Zenwich Elmhurst — Restaurant in Addison Township

We stopped in around 6 PM for a quick dinner with our toddler and infant, but ended up walking out 40 minutes later without eating anything. The employee barely acknowledged us and offered little explanation beyond a forced "I'm sorry."

When we arrived, no one greeted us (which is fine, just an observation). We placed our order on the self-serve screen and sat down to wait, as others were doing.

The single employee working never spoke to customers. When he served orders, he kept his head down, seemingly to avoid conversation or questions. He'd mumble a name and then disappear back into the kitchen. We tried to get his attention several times, but he ignored us; he had an earphone in, so we assumed he couldn't hear us. We even had questions before submitting our order, but couldn't get his attention, so we just went ahead and placed it anyway.

After about 40 minutes, he finally looked at us and asked, "Did you guys order something?" When we said yes, he replied, "I don't have your order. Sorry, I can't do anything for you at this point." It was around 6:45 PM by then, and he was closing at 7 PM, so he didn't want to take any more orders. But we had placed ours around 6 PM! He just kept saying he didn't have it, even though we had been sitting right in front of him all that time. Instead of trying to help or ask what we ordered, he simply went back to what he was doing, choosing to ignore us.

Our toddler was getting antsy as it was almost her bedtime. So we tried to see if there was something he could do one a second time and he just said “sorry” without making eye contact once again. So rather than argue or try to force the issue, we just left. It was clear he had no interest in resolving the situation or helping us get our food. He just wanted to make his food, ignore everyone, and get out of...

*How I Tried It * Coupons are always best when they include some restaurants, but a local sandwich shop was even more enticing. One of them featured Zenwich, whose prices and premium-ingredient quality are in line with Panera's.

Sandwiches So exotic and delicious! (That's the best summary I could develop.) I had a barbeque tofu on my first visit and a spicy shrimp on my second; the first made me believe that tofu really can be a substitute for meat while the second, shrimp-filled sandwich was mind-blowing. I honestly didn't know shrimp could be IN a sandwich, which included a spicy, thousand-island-ish sauce... I'll definitely have it again.

Sides They reportedly have great home-made chips, but I got the very good coleslaw instead. It's not machine-made and uniform; instead, the pieces vary ever-so-slightly in size for a very genuine cole slaw you would make at home. They have a few flavors too (how cool!), so I got the ginger both times only because it was so tasty.

Soups To use my entire Groupon, I added soups to both my visits. I can't remember the names at all, but they were as homemade as you can get and pretty good. Salt is on the low side, but that's refreshing since most places saturate their goods with sodium.

Final Thoughts I go here around 4:00PM since that's the time of day I pass by, so my orders where ready on-time and nobody was in their shop sitting/waiting. I read some reviews that aren't happy with the small size of Zenwich or the wait times. This isn't Subway; plan ahead and order by telephone... Go just for the food and you'll wonder why more of these places...

I often don’t have to give such low ratings, however I can’t believe I paid anything for this.

I ordered The Mad Monk (vegan) as a quinoa bowl. This is supposed to come with tempura tofu according to the ordering platform, but when I opened it, there was fried potato/veggie patties and no tofu. On top of that, the quinoa was overcooked and very cold, plus it seemed days old. The arugula was yellow/pale green and smelled rotten. The coleslaw in the bowl was soggy and definitely not vegan. Basically, nothing in this bowl was edible and I could not eat any of it.

I called the restaurant 3 times to give them an opportunity to correct this, however nobody answered each time. I ordered for delivery on an app hoping I could actually order from here because in the past few months, I’ve called at least 10 times to place an order for pickup and nobody ever picked up, thus losing my business on each of those occasions.

Clearly, they do not have standards for quality and customer service. I was really looking forward to trying Zenwich for the first time in almost 10 years and was completely let down. Don’t waste your...