Poor Service: Fire Bowl Cafe Thinks All Rice is the Same

Fire Bowl Cafe is an Austin Asian fast food place turning into a franchise. We placed a to-go order, and discovered after we got home that they gave us the wrong kind of rice. And it wasn't the first time. We received NO RESPONSE from Fire Bowl about our experience. Here is the letter we sent Fire Bowl:
Fire Bowl Café Corporate Office
40 N IH35, Suite PD2
Austin, TX 78701

To Management:

I wanted to express how disappointed I am with the customer service I received at the location below.

Sunset Valley Village
5601 Brodie Lane
Austin, TX 78745

Fire Bowl used to be one of my favorite places to get good Asian food. After today, I will not be returning to your restaurant again.

Today, I placed a take out order for Beef Broccoli with Fried Rice and Kung Pao Beef with Fried Rice. After I received my order, I checked the receipt to make sure both order comes with fried rice and the orders on the receipt were correct. After I got to my husband’s work and opened the boxes, I found out that my order was wrong AGAIN. My Kung Pao Beef came with brown rice instead of fried rice like I ordered. If this was the first time I would have forgiven for the simple mistake. However, this was the second time that I got brown rice instead of fried rice on my order.

The first time I got the wrong order I tried eating it anyways because I did not want to drive all the way back to the restaurant to exchange the order. After a few bites I gave up because I did not like the taste of the brown rice. I did not want to eat the meat by itself so I had to throw away my food. That was a waste of my money.

Today, when I saw that my order was wrong I took it back to the restaurant. I did not want to throw away my food and my money again. I asked to talk to the manager on duty. I did not catch the manager’s name, but he was on duty on 8/5/06 around 1:30pm. I told him that this is the second time I got the wrong rice and I wanted a full refund. He told me that he could not give me the refund because it’s just the rice that is wrong not the whole order. Clearly, he doesn’t understand the importance of rice in Asian food. If I wanted to eat just the meat, I would have gone to Applebee’s. However, I wanted Asian food and rice is the important part of that dish.

The restaurant had two chances to check that my order was done correctly and they failed both times. The first time was from the kitchen and the second time was from the person packing the order. They should have checked the order before giving it to me regardless of how busy they were. That is called “customer service”.

The manager gave me a coupon for one free entrée instead of a refund I had asked for. Since I will never go back there again I have wasted my money for the second time at Fire Bowl. If the manager would have given me back a refund, I would still go visit other Fire Bowl branches. But now, you have lost me as a customer and I will pass the words on to my friends.