08/05/2026
This a long read, read at your own risk. ☺️
Hello everyone! We want to take a moment to express our deepest gratitude to our community for supporting Pad & Pho.
As a new business, we are still very much in our adjustment stage. We are constantly learning, and we want to sincerely apologize to anyone who has experienced longer wait times or service hiccups recently.
Last Wednesday, one of our staff members was sick, leaving us unexpectedly short-handed, and we deeply appreciate the support and patience you showed us.
I was personally unable to be there to oversee the floor that day, as alongside running this small business, I also work full-time as an Operations Director for a US company.
Your patronage means everything to us so we have a humble request. If you ever have a less-than-good experience with us, please reach out to us directly before leaving a 1-star review. You can message our social media pages or speak directly to our staff.
My beau and I (the owners) pride ourselves on being approachable and always ready to listen. If we are in the wrong, we will always apologize and make amends. We love traveling and hunting for new food spots ourselves, and we know firsthand that not every place gets it right 100% of the time.
However, we never leave a damaging review without giving the establishment a chance to make it right first or we just don’t go back to that place again.
Simply because we understand how hard business owners work to protect their ratings and livelihoods.
We only hope for that same consideration from all of you.
Recently, we received a pair of 1-star reviews from a single table. While they raised valid points about our service that we take to heart, they also contained unfair claims about our food and pricing that we respectfully need to address:
• We fully accept that we had shortcomings with the order in which food was served, and we take responsibility for that mix-up.
During our busiest rushes, it causes a bit of confusion in the kitchen when eager guests bypass the waiting area and grab unassigned tables, as we can only process dine-in orders once customers are officially seated. However, we hear your feedback loud and clear. We are actively fixing our ordering system.
• One review claimed our food is microwaved, perhaps out of frustration over the wait time or whatever reason they have. We want to assure you that my sister, our chef, cooks every single dish fresh to order.
We will never compromise our quality by taking shortcuts with a microwave. Because everything is prepared fresh from scratch, wait times will naturally increase during peak hours, especially when there are orders queued ahead of yours.
• Both their reviews stated that a meal at our shop costs ₱500–₱1,000. In reality, this table ordered one serving of Vietnamese Rolls ( this can’t be possibly microwaved by the way 😅) and one Beef Chaolong to share. The total for their entire meal was exactly ₱498.
The most expensive item on our list is our Beef Stew Chaolong (sharing size) that is Php 279 per order. So we really don’t understand why they would indicate that our meals cost 500 - 1000 pesos.
We source most of our ingredients abroad, yet we work incredibly hard to keep our no-pork menu as affordable as possible for the students and reviewees here around the University Belt. To be judged on two shared items as if they ordered everything on the menu and and to be misrepresented on price is truly disappointing.
We completely understand that everyone has different tastebuds, and we surely cannot please everybody.
The reviewer mentioned they prefer the food in Fusion Alley, we say to each his own. We are proud to offer our own distinct flavors, and we respect their preference.
Finally, to our loyal, repeat customers who have been with us from the very beginning: thank you. 🫶🌿
Thank you for keeping our shop busy, for understanding our growing pains, and for appreciating the love we put into our food.
You are our core market, our valued customers and the reason we keep going, and we can’t wait to serve you again soon! 🌿🫶💚
Ps. This was a review in our google my business page. It is public so if you want to check the reviews yourselves you can do so and if you can add a “positive” one we truly appreciate it. 😬🙂
