Noodles and Company — Restaurant in Maryland

Let me be clear, I would give this location a 0 if I could.

I have been a customer of the Hagerstown, Maryland Valley Mall Noodles and Company for 5 years, but tonight will definitely be my last visit. The short of it is that the customer service is garbage. I refuse to continue to patronize any business with my hard-earned money if the employees are going to make me feel like I am bothering them with my presence. As for this location, I learned long ago that when ordering food here I have to place the order in person or pick it up myself as nearly every delivery experience in the past has resulted in poor-quality food or missing items. That I can deal with, but what happened tonight, I cannot.

My family of three attended the Super Mario Bros. movie tonight (4/5/23), and decided to go here for dinner. As we approached the entrance at 9:25 PM, I saw a young woman mopping inside and asked her if they were closed. She told me that they closed at 10 PM. Since it was 9:25 I felt like 35 mins was plenty of time for a to-go order, so we walked inside to the counter.

There were four employees; three women working inside the kitchen, well within eyesight, and one in the lobby who already knew we were there. We waited about three mins or so for anyone to acknowledge us. To clarify, they saw us, but no one offered any assistance. After no one did, I called out to them to try and get some help. One of the women then asked the young woman in the lobby to help us. I now wonder if she already knew she would be the one tasked with operating the register. If so, she should have accompanied us when we walked in right past her. After about another minute or so, she reluctantly walks up to the counter to take our order, but not without making a snide face at one of the other women.

By this point, given the energies of the employees, I am about to just take my family and leave, but we decided to go ahead and order. We place our order, two orders of penne rosa pasta with parmesan-crusted chicken and a kid's spaghetti and meatballs. I then paid for our meals and, despite the overall lackluster demonstration of customer service, I still tipped on the bill. I now regret this.

When our food was done I said thank you to the young woman as she handed me the bag; she said nothing. I checked our food and noticed that my son's spaghetti and "meatballs" had no meatballs. I asked about this and was told that they didn't have meatballs after a certain time. hard sigh "Why didn't you tell me that when I ordered? Did I pay for meatballs, though?" I checked my receipt to find that I did in fact pay for spaghetti and meatballs. She asked one of the women if there were any in the back to which she said there were and returned with a small container that held two meatballs. I was glad about this because if there were none, I was going to leave the food on the counter and request a refund; I had had enough. I, again, thanked her; she, again, said nothing.

I can only assume that our presence upset them because they were already well into cleaning the kitchen and lobby, so to serve us meant they had dirty items that may have already been cleaned. Also, the loud unpleasant remarks made us feel uneasy just for being there. One lady, in particular, kept making statements regarding having to stay past closing and how she was leaving on time. Look, I get it! I understand the frustration of having to work past your assigned time. I don't know those women or any of their trips around the sun. Again, WE got there at 9:25, THEY closed at 10! I would fully understand the frustration if we came in at 9:50 or even 9:40, but there was an entire half-hour left.

The vibe was off from the very beginning, from the moment I spoke with the woman at the door until the time we left. I have worked in the service industry since the age of 15 years old. I understand when a customer comes in five minutes before closing asking you for the world, but this was not that occasion. We will not...

When I went into the restaurant, there was one other customer and about 7 workers. Nobody greeted us when we came in which was unlike Noodles and Company. Then, I went to the register to order and I stood there for a couple of minutes and nobody addressed me to take my order or to say, "They'll be over in a minute, etc." I proceeded to order my food and asked to add chicken to my dish, which was a $4.25 upcharge. Once I received my large pasta, I noticed my portion size was not as big as my companion's large pasta. I went up to the counter immediately after receiving my food to ask for a couple more toppings/vegetables since I paid extra for the chicken and my meal was pretty skimpy. The girl that took my bowl was super nice and was going to help me out. When she went in the back of the kitchen to do so, her manager approached her and spoke to her for at least three-four minutes. All of the other employees spoke in that group and I just stood there without being told anything. The nice worker came back and told me she unfortunately could not add anything to my meal without adding an up charge. However, she offered to remake it for me which 1.made no sense at all considering they said it was costly to add toppings, so how could they afford to make me a whole new meal? and 2. I did not want them tampering with my food or giving me less than I had to begin with. I told her that my sibling had the same size pasta as me, but his bowl was at least 3/4 full and mine was obviously half full. She asked if we ordered the same meal and when I said "No," she said “we have different ingredients.” Is that not why they are priced differently to begin with? If my bowl has "special ingredients,” then make mine more expensive, but give me the same proper amount a large sized bowl should have for ANY pasta! I ended up just taking my meal back and ate it as it was, but was extremely disappointed in the fact that I felt like I had no say as a customer and the manager could not talk to me himself or even acknowledge my concerns. Not to mention, I had to pay extra for the chicken but received fewer toppings and less pasta! I will not be returning to this Noodles & Company due to the lack of customer service, small portion sizes, and disrespect I felt from...

Not a great experience for our first try. Even trying to figure out which of the 3 trick doors got you into the serving line was a hassle, for us and for others we saw trying to get inside.

There's only 1 menu board and it's just inside the door for the serving line. So, there we were with 2 other families, all trying to be polite while squinting and trying to sort out the somewhat confusing menu in a very cramped and poorly-designed space. We thought they had take-out menus at the counter so we grabbed those, but they just turned out to be brag-pamphlets.

One family of 3 got their order in just before us. They were served in about 10 minutes. Our order took over 20 minutes and we were next to be served after them.

Meanwhile, while we waited we resorted to old-fashioned talking with each other - or at least we tried, the music was so loud and there's no ceiling, just trendy industrial overhead and the echo was ridiculous to the point of being painful.

The noodles were all clumped in a wad, usually a sign of over-cooking. Shrimp? How about a shrimpy serving of some small shrimp? The flavors seemed good in our noodle dishes, to the point where the Thai bowl was startlingly traditional Thai hot-pepper! The soups and salads were okay, but ridiculously small for the price. The Thai Basil soup was extremely sweet, even more so than the traditional Thai version.

They do have a small selection of bottled craft beers and wines (Dogfish Head 90 for instance).

As others have already mentioned, parking is ridiculously cramped and the parking lot is laid out in a mess. Even trying to figure out how to get into the place from the Valley Mall took some real twists and turns and probably incorrect turns at that. This location used to be a Shoney's and the parking was never a problem. Adding an oversized drive-thru lane for the adjoining Starbucks sure took away much of the available parking.

We'll give it one more try but we don't...