Veranda Thai Cuisine — Restaurant in Portland

We went to this restaurant three times in three weeks. And, we excited to keep trying new food on the menu. Their food is really good. The food is piping hot, fresh, generous and tasty.

Customer service problem

(A Saturday or Sunday) Visit 1 - Ordered spring rolls ($8) + a curry with chicken ($15) = $23 + $1.84 tax = 24.84 and tipped about $3-$4. No issues. Two waitresses waited on us, including the waitress in visit 2 and 3. No issues.

(The following Thursday) Visit 2 - Ordered beef satay ($8) + another curry with chicken = $23 + $1.84 tax = $24.84 and tipped $3.16. I tendered a $10 and a $20 and said, "Please give me $2 back" and held up 2 fingers like I do in noisy places. During this meal we ask for extra bowls to eat the rice and curry with.

During visit #2 we overheard a couple at the next table looking at their Pad Thai say, "This pad thai has chicken. We told her we didn't want any chicken." They had the same waitress we did and they did not say anything. When they got their bill, I overheard the woman say to her husband, "She charged us extra for extra chicken!". They didn't say anything to the waitress and paid the bill.

(One week later, a Thursday - today) On visit #3, the waitress, who was the same one we had for visit 2, seems overwhelmed with take out order phone calls and is abrupt with us taking our order and snaps at us. We order $15 curry + Rice $3 = $19.45. I pay with a larger bill and get no $1 bills with my change. I was going to tip $3.55 but need some ones as I only had $5, $10 and $20. There are other people in the restaurant and people coming and going picking up orders. I finally get her attention ask her to give me five ones for my $5 bill. She refuses. She then goes onto say very loudly, "Last time you were in here you only tipped $2. That tells us you think we have bad service. We work hard on our orders and you only tipped $2." The kitchen staff has stopped working and is looking out into the dining area and the other table can hear her yelling at us. We are confused. I know we didn't tip $2. I've never been called out for not tipping or low tips before. My wife says, "You must have us confused with someone else. We have not tipped you $2 in the past." She interrupts, "You were in here last Friday (Not true we were in on Thursday) and you only tipped $2. I remember. I work all the time and have perfect memory. I gave you bowls to eat out of. I swear on (forgot what she said) that you only tipped $2. I tell the truth." She's so angry. Speaking loudly.

She's wrong. Now we know why she was snippy with us taking the order. She literally won't give us change for a $5 and at this point, we aren't feeling like giving a tip.

Shocked, we walk out of the restaurant, no tip, to get an ice-cream at Beals. We are wondering "What just happened?"

Then, I remember that the last visit #2 we said after handing her $30, "Just give us $2 in change" and held up 2 fingers, she must have somehow misinterpreted that as "you only get $2" even though her tip was over $3. We always try to just have them give us even number change back to make the tip process easy.

Just like, when the other table said, "No chicken" she somehow heard "chicken" and gave them extra chicken and charged them for that.

We aren't sure what to do. On the one hand, we could talk to the owner and possibly explain that what the waitress did was kind of crazy.

I'd say 90% of the orders in that restaurant are takeout...maybe getting yelled at by a waitress leads people to want to get their food and split. Literally, people pre-pay and the bags are set on a table by the door and people just grab their food and take off.

It's too bad that it was such a nice evening and the food was so nice. It's very likely we won't go back. That was very...

The food was half decent, but I found the experience profoundly frustrating, as I arrived around 11:55am to an empty restaurant with my one friend. We were seated by a frowning young woman who wouldn't even look at us nor respond to anything we communicated (and no, it was not a language barrier issue as she clearly spoke english to her friends), and it was nearly 35 minutes before we were asked to order (by the owner who had to do the waitress' job as she ignored us for almost the entire time) and even longer (at least 10 minutes) for a glass of water. The waitress we had seated a couple of her friends who came in a few minutes after us and immediately served them smiling and happy. As the restaurant filled, more and more people were served and had their orders taken and filled before us and I became more and more agitated. Had it not been a meal that I was treated to for my birthday by my friend who accompanied me, I would have walked out within 10 minutes of that kind of service. Maybe I came on a bad day for that waitress, which, while I do have empathy for, still, in a professional setting is unacceptable to project onto the customers, especially when she turned around and was so kind and responsive to others. Unfortunately, but maybe fortunately for them, this will be the very last time I go there or to veranda st. in general if I...

The food and the dine-in service are fantastic. One quandary that the owners will have to resolve is the problem of where the carry-out delivery driver must stand as they wait for the Door Dash order to be packaged.

Covid brought on this boom of take-out, but for the few patrons that do choose to dine-in, when seating is sufficient, one has to attempt to enjoy their meal while delivery drivers stare at your table while they wait for their order to be cooked and compiled into a bag.

No one wants to eat for an audience. It doesn't take away from the quality of the food, so I still recommend the restaurant. However, I must have seen, easily, 12 different Door Dash drivers come in, stand, wait, and stare while my cluster of friends and I attempyed to enjoy our selections. A very strange experience, and definitely not what I paid for. Good for the restaurant that delivery business is booming, but an significant irritation for dine-in patrons. The weather is warming up, so one can only hope the owners boot the drivers outside while they wait for pick-up orders.

The staff are always great, and they deserve to have one more in their number because the dinner rush warrants it. But we all know restaurateurs try to run operations as lean...