Paul's Deli & Neighborhood Restaurant — Restaurant in Virginia

We had the most seriously aggravating and traumatic dining experience and incident that could have been properly resolved on Sunday, May 26, 2024.

The dining incident involved a multitude of food errors to include lack of receiving some of the ordered food and expecting us to pay for food we never received because of their lack of service, server unresponsiveness, and manager’s rudeness, lack of professionalism, failure to address issues, and expectation that we were to pay for food not received and food not properly prepared.

The magnitude & intensity of this situation resulted in our families and manager, having the WJCC police to intervene in this matter, since Paul’s Deli does not have any customer service skills or problem resolution. They treated us as the problem.

My family, which includes my two children, ages 11 and 12, along with our friends, who have a 10 year old child, all experienced the same issues with the staff, particularly the manager’s lack of professionalism, pure disrespect, agitating demeanor, and failure to work through the issues in a professional manner.

This extremely poor and traumatic dining experience should have & could have been prevented or at a minimum, corrected at any point; however, the manager escalated the situation by failing to resolve or further correct the problems and instead put the blame on us. He demanded we pay for food we didn’t receive, along with food we could not eat and sent back, due to their errors, etc.

There are so many more details and concerns that go into this complaint, to included customers that heard all of it, to one customer that apparently had similar issues, but paid and posted a poor review afterwards. I will only highlight some of the errors, behaviors, & actions that caused and escalated this particular situation that night:

• After an extensive wait, we didn’t receive everyone’s full meals and some burgers came without their sides (fries, etc)-just a burger on the plate (the sides never came). No condiments for quite a while for burgers/chicken sandwich (yet he said we could eat it until they arrive), cool, not luke warm, but truly cool fries on one customer’s plate, and sauces on two salmon burgers that were specifically requested to cut out completely.

• When addressed, our server never returned and instead sent the manager, who later became condescending and walked away from us when we talked. The manager initially agreed to fix the two salmon dishes and get the sides that were missing. After an extensive wait, one side arrived, but not the others. Condiments arrived much later and the two salmon dishes he agreed to fix returned with no sauce on the salmon but on the plate coupled with the original cold, soggy, sauce and grease soaked bun, which was the original plate (photo below) because they just re-plated a salmon on top of our original plates. Sorry it’s hard to follow-so many issues.

• When I personally addressed this, he walked away from me, I got up to get his attention and had him feel the side item and showed him the sauce, which we could not have on the plate. He refused to fix the salmon, but offered to take the side back. We gave him back the two salmon dishes because we can not and do not want the sauces. He told us we’re paying for everything, so whatever we wanted to do, was fine, but we’re paying for it.

There is so much more but I know this is just a review. Please know I tried to contact the restaurant the next business day, only to get the same replies and when I requested to notify the owner, they said they’d pass my information and that’s all the could do. We’re all extremely appalled. We paid a compromised amount that night to get everyone home and diffuse the situation, but knew we’d follow up so the owner and managers would know. Thus...

BEWARE! We sat out on the patio around the circle table with the fire in the center on our way home from sports games with our kids and extended family, 9 total in our party. There are plenty of televisions with labels of what games are playing so you can watch your team. About 30 minutes after ordering our waiter brought out condiments and sat them around the table. About 20 minutes later the food arrived plates by plates, adults food last. I grab the ketchup by the neck to open for my daughters French fries and the ketchup explodes out all over my face, hair, clothes and I scream because it’s hot and inside of my eyes burning. I immediately grab my napkin off my lap and try to soak up ketchup from my face but I can’t open one eye so my husband rushes me across the entire restaurant while I can’t see. I rinse my eyes out for a few minutes, try to clean the sauce off my clothes + hair and return to the table. My husband tried to talk to the manager on duty to see if he could do anything to help get a wet cold cloth but he would not help and said all he could do was give a discount on food. He did not ask any details or how I/customer was doing after this frightening event. I have messaged the company privately and waited for a response, nothing this far. As a result i have a few splatter blisters on my face and healing areas from hot ketchup that exploded out of the bottle that was unknowingly being heated by the fire pit into a mini ketchup bomb. There should have never been a glass bottle of condiments but that close to the fire for almost 30 minutes. I would be careful when visiting this location. I did not have the pleasure of enjoying my food as this happened before my food came out! Also, the tea is not fresh brewed, it’s fountain drink tea, the Italian chicken philly is more of a saucy chicken breast sandwhich, the chicken is not philly style. Since we were taking out family to eat we were very clear that we were picking up the tab for the table, while trying to take care of my injury the waiter gave the tab to my younger pregnant brother and sister. This was an awful experience, with absolutely no care for a table of 9 with children and adults...

We experienced so many problems in one visit, so I list them first and then explain: tons of flies (see photos) we waited 1 hour for food some of us waited for another 15 minutes they forgot silver, plates, and napkins they forgot to bring non alcoholic drinks they didn't offer drinks for kids, which are included in the menu the table was dirty the food was not tasty

How is this even possible, you ask? I tell you the story. We visited the watercountry and decided to finish a good day in a restaurant - it is an important detail, you can imagine kids are exhausted and hungry. We asked to sit outside. The waiter took order, and after some time brought beers to those who ordered alcoholic drinks and nothing for others. And left for the next 50 minutes. 50 minutes fly fast when you have 3 irritated hungry kids arguing to each other and crying. Then he arrived like "How are you here?". We asked about food, and in 10 more minutes (60 minutes from the order time), the food appeared... For all except one. No napkins and no non-alcoholic drinks that we ordered an hour ago. Ok, he said, "we'll bring with the rest of the food" and left... and they didn't bring! So for several times we had to go inside, find someone, ask what we need. Eventually, we got silver, napkins, and drinks, but it was 20 minutes after the food, 90 minutes after the order, and close to 2 hours since we entered the restaurant.

And there were flies. Tons of flies. They were everywhere. Perhabs, you think it was our mistake to ask to sit outside. But hey! The host could say, "There are flies outside." it would be enough. They could bring the food earlier (there were no flies the first 30 minutes), they could put fans, they could... care - the waiter saw what is happening with the food, with the table, with us, and did nothing, said nothing.

The food was not tasty, btw. The meat was OK, but the sides were meh. E.g. bitter oil fries. Sour orzo. Overcooked...