Pei Wei Asian Kitchen — Restaurant in Tempe

I like Pei Wei, but this location is a complete disaster. We were picking up an order for teachers at my kids' school. As teachers, they have a very limited window of time to eat lunch (11:30-11:50 in this case). I needed to leave their restaurant by 11:20 to ensure they had their food in time to eat.

At 10:45am (when Pei Wei opens) we tried to place an online order, but couldn't find anywhere to select gluten free. So we tried to call in the order instead. We called constantly from 10:45 - 10:57, but the phone was never answered. At 10:50 I got nervous about the food being ready in time, so I drove in to place the order in person to ensure it wouldn't be late. I arrived at 10:58. I was the only person in the entire store, but the crew seemed busy working on orders. I stood at the register until 11:04 when someone finally came to the register to take my order. It was a pretty simple order, 4 common entrees. I explained my time constraint at this time - indicating I needed to leave by 11:15 or I wouldn't make it in time. If they couldn't get it done by 11:15, I'd rather know now so I have 10 minutes to try to find something else. They assured me it would be ready. At 11:17, I signaled the manager and told him that I literally have 1 minute to leave. At this time he told me that they hadn't even started my order and wouldn't be able to start it until their other orders were complete. So I had to leave immediately to try to find a plan B. All around it was a completely...

I was hesitant in leaving this review since Pei Wei in general is a decent restaurant chain and generally does well with service. But after reading the reviews, I was glad to see I am not alone. I can attest to all the bad reviews. Especially the bird poop! Super nasty. I just wonder why the reviews don't have photos, cause this really needs to be seen. Also. This. Place. Is dirty af. I don't know what it is about this location, but it is always dirty and super inconsistent with its food freshness, quality, and taste. It's a miss. I read a review where they mentioned they would start going to the Ray location instead of this one. My thoughts exactly. I really thought I was alone on this and was being too much of a critic, but again, glad I am not alone on this. The place is dirty. The food is inconsistent. A month ago I remember they ran out of food at 7pm! It was crazy. Honestly, it was a bit apocalyptic to where I went home thinking about how I really need to have an emergency food storage plan. For real. But. How does a mega restaurant chain run out of food at 7pm? There was no silverware that night also. It was cray. I really think this Pei Wei only profits because of its location, not its service. The location is super convenient to where the location will always beat out the lack of quality. An extreme oversight to a problem that needs to be fixed. If you have an appetite that you want to satisfy, you're rolling the dice at...

Oh no! What happened to Pei Wei? The chicken used to be tender chunks of chicken, now it is flavorless strips of what I guess is chicken?? If you are going to advertise that your chicken is "Wei" better than a competitor's chicken, you better be able to back it up. Did a phone order for pickup and arrived 20min later on Friday night, told would be 2 minutes for white rice....no biggie. Few minutes and some chaos behind the counter later, was told 10more minutes for white rice on the second entree. No biggie, I'll take brown rice. Go home, brown rice on side, cool. The dish that received white rice had completely uncooked white rice in bottom...super small grains that crucnched when chewed. Put it in some boiling water to let it fluff up, but only helped a bit because the Pei Wei spicy chicken was so dry and crispy it was like chicken jerky covered in sauce. Ugh. I give up on you Pei Wei, first you get rid of those wonderful potstickers, and now you reduce your once tender chicken chunks to thin, overcooked slices of pseudo-chicken. This is not an isolated incident either, previous chicken order since you revamped your menu was also overcooked. You need more thickness of chicken when you stir fry.. Wok 101. Stay far 'a-Wei' from this joint unless you enjoy their weird new pad Thai noodle & Vietnamese soup nonsense. Why did Pei Wei get in the way of its own success? You used to be such a powerhouse dinner and lunch...