Pho Village — Restaurant in Woodbury

UPDATE: 10-24-25. Corey Johnson reached out to me to apologize and clear up the issue regarding my refund. For this I will be changing my review rating of Pho Village to satisfactory. However I felt overall Pho Village can better serve their customers still by improving the quality of their service which hopefully with some time will change for the better.

PREVIOUS REVIEW: Beware before you make any online orders with them. If they don't have the food you ordered you may be stuck with a similar issue as me here.

I had a poor experience dealing with their customer service & online food ordering system directly from their own website. I had ordered 2 Banh Mi sandwiches online and paid for it online to which I got a call back immediately telling me they cannot fulfill the order due to that they are all out of sandwiches for that day. I was told the order would be cancelled and I would get a refund. Two days later the transaction posted to my credit card account and no refund. I attempted to resolve the issue by calling Pho Village to where I got put on hold and forgotten about for over 15mins as you can clearly hear the chatter and noise from the restaurant as it seems the phone is just sat down with the line open. I had to hang up and call back after several failed attempts was finally able to get through and spoke with a Manager who said he would get it taken care of and I should see a refund charge back within 30min. I was then put on another brief hold with the phone disconnecting on me a minute or two later? I waited the whole day and nothing. I called back later in the evening and was given the run around with no one wanting to take responsibility or being able to confirm a refund was initiated. Manager was not around now. I was passed off to another employee who claimed they cannot find my order in their system and in order to resolve the issue I would have to call the person of the company they hired for their 3rd party ordering system from their own website to resolve the order myself which made absolute zero sense? If this was the case then why did the Manager I talked to earlier in the day said he would take care of it? Now I have to do their job for them to get my own refund? I tried politely as possible and wanted to give pho village a chance to resolve and clarify the issue but I felt all I got was confusion from them and run around of not taking responsibility for their online ordering system. I will be contacting my credit card company to resolve the dispute for what I was billed for and didn't received to get my refund. Pho village please do better. I enjoyed your food in the past but the poor service I got...

I’ve tried many pho restaurants in Minnesota, and on Sunday, August 10, I visited Pho Village. Here is my review:

Experience: This was the first time I went to a restaurant where the head chef came out to talk to us. He looked very young, probably around 19 or 20. He didn’t say what his position was, but based on the way he dressed—black trousers and a stylish turtleneck sweater instead of a staff uniform—and the fact that we didn’t often see him outside, I believe he was most likely the chef. More importantly, he genuinely cared about the customers. He asked us very detailed questions about the food: Was it sour, spicy, salty, or sweet? Did the pho broth have a noticeable beef aroma without being too salty or too sweet? Did the lemongrass in the bun bo hue overpower other flavors? Was the grilled meat tender and juicy enough? This was very different from the usual, simple “Everything good?”—something we’ve heard hundreds of times before, which usually just makes you say “Good” to end the conversation. If he really was the head chef, then this was quite an interesting experience.

Service: We had to wait almost 40 minutes for our food, which was honestly disappointing. However, I understand that soft openings are often challenging for any restaurant, so I hope they can improve this in the future.

Flavor: I tried the pho, bun bo hue, and com tam. Everything was quite good overall, but the restaurant seemed to lean a bit toward sweetness—the pho, bun bo hue, and fish sauce were sweeter than my personal preference. That said, the portions were generous and the prices were reasonable.

Overall: Even though the wait was long, the meal was satisfying, and having the head chef personally check on us made the experience much...

My wife and I had been looking forward to checking out Pho Village since it was newly opened, and I have to say, the first impression caught us off guard. From the outside, it looked average, but once we stepped inside, it was a whole different story. The decor had an upscale feel without being stuffy, and it gave a nice vibe.

We showed up just before the dinner rush, so there were only a few tables occupied, and we were seated right away. Our server, Juni, was kind, attentive, and on top of things from start to finish. We ordered shrimp egg rolls to start, which came out hot and crisp with great flavor. My wife and sister both went for the Bun Bo Hue, which they liked, though they mentioned it was a bit on the sweet side.

I ordered vermicelli noodles with chicken and shrimp. Since they'd only been open three days, Juni let me know the grilled chicken wasn't ready, but she checked with the kitchen to see if they could make it anyway. They agreed, which I appreciated, but when the dish came to the table, the chicken had very little flavor, and there were only three shrimp in the whole dish. That was a disappointment, especially since other Vietnamese restaurants I've frequented are much more generous with the shrimp.

The manager stopped by, offered to take 15% off, and then came back a few minutes later to remove the entree from my bill altogether. He apologized and said they would make sure the chicken is marinated and ready next time. I also wanted to point out that , I was a little disappointed to find out they don't serve chicken banh mi, only pork or cold cuts, but the atmosphere and service were both spot on. We'll definitely be back to give them another try once they've gotten their processes...