Teabreak Pho & Boba Sterling — Restaurant in Virginia

My review is not about the food, the place or the employees, it’s about how rude and arrogant the owner was to me, and for this reason, I will never visit this place ever again. Luckily, there are several other good Vietnamese restaurants in Sterling for me to go to. If this is how he treats customers, I can only imagine how he treats his employees. This is a place five minutes walking distance from my home so I have visited here at least 30 times within the last few years. I’m a vegetarian so whenever I get the tofu bahn mi, I make sure to request that there is no pate inside of it because this has happened three times in the past. Even after I requested no pate, pate was still accidentally put in. This is fine because I understand mistakes happen, I did not mind and continue to visit the place but I make sure to request multiple times that they ensure no pate is in it. Yesterday I ordered my usual tofu sandwich and when I was picking up the food, I politely asked to confirm that there was no pate in it. The owner who was there said pate does not get put in tofu bahn mi anyway. And I said that’s not true because this has happened to me three times in the past. To which the owner responded that he comes to the restaurant every single day from morning to late, but he has never seen me there before. And he repeated this several times. He was implying that I’m lying about having pate on my food because he has not seen me there meaning I have never been there before. I had my hood on and a mask on, the only exposed part of my face were my eyes, Im not sure how he can say he has never seen me before because he can’t even see my face to know who I am. I then pulled out my credit card statement and showed him that just on one single credit card, there are about 20+ charges from Tea Break and I have more on another card and sometimes I use a family member’s card to order. I also have it delivered, and sometimes someone else will come and pick it up, I am not the only one always picking up from there. Just because he has never seen me there, that does not mean I have never been there. I even have pictures from the past on my phone of a tofu sandwich from there that had pate on it which I took to show them as proof (back then) but I did not have time for back-and-forth argument and to show him all of this. Once I showed him the credit card statement, he just brushed it off and made an excuse that he was only saying he has never seen me before. But, why would he say multiple times that he has never seen me before although he is there every every single day from morning to late as a response to me saying I have had pate on my bahn mi before? The two statements have nothing to do with one another, except for the fact that he was trying to tell me that I’m lying. I left the place incredibly shocked and appalled and this unpleasant interaction ruined my whole day. I will not be returning to a place where I am disrespected for no good reason, simply for trying to politely verify that my order is correct, because I have received incorrect orders before. I have never had the owner of any place speak to me with such a nasty attitude.

Ive read other reviews and I’m not the only one the owner was rude to. Other customers have complained...

We have been dining here for a while now. The food is always consistent and very good. The dining area is very small so the restaurant is often full. The staff which all seem to be young college students are friendly and pretty efficient at turning tables around to seat people that are waiting to dine in. They are also very attentive to requests that customers have.

The only reason I'm giving this place 3 stars instead of 5 is the male owner/manager who works the front of the restaurant...I think his name is Khai, always seems stressed out and angry.

His stress levels and angry disapproving looks at the dining area really kills the vibe of the place when he is shouting orders at his staff in a pretty degrading/condescending manner and micromanaging their every action. He is like the grim reaper of the restaurant.

His interactions with customers needs work too. I have witnessed on more than one occasion where he would rather "be right" and prove to the customer that they are "wrong and stupid" in front of everyone rather than letting things go. He will argue for things like asking for extra utensils or condiments or even just a plain miscommunication between him and the customer. He talks to people like they are all dumb toddlers. You can tell when speaking with him that there is a language barrier, so miscommunications are to be expected. That's fine. But how he handles those issues is the problem.

On one instance, he had an issue with a customer who clearly was trying to be polite while talking to him. He calmly resolved the matter and the customer left. He was correct in that verbal exchange but then after the customer left, he looked over at people that were already dining--all the while shaking his head disapprovingly at the customer that just left--and explained to the customer dining in why he was right and the customer that just left was wrong. Why do you think that the people dining in care about your little argument with other patrons? Keep that to yourself! That's just unprofessional!

I understand that this is a fast paced quick eats place but this man's attitude and his desire to always be right and prove to himself, his staff, and his customers, that his logic is always flawless and correct, really kills the atmosphere. He should either take a lesson from this review and change his attitude and management approach, or just work in the kitchen and make food. I am surprised the waitstaff put up with him for so long--I guess they are too scared to say anything to him for fear of losing their jobs. Seeing the way he talks to people I hope he changes how he treats everyone, but I fully expect him to dismiss this review and even try to remove it. Do better, Khai. And smile a little, dude. It's not that serious. I remember a long time ago when you used to smile. You've changed. And it's making everyone...

Food Quality: It's not bad, but also not so great that it stands out from the other 7-8 Vietnamese restaurants in the area.

Service: This is why this place gets a 1-star rating from me (3 for the food, minus 2 for the service). Since the start of the pandemic, takeout and delivery were the only options available for this place. That's perfectly okay. What is not okay is not letting the customer know that their order is ready, especially if they're just standing outside the glass door of the restaurant waiting. Was it really that much of an effort to simply open the door and say "you're order's ready"? I ordered main menu items and waited 40 minutes, which by then, had become somewhat irate enough to walk in to ask why it's taking so long, only to find out that my order was just sitting on the takeout area, and it had gone cold. Customer service is not Teabreak's strong suit, but it gets progressively worse each time. This last experience made me decide not to give them anymore chances to improve. There dozens of other similar restaurants clustered in the area.

Message to the people who run this place: please don't say "we'll let you know when your order is ready" when you actually won't. And to think that I even left a generous 20% tip with my payment, even if it were just a takeout order, to help support local businesses. Just in case you still haven't gotten the message why these 1-star reviews keep showing up, it's not you doing the customers a favor - it's the other way around; the customers are the ones helping your business exist. Maybe it will be in your best interest to treat...