Vietvana Pho Noodle House — Restaurant in Avondale Estates

I rarely leave a negative review (or a review this long), but this dining experience was so remarkably bad that I feel compelled to recount it in detail. It took over 14 paragraphs to recount everything so I'm just condensing that into a bulleted list for easier consumption.

Good: The Thai iced tea was standard and good.

Bad: It took a little less than 2 hours (!!!) from ordering for all of our food to come out. They brought us 2 entrees we had ordered, and then later two more we hadn't and then took the remaining time to bring out the 3 remaining entrees despite taking and losing our order multiple times. At one point (after waiting maybe 30-40 minutes) we were told that the kitchen was an 'hour behind' and refused to 'expedite' our order despite having ordered ~1 hour ago. -Waitresses seemed unfamiliar with the menu. -The food (when we eventually did get it) was average to mediocre. -The cooks refused to communicate with the waitstaff as to what dishes were on which tickets so food was being misdelivered at all the tables around us. This is what a waitress told us. At one point I noticed one of our remaining entrees being hoisted on a neighboring table and was at least able to redirect that one to ours. There were sour faces all around. -The Bahn Mi was served on basic grocery store french bread that lacked any crustiness what-so-ever. The deli counter at Kroger could probably make a better Bahn Mi. -No napkins at the table. When we asked for some the waitress produced a roll of brown paper towels which wouldn't have looked out of place in a high school bathroom. -There was no silverware at the table besides chopsticks. I'm fine with that normally, but when my tablemate asked for some silverware, the waitress could only drum up two sets for the five of us. -Despite the extreme wait time, mix-ups and strangeness, no offers of compensation were made at all, and they even charged us for the 'free egg rolls' we had already provided a coupon for. Oh, and the bill was brought to our table while we were still waiting for 2 of the entrees. -Eventually, they took the egg rolls off our bill and offered an additional 10% but only after putting up a bizarre amount of resistance. For some reason they offered us to go cups for our long warm waters. -There didn't seem to be anyone in charge of anything.

Conclusion: Give this new location a wide berth for a few months, at which point they will either learn to...

Why isn't there a NO STAR option? It's the complete opposite of when it first opened. Fast forward to now... Horrific customer service! 8 out of 10 times your order will be WRONG! because they do NOT CARE enough to make sure it is correct. Seriously, the staff can barely string a sentence together as they are more interested in social media than proper diction. Clueless staff (for the most part) - Unless you count Caroline, who is articulate, knowledgeable and who embodies customer service. She of course... is rarely scheduled for some reason. Inconsistent food quality. Quickest staff turnover rate I've ever experienced.

Last straw experience:

I place my order while 5 minutes away from Vietvanna after a 12 hour day at work. I'm grateful I will have a ready made, hot tasty meal. I have the person on the line repeat my order to make sure she hasn't missed anything. I wait in my car just outside their door until designated wait time has elapsed, about 25 minutes. I walk inside to pay for my order. Guess what!?!?!... The order has NEVER been placed. It's now 15 minutes before closing time. Their kitchen is now closed. Apparently she took my order and ran out the door as it was the end of her shift.

I called to speak to the manager the following day. I got the run around. Called again the next day. Same nonsense. I'm DONE.

I used to give it a try every 3 months or so to see if they actually care enough to hire and train staff properly and resume the level of quality they once had....NOPE! Not happening any time soon. I prefer to drive the extra 15-20 minutes to get the value and service I deserve. You should...

I went to the Avondale location on 5/2/2025. I ordered pho, and half way finished I noticed there was a maggot in my food. I got extremely ill, ran to the bathroom, and threw up everywhere. The waiter rushed to my table to ask my partner if I was okay, and alerted the manager on duty who acknowledged the situation and we weren’t charged for the food. However I reached out to the owners by email professionally and politely to settle and negotiate privately which is lawful, however I was completely ignored and disregarded. On the 4th day of no response, I followed up a manager by the name of Tim who said the issue was being worked on. I still got no response from owners, so I did a second follow up with the manage and was told that the owner just saw my email & wanted to meet with me. I gave my availability and the manager said he would get back to me with a day + time, and I never heard back from anyone. I did a follow up again to see what day the owner wanted to meet and again, never heard back from any one. Basically I was given the run around, and it became clear through words from the last manager i spoke to tonight that I wasn’t on the list of the owners priority. The sad part is I have supported this restaurant and have been a frequent customer often times bringing along my friends and family. To know that owners really don’t care about their customers and hide behind employees when customers reach out to the directly regarding contamination and negligence is very unprofessional and if I could give zero...