Szechwan Garden Restaurant

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CLOSED NOW - Opens at 11:00am

The food is not good enough to warrant a return a visit from me. As huge lovers of authentic Chinese food, we gave this place a few tries and were always disappointed. The service here has never been great, but after this last incident I am done. Go to On Time Seafood restaurant just around the corner on Commercial Drive. Better food, better prices, MUCH BETTER service. We've had several bad experiences here on different occasions. On time they forgot a main dish we ordered, and when we asked about it they just said "Sorry, the cook has left for the day." One other time, we arrive 30 minutes before closing time, with at least three tables still eating, and they refused to serve us because they wanted to go home. But this last ordeal... Wow. During our last visit, we waited a long time to be seated, although only two or three tables of the 15+ tables were occupied. Then, as is typical, it took forever to get a server to take our order. And forget about drink refills... Once you get your food your server will NOT be coming back to your table. At the end of the night, we paid and the server said we didn't give her enough money. A little confused, we re-counted and there was more than enough to pay for our meal, plus a small tip because even if the service is terrible, it's pretty mean to leave nothing. Although none of the staff here seem to speak very much English and conversations with the staff are always frustrating, she FINALLY managed to explain that she was unhappy with the amount we left for a tip and was demanding more. ARE YOU KIDDING ME? Who does that?!!!? I still regret what happened next. There were four of us, and so we wondered if it was one of those "party of six or more... automatic tip" deals and so we did give her a little more money. We were pretty shocked and still in disbelief, thinking "Well, maybe we just didn't give her enough to cover our meal." I wish we wouldn't have given her another cent. As we packed up to leave, I started to think more about it and became pretty angry. I went to the counter and asked her "Was there a problem with the amount we gave you? Why did you ask for more money?" And she actually argued with me!!!!!!! "You didn't even give ten percent!" I couldn't believe that was the real reason. Or that anyone would have the gall to do that to their customers. So I responded with "But the service was awful!!! Really, you didn't even deserve what we gave you, we were just being nice." Get this... She actually continued to argue and gave me a whole little spiel about 'if the service is bad, you give ten percent. If it's great, you give twenty!' Really, lady? You obviously haven't a clue about the way things work. If I had it to do over again, I would have given exact change!!! "But you still have to give at least ten percent!!!" she kept saying. Her English was so bad that it wasn't very much of an argument, but I still can't believe she had the nerve to demand more money. It didn't last very long, but it was enough to ensure we will NEVER be returning. Perhaps the worst thing of all is that another staff member was nearby watching everything happen--it looked like that person might have been the owner--and whoever it was, they did nothing. So listen up, Szechwan Garden. It appears at least some of your staff don't understand the way things work in "Small Business" but let me spell it out for you. When you make customers angry, you lose their business and all that future possible revenue. More importantly, we will be telling others about our awful experiences at your place. I hope the few dollars we (unfortunately) added on to that idiot's tip were worth losing at least four customers, probably more--two of whom were fairly regular customers.