Pho Palace — Restaurant in Philadelphia

07/20/24 Please check your bill before you pay because they are adding automatic tipping without your permission. They say it's THEIR POLICY but that's illegal. I have no issue tipping but it being added automatically to your bill and then when you leave your being harrassed for another tip is insane. I've been going here for a couple of years but haven't been there in a while. The server was pleasant, but the experience turned sour. The noodle amount for the pho was halved from my last visit. I was done with my noodles within 5 bites. ( I barely eat a lot due to nausea) We were finishing our food, and my husband went to pay for our food with cash because the menu says if you pay cash, you get a 5% discount. If the math was correct, our order should have been $55 to $57 by current menu prices. When he paid, the total was $67 (in cash), and I didn't think anything of it. We ordered a sandwich and a coffee to go, (which was included already in the total bill). As we walked up waiting for our to go food at the pick up station, the lady with the short curly hair was so rude and being loud on purpose for the whole restaurant to hear. She asked if we paid already, and we replied yes. (as if she didn't see my husband 5 minutes ago pay who was next to me) She then replied, "You didn't pay tip, so she pulled up our order again." I went to see the screen on cash register, and it said $57 total, so how did he ended up paying $67 instead of the price that was rung up on her own cash register? (Of course, she didn't give us a receipt, but a $10 tip was already added without our permission or knowledge until we came home and calculated). We told her we we're going to pay a $10 tip with our card because we didn't have any more cash on hand but she was giving us a hard time saying she can't do it because there was a $15 fee if we pay with card. We told her to add an item worth $5 to reach the $15 limit, but she refused to do so. We asked for a refund so we can pay the amount we already paid earlier plus tip by card, and she refused that too and wanted us to pay on the card without refunding our cash. My husband and daughter went to the car and found $10 and we gave it to her and then handed me my sandwich and coffee as she was holding it hostage till we paid the tip. Even when she was handing me my coffee she asked if I wanted it strong and I said yes she walked to the counter with my coffee then back to the register then did that movement twice and did nothing because the lid was on the coffee cup and she never opened it. She finally handed me my cup, and I finally left after all that. So they got a $20 tip out of us from the unconsented $10 added on my bill plus the cash I handed to her. We will not be returning!

10/03/25 There was 3 people in my party including myself and a small child which means your "LARGE PARTIES" claim doesn't apply to us. Instead of replying with concerns or accountability for this restaurant practices your defending these actions. You truly don't care for the customers. You want to claim this automatic gratuity is standard practice and I will inform you again it's NOT! IT'S ILLEGAL and I was never informed like your're claiming. I eat out mutiple times a week and never have this issue! The dimsum store next to you guys I went to eat there too recently and guess what these practices of gratuity you claim is done everywhere is not there. You read many similar reviews and as I see each one who complains about that lady on the cash register gets a reply back to. Focus and address the problem every customer upset about Instead of defending her aggressive behavior. We came to enjoy the food not get robbed at each corner we make in that restaurant. PS: SLOW DOWN on chatgpt your copying and pasting a lot nothing with...

The food is good here, but the service is horrible, especially the owner.

I ordered for pick up, chicken pho. I requested NO onion, NO scallion, No cilantro, No veggie. I mentioned it multiple times this time to make sure the noodle is plain due to previous mistakes. When i got home, the noodle has a lot of scallion. My kids hates the smell, i dont like it either. Even by reboiling the noodle the smell still there. This is the third times it happened to my order.

The first time we end up throwing away the noodle and just eat the soup.

*The second time we call them and the cashier told me they will give me a new one the next time i order.

Then I order and try to claim my store credit. Then the owner said, "okay we will give you the just the noodle because the broth was correct" I was like whaaat? 😯

They put me on hold but i can hear the cashier and the owner were discussing it in their language, finally the cashier took over the phone and told me that they will make a new one for me and apologize for the mistake.

The third time is a charm! 😁 I called the store and the cashier told me to just come back to get a new noodle. (Yea, like i live next to the store) I cannot go back to the store again, i dont live near the store. I asked for a refund as i do not want to deal with the owner like last time. Then the owner offer me a free noodle for the next time i order and told me to wash the noodle with hot water and eat them. She even said: "i did it for my kids all the time and my kids said mmm mommy so yummy" The problem is, my order was made incorrectly.

To the owner of pho palace, when a customer order food from your restaurant. We would like to enjoy the food the way we order it on the day we order the food. Not enjoying partial of the food one day and the other part on a different day when we...

Usually food and service are great but we got take out last night, January 1st '18, and it was so bad I had to write a review. I was shocked at how bad it was considering they are usually so good, we drive 20 minutes out of our way to get it. The order was small and simple, just two orders of pho, something we've had many times with no problem. The restaurant was not excessively busy to contribute to the class of such a poorly done order going out. I don't know what went wrong. The usually full containers of broth were barely half filled. There were giant chunks of green onion thrown into the bowls of noodles which were too overpowering in the soup, every bite I had a huge piece and it was all I could taste. The most surprising issue was that they completely forgot to provide Thai Basil with the sprouts and jalapenos, and the lime wedges were too dried out to squeeze any juice out of them. And there were no complimentary chopsticks thrown in the bag as usual. I was thoroughly disappointed with this visit and utterly shocked at the number of issues. I noticed they changed the color of the take out bowls from White to Black and I swore my SO was lying when he insisted he did get the food from Pho Palace. I really believed there was no way they could have so many issues in one order when we had never had a single complaint prior. Management should look at what went wrong on this particular date because the number of issues I had with this meal is enough to make me look elsewhere. Did someone take over recently, was there some Thai Basil shortage after the holidays, was it a new cook that didn't know how much broth to provide in a take out order, did they run out of chopsticks? What happened on...