Happy Dragon Mongolian BBQ — Restaurant in Medford

Love the food and have always had a decent experience here. I’m usually not one you have to do too much to please. The minute my daughters and I were preparing our bowls. I felt like I was being watched! Yup sure enough I was I heard the manager yell out 3 so far at that table! She meant that we were over packing our bowls! Which I should have taken pictures! But mind you the kid bowls are so tiny! All my girls ever get is basically all noodles! And like 5 pieces of meat! Anyways i usually myself grab a good amount of noodles to share with my little ones. Keep in mind their bowls are pretty small. At least compared to other Mongolian places I have been to! By the time I add all my veggies and meat my bowl is full I have no space for noodles so yeah I have to pack it on top of everything else which is gonna make it look like a lot but basically it’s mostly noodles! Anyways I was over charged $15 more for my 5 year olds and 8 years olds plate! Also I’ve never been to a restaurant where I can’t opt out of not getting my kids a plate and sharing my food with them! Since we all know how little kids eat!!! I was forced to get both a plate of their own, They couldn’t share! I have never felt so uncomfortable while eating at a restaurant! The manager and waitress of course paid attention to how we served our plate but didn’t bother to come give us refills! I wouldn’t have mind if they gave only my plate the over charge of $5 but the fact that they gave it to all 3 plates when my kids all they had was mostly noodles was what pissed me off! Also you can’t be so picky if you have a all you can eat option!! How is it that you can pay $15.95 for all you can eat? But your one time thru you can’t pack your food because your gonna be over charged! Please make it make sense!! When I asked the gal why my kids bowls where $25.95 she said let me get your waitress. She went to tell her to the back and the manager comes out because obviously she knew we where gonna ask! The manager comes up acting clueless like she didn’t know what she was needed for! She goes ya did you guys need help? I proceed to ask her about my kids bowls and she goes oh ya because they were over packed! I told her ya mainly with noodles! She’s like ya it doesn’t matter. She asks me if I want a bag for my stuff! And goes to place my stuff in a bag she feels one of the boxes full that I had packed with the left over rice my kids didn’t eat so of course rice and my left overs was gonna make my box heavy! She makes the smart comment of see these are so full you will have enough...

I’ve been coming here for over a decade, and while ownership has changed.

Food Quality: Overall the quality of food is better now than it has ever been.

Business Model: Customers can order a children’s one-time bowl for $7.95 (dine in only), an adult medium bowl, all you-can-eat for $14.95 (dine in only), or adult large one-time bowl for $14.95 dine in or to go).

This business model is restrictive and requires the dine in customer to know and report to the server upon seating plans of one time or all-you-can-eat. While I understand that it is designed to reduce waste using a medium size bowl, I’d like to recommend a much simpler, and more flexible model that is customer friendly and mainstream in the business. Recommendation: (1) Have only the large bowl and small bowl. (2) taking home is not allowed past 1st bowl. Subsequent refills must use the small bowl. This eliminates waste, keeps the price structure the same, keeps flexibility for customers.

Another pain point in the business model is prohibiting sharing while dining in, even for one-time bowl purchases. Many adults, senior citizens, and / or kids do not eat a full serving and will not likely eat a lot of leftovers. Ultimate this means that a customer can order to go and eat in their car to accomplish sharing, but not take the exact same portion and sit inside. This causes a great inconvenience for customers and also ignores the fact that a lot of money is made on drinks, tips, etc. which is easy profile lost to the business. Recommendation: allow sharing, as this will actually increase revenue and customer satisfaction. If you feel a few must be charged to allow sharing, that would be an alternative that at least allows the option, although is not a customer popular model.

Hopefully these are two simple changes that could be made, which would greatly improve the business model here, and then they would have have quality, maximal profit, and maximal customer satisfaction for a triple win. Sadly, our family cannot further be patrons based on the...

First time at Mongolian Grill. Was fun stacking my bowl with a bunch of yummy foods and the chefs were very nice but the hostess definitely killed the experience for me. She asked if it was my first time there and I said yes and that I didn’t know how any of it worked. So she told me to go to the bar and stack it high because it shrinks down which was great advise because it does. She asked if I wanted rice which I assumed was complimentary because she knew it was my first time and did not tell me it was an expensive extra charge for such a small thing of not that great of quality rice. There were no large bowls either so had to stick with a medium size which was fine but a little annoying. Sat down and ate for about 30 minutes and during that whole time I did not see my waitress once I’m not sure where she went to. And it wasn’t busy either there was only 2 other tables with people on our side and they weren’t being served either. Me and my date both were out of water within the first 5 minutes and we had spicy ingredients so for the rest of the time we were dying. I got up and walked around looking for a water jug or something to see if customers just served themselves water but couldn’t find it anywhere. With still no sign of our waitress we figured we just go up to the register and within a couple seconds another waitress who was on the other side of the restaurant I assume came up and asked if we had our ticket we said no because we don’t even know where our waitress went so she went to try to find her. After a minute our waitress came up and apologized and cashed us out. She even had to ask what type of bowls we had because she never went to our table. Was a shame because the food was dang good but sadly the service was just a no go. Prices were as expected a little on the higher end but it’s kind of fun dishing up your own food and seeing it get cooked. But I’m on the edge to see if I want to return or not. Food good but not sure if I want to put up with that service...