Habit Burger & Grill — Restaurant in Poway

I really like the food at The Habit, and the strawberry limeade is to die for, but today I had a really bad experience with this particular location that may have turned me off for good.

At around 7:15 pm today [a Sunday] I used The Habit's online order system to place an order for pick up. My order was accepted, my credit card was charged and I received a confirming text. As I arrived at the location, I received another text telling me my food was ready.

You could imagine my suprise then and my shock [dare I say, anger] when I went to open the doors and found them locked!

There were employees inside but they ignored me and my knocking and continued to clean until one person mouthed at me that they were closed and shooed me away with his hands. This was of course a suprise because I had paid for the food and was told it would be there. And the hours on the door said open until 10pm. But the closed sign was jn fact put up. No sign about staffing or other issues though, just a locked door

Indeed I was not alone, another customer also came by with the same issue, fullybpaid and acknowledged order and closed locked restaurant. I protested quite loudly that they had taken my money and I would like to be acknowledged but was ignored by all inside including the ostensible manager in her grey shirt who never looked up from her cleaning. Nor did the blue shirted emoyees or the black t shirt wearing cooks offer me so much as glance after that flippant dismissal.

This is, without question, the rudest treatment I have ever experienced at a restaurant.

Its one thing to close early due to staffing issue or problems with supply ir maybe even the physical plant. But there were 5 people in that restaurant cleaning amd no indication anything was amiss.

Most importantly;: YOU TOOK MY MONEY AND CHARGED MY CARD!!

This is an unacceptable way to treat your customers. Its rude, rude, rude. I dont mind if you have to close but don't take my order and my money and then tell me to come get my food because it is ready, when in fact you are closed. If you can't understand how dismissive and rude this is and how direpected it makes one feel, then you have no business working in the service industry.

I drove 15 minutes to another location and was well treated [my children were expecting their favorite food and I did not want to let them down]. So I know it can actually be avoided. The Habit can and has done better than this. But tonight was simply the worst.

I was so happy when this Poway location opened as it is much closer to my house. Now I am sad because it is closer and I still will have to drive farther away or avoid The Habit altogether. If this is how I will...

I was very disappointed, frustrated, and quite frankly angry with the manager with how she handled customers who were locked outside of the store with questions.

I ordered my food on the Habit app and it texted me saying that my order was being prepared and then ready for pickup. I was coming from a 2 hour drive back home and to my surprise, I came to a store that had locked doors and the crew was already cleaning up. I tried to get someone in the store to come let me know how to get a refund. They all kept giving me signals that the store was closed. I could obviously see that but I wanted my money back. It was not until the employee taking out the trash came by the front that I explained to him what happened and he grabbed his manager. The exact lady who refused to come see me. I could see her shaking her head and rolling her eyes at me. I’ve never had this situation happen and it was very rude how I was being ignored. It was a simple question she could have answered and I would have been on my merry way.

I understand that in these times there may be understaffing but if you close the store early, don’t let customers buy food on the app. There was no sign on the doors of an early closure, nothing on Google saying the store was closed. I saw 2 other customers at the door in my situation at that time. The manager of course ignored them as well and would not offer an explanation. I already emailed and sent a follow up to customer care a week ago and I still have not received my refund. Frustrating that it takes this long to hear from someone to get my money back when other stores do it in store, on the spot - regardless if it is an in app purchase or physical purchase.

I was excited that a closer Habit was coming in but after this experience, I’m not sure when I will...

This restaurant is so slow!!!! and when I was there, one man had been waiting for a long time and they gave his food to somebody else. I was there waiting for over 10 minutes, and 1 employee helped me but hardly spoke any English. She did not tell me how long the order would take, and the manager said when it's ready, the to go orders will be put it on that shelf and walked away, he never even acknowledged how long it was going to be until the order was ready. They have one very friendly young man at the register by himself having to take orders and then put together orders. I would rather go to The Habit in Carmel Mountain, which I did end up going to get my food, because they are quick and they are friendly. The people in Poway well they don't speak English hardly rude and they're not ever getting my business again!! Hire nice people, give people wait times, and make sure you're giving food to the right people just believing somebody actually did order the bag that you just pushed on the side on the counter because that poor young man he was sitting with his friends at a table and they were almost done with their food and they ordered at the same time and the manager said that they must have given the order to someone else yeah I would not trust this...