mean I'm not hoping for the energy of a show emcee but a bit more enthusiasm would be appreciated. It just felt like he doesn't want to be there. In fact most of the male servers sounded the same and gave out the same energy, very bored and drone like. Again, maybe they are tired, I don't know. At one point during our meal, almost all the floor staff including one of the managers, was gathering in the midst of the dining area, looking and peering out of the window and was giggling or something. I think thats not appropriate given that the restaurant is a small one.

Moving on, to the same male server I asked about the portioning of the chicken in the chicken basket, if it was big or small, while showing a hand gesture and get this, he replied "it's medium, not big not small" wow! I was gobsmacked. How's that for an answer.

Anyways placed our orders and the food came quickly starting off with our appetitizers and drinks. Refer to picture for size reference. Interesting, that the soup was more of a glob of watered down powder rather then being soupy.

Then the rest of the meal came. It's nothing to rave about or be annoyed with. It was average to say the least. The fish was slightly on the soggy side, was expecting a flaky dory. The pizza topping was nice but the crust, I get that it's thin crust, but it was cookie crispy and crunchy! I don't think pizza crust however thin should be cookie crunchy.

I am not at all trying to be a "karen" but it's sad that a staple brand of restaurant chain like Swensens has become rather shambled. The fact that Swensen's, a restaurant chain that has seen so many wonderful memories for a lot of us have been reduced to this is just saddening.

Must be mentioned, however the server who shines was this lady Ai Wen. She was polite, definately had more energy and from my point of view, was the saving grace for this meal. Oh also, the cashier lady. Super polite and really nice. I mean, having been in the F&B industry for a decent amount of time myself, attitude and the energy that we gave out is very important. The food may be mediocre but with a staff that trained right, the dining experience can and will totally be positive and delightful.

Would I still recommend and give this place a chance, sure because I do believe that Swensens can reclaim their place as a wonderfully happy place.

Food : 2.5 / 5 Staff : 4 / 5 (For Aiwen and the...

Went with this outlet on 25/11 with my family enthusiastically for a meal but ended up an unhappy experience with the queuing system and staff service. Was kind of disappointed with this long time family restaurant which I used to patronise often. Have spoken to the customer service staff after the incident but felt to put a feedback here for further improvement pertaining to the outlet staff service quality, food quality and queue system.

1. The queue system was misleading which caused my unhappiness as to which customer has came first. Currently, the start point was from the end point of the queue line then snake line back to the store entrance. Previously, it was from the front of the queue line then go straight to the store entrance which was closer than went from the back ot it. By going from the back of the queue line and snake line to the entrance , it will take a longer walking distance. Thus, this is the confusing part of the queue line.

2. When the incident happened, the male shift manager was at the counter . He saw me and my family went to the entrance but he did not instruct staff or told us that we queued wrongly. This was mishandling.

3. In addition, the lady shift manager who came out to us at the entrance was rude and just said angrily to us that we did not queue and went back inside without directing us to the actual queue line.

4. There are too many staff in the outlet inside but no staff came out to check the entrance and queue line frequently. Before the incident happened, when we often patronised this store, the staff were often seen standing inside the outlet looking at the customers waiting to serve them. This is good if the restaurant space is wide enough. But in this case, this outlet is too small with such overstaff inside and no staff looking at outside customers queue. Other outlets have better handling in such staff role. Example, Jurong outlet, staff could promptly attend to front entrance walk-in customers instead of most staffs are hide inside the store.

5. The staff stationed inside the outlet were usually stared at the customers who needed service. But somehow, this created a stress impression of eating this place with staff looking at your plates and chased you to go out of the restaurant as soon after food. This was impression happened before this current incident. There was even 1 time when I encountered an angry looking face male staff who took my order in a scary rude manner. And my husband and I were pretty shocked with this staff service but continued on our order and finished our meal. But the overall image of the staff service has created a bad experience in our memories.

Will not probably visit this outlet anymore with this current staffs service quality. Thanks Frankie for the investigation. Hope that the staffs will be friendly and smiling face , be able to handle customers...

Here's a real review of the service compared to the reviewers with "local guide" tags telling you what's tasty here. Everyone knows Swensens. Their food is nice. But it's the service that sets you apart in the service industry.

7:30pm - We made order to the waiter.

We were seated directly under the strong blowing air conditioning vent, and my family were FrEeZiNg. Eventually after 20 minutes, did we manage to change tables. (So... 7:50pm...?)

8:10pm: From the time we ordered to our main course arriving was 40 minutes. Our bread bowl, which is an appetiser, came at the same time as our main course, because they were waiting at the counter with waiters standing around. This is the same for the other main courses. Our food came at luke warm, almost cold temperature, which could be due to the above scenario. The delay in the food delivery system meant our food wasn't served in the best form, and it wasn't as good as we wanted it.

At this point, we noticed that the waiter forgot to order one of the main courses in the system even after reading back our orders. We didn't want to wait another 40 minutes, and said never mind. We shared our food.

Staff were either staring at the ordering kiosk or standing around refusing to look at us. There's a load of back and forth on requesting for things and them not delivering. We gave up and took things like Serviettes and Utensils ourselves.

At the end of the meal when I was making payments, I mentioned that my family did not enjoy the service. The manager at the counter said "no choice, the staff don't...