Pei Wei

Not impressed. I decided to try this on a whim because it was on my way home. I should have just gone to chic-​fil-​a. The woman behind the counter was eating as she was taking my order, and didn’t give me a number, just handed me my receipt. I asked if it was okay to sit down, and she said of course. I waited for a few minutes to get my food, which wasn’t bad at all, but I had to get my own utensils and napkins and things like that, and no one was even at the counter when I went up to get them. I got home, and was disappointed with how my food looked. I got a teriyaki chicken noodle bowl, and the chicken on top looked very sad. I had maybe 4 half dollar sized pieces, and all were very dry and tough to chew. The noodles had very little flavor. I didn’t feel like this was worth the $ 12.50 I spent– $ 7.99 for my noodle bowl, and $ 3.79 for two spring rolls. I will not be coming back.

Worst Kung Pao ever. Brown rice undercooked, nothing but chicken and a few peanuts and very salty. Long wait won’t be back b

Quality has really dropped in last year or so. I used to love the food here but the last few times I’ve come it has really been sub par. The crab watons tasted old or over cooked and the pad Thai was just not good. It lacked pad Thai flavor and had 4 times as much tofu as chicken. I only ate half the small size where I used to lick the bowl clean. This will be my last time here for a very long while.

Worst place to eat. I ordered the Thai Dynamite dish, which I’ve order at other Pei Wei’s before and this is by far the worst «food» ever. It was full of sodium, barely edible and the rice was dry. I talked to one of the supervisors on shift she stated that the new «shrimps» are not marinated or cooked in-​house but rather they are brought in already cooked and with the sauce they just warm them up in-​house. I didn’t get a refund for the nasty food that I didn’t eat and I will be contacting my credit card since the expected product wasn’t provided.

Never a long wait and the food is always consistent. I love the complex sweet and spicy of the caramel chicken. The minced chicken with lettuce wraps is my favorite way to start the meal.
There is never a wait and the staff is always quick, but at times very brief and not very friendly… I’m just glad I come to eat and not socialize.

Not a fan to say he least. Wasn’t busy but staff also wasn’t friendly at all acted like they were doing me a favor so I said thanks but I’ll go some place else

I’ve tried to like this location but they keep making me want to travel to the Dulles or Fairfax locations. The portion size is inconsistent, there was lipstick on my husband’s cup once and even a hair on his ginger. Now I’ve been served Kung Pao chicken and most of the chicken doesn’t even have sauce on it. This is the closest location for me but I’d rather drive 45 minutes away then come here. Pei wei is great– just don’t come here…

Love the Mongolian Beef here. Been here multiple times and the food has never disappointed. Staff is friendly as well.

Our last visit here, we found lipstick stains on one of the cups. We wrote off the Gainesville Pei Wei as one we’d never go back to. But we were stuck in the area and decided to give them another shot.
On this visit, we found a hair (possibly an eye lash) on the pickled ginger on the spicy tuna roll. Gross.

kung pao shrimp was very good! loved it and I love the fresh iced tea. Wish theyd bring back the oranges though. Cool designed restaurant. They’ve made changes to improve things.

Ate here last night with my family. Cashier let some guy walk right past me and my family and the family in front of us in line to place an order. Floors were covered in something so sticky it was pulling off my shoes. Went to sit down and all of the booths were empty with dirty plates waiting to be bussed. Supervisor busses and wipes one of the booths down for us and it was so wet you we could all feel it through our clothes. Seats in booths are ripped and raggedy looking. Nobody in my family liked the food and the honey seared chicken was tough and my kids (teens) said it tasted rotten. Please close your doors so we can get some decent restaurants into the Gainesville area.

I worked at Pei Wei way back in the day and had always enjoyed their food, however, this place at this time during this visit isn’t something I would want to relive.
The prices have definitely been jacked up (to be expected…). I could go to a boutique restaurant and pay the same amount of money for better quality than the crap that they offer here. They’ve definitely started nickel and diming their customers. It’s unfortunate, especially since they used to have such a good product, set the product does not reflect the quality that I was used to.
When I was going to order, I was going to order my typical mongolian beef with tofu and noodles. That would have rounded out to be about $ 13 with taxes. That’s simply something I’m not okay with. The product is not the same and its not worth $ 13. I saw someone else order mongolian beef with rice, and it looks minimal and not that appetizing.
I opted to order the lo mein with chicken. This dish was $ 7 with taxes. They literally put three pieces of chicken in the whole thing with noodles that were not fully cooked. I had not realize this until after the fact because I got it to-​go. It was bland and flavorless. It comes with onions and a couple of other things then if it adds flavor, & I did not have those removed. I don’t know how you can mess up a simple dish like this.
I don’t know if it was this location, or if simply Pei Wei has gone downhill but either way it goes I’m not going to find myself returning here.

I wish I could love this place but everything tastes like it’s been frozen and popped into the microwave before being served. It’s definitely in a convenient spot if you’re craving Asian cuisine but I don’t think it’s worth the money.

We will not be back, not worth parking in front of restaurant. The experience is like eating poorly defrosted food.

I wish I had read the reviews before eating here. I am not from the area and saw this place as an interesting place I had never tried.
I should know better. Most Chinese food places in America are not real Chinese, it’s sort of in the range of Chinese-​ish but sweetened up and spiced down for the American palette.
This is not really an Asian place either. It’s a pretend Asian fast casual modern… um…thing. There is NOTHING Asian about this place except some food and food name similarities.
That said, on to the specifics:
I am one to order certain things at places that I expect them to be good at if they call themselves «certain types of food», so I ordered an ala carte of:
–Spicy tuna roll. The baseline of all maki in America as far as I’m concerned and I am very well eaten in this one. The tuna filling was not bad, but man the rice looked like it had been flattened between two steel plates before rolling. It didn’t resemble rice in texture at all… it was white though… so…
They serve it with wasabi (correct), ginger (correct) and a sriracha aioli (what the fiddlesticks?). What have Americans done to maki? A flipping Aioli? At least they spelled Sriracha correctly but most people never pronounce it correctly. Nah, I grabbed some soy, did the very «I’ve been to Japan» American thing and mixed the wasabi with it for dipping. (In Japan you tell the chef how much wasabi and it is built in to the sushi… but this is maki… anyway, I ate it but was not happy about that rice… stuff, or whatever it was.
–Vegetable spring roll. I messed up thinking I was ordering a summer roll, but hey I like spring rolls too… except this one. Worst spring roll I have ever had. I didn’t think you could mess one up this bad. Who in the world is running this place and have they ever had Asian food?
The ingredients were not properly minced, I bit in to it and it had this long tough piece of celery nearly the length of the spring roll in it… I couldn’t bite all the way through it. It was terrible, but I ate it, the dang little thing cost me $ 2. Someone must be sabotaging this place… I mean you have to go out of your way to make a spring roll this bad.
–Thai wonton soup. This is the one that brought my rating up from a 1 star to a 2… because it was at least mediocre.
The broth had a hint of bouillon I have tasted at other Asian places I have seen go out of business. I like bouillon, as an ingredient in something other than just broth. With the other ingredients floating in there like some Thai basil, it at least gave my taste buds something after that awful spring roll.
I loved the size and shape of the dumplings. Chinese places always give me the side eye because I take their mammoth dumplings out, cut them up and re-​introduce them to my wonton soup. Sorry, most Chinese places make a good dumpling, but I think they make them ginormous so they can laugh at the Americans from behind the screens watching them try to eat them. I make huge dumplings at home, they are called «ravioli» and they are eaten with a knife and fork on a plate.
The dumplings had a good texture, loved the size like I said but the filling was safe for the American palette… too safe… bland like for children safe.
I had no complaint about the service at all at 12:30 PM 06/19/2015…so if the place reads these, the young lady that took my order did a good job. But then again, while nearby places were packed at 12:30 lunchtime on a Friday… this place was half full.
Seeing the reviews here… now it makes sense. I should have turned and walked out and will never try one of these places again. I want Asian people making my Asian food.

I did take out from here today while on my lunch break… big mistake.
The website said food would be ready by 1pm (ordered at 12:40) but when I paid for it at 1:02PM there was still a 5 minute wait… not sure why the website was unable to give me an accurate time but when you only have so much time for lunch every little minute counts.
They have «two» pay lines, one for dining it, and one for take out but it’s clear they don’t actually segregate the customers to facilitate those who have actually ordered take out as (even though both registers were open) customers were told to get into one line.
So I get my food late after being helped by an employee with an attitude problem and get back to work to find out that instead of being given an Original size entrée like I had ordered and paid for, I was only given the small portion size.
As someone who ate at Pei Wei 2 – 3 times a week this one experience has soured me so much on them that I can’t see myself going back… good thing there are literally two dozen other places to eat in the Gateway.
SMH Pei Wei.

Ohhhhhhhhhh this was a bad experience. We got the spicy tuna roll (8) as «an appetizer» and we got our meals before the «appetizer. The meals were ok but cold. The sushi came out later and ot was downright SUPER Gross! My kids eat wegmans sushi and love AKA but this was disgusting. So bad I had to spit it into my napkin. The rice was like pebbles and it was so gross. I will post a pic…

Wow, complete lack of management! Walked in the door and long line at the take out line. Since we were eating in, went and found one of three open tables and sat down. Wife went to place order in dine In line. She was told that the other line is actually dine in but they are not taking orders due to no free tables. Since we sat at one of three open tables, this did not make sense but we got up from table and got in line. Staff walked around and provided no direction as people continued to come in and get confused like we did.
At no time was there any clear leadership or processes in place to manage customer flow. Rude lady at order station didn’t even look at us while we placed order. She handed a red number to another employee and he just walked and put it on an open table. Again no instructions to us. Staff bring food was friendly and helpful but management has not experience in managing high traffic flow. Just leaving large groups to fight over wrong use of lines is just incompetent.
Don’t go on a busy day or time.
Food is good!

**Updated to include the result of my complaint! (bottom)
First — this review is of the service, not the food. I will not return here again.
We ordered our food «for here» rather than «to go» and had to repeat this twice. Regardless, we were handed paper cups and given a number to wait, so we sat down as per usual and waited.
The girl who took our order wanders over and asks if we wanted our food for dine in or to go, so for a third time I said dine in.
2 minutes later a young lady comes over to us, puts our food down, no introduction no name no smile — and says this: By the way her name is BRIANNA.
«You need to be more careful when you order. I have a lot of upset cooks now because you are sitting here but you ordered to go.» She repeated this twice. I promptly explain to her that THREE times I have stated this, and she wanders off with a «Ook, just checking because they’re upset.»
First of all, even if I had made an error, it is poor taste and customer service to tell a patron they essentially pissed off your chef. That information wasn’t vital to correcting (politely) an error and wasn’t necessary to divulge. Second, a smile or a friendlier approach always wins, and this girl had neither. She was abrupt and curt. I won’t dine somewhere that treats people like that instead of poorly train their employees – which is evident now. I had to hunt down a server to ask her name. Perhaps if they actually separated the dine in and to go lines specifically for those purposes, rather than having only one person working the counter doing both types of orders, the staff won’t get so confused.
I’ll call management above her to complain as well. Overall incredibly poor experience.
**So I emailed customer service to articulate my concerns and was met with the usual auto response thanking me for my patience. Someone wrote back to me explaining that they were sorry and would send me a gift card. I said thank you, and appreciated it, but was really more concerned with the incomptently rude girl who used her indoor voice to yell at us. THREE weeks goes by, and I remember after cleaning out my inbox that I have gotten nothing in the mail. Already irritated with the customer service aspect of this company, I found it ironic that customer service would also be ridiculous. Same girl at Pei Wei customer service says she’s sorry but they were sent out some time ago. I respond to say they were not received. She says she sent to the address I put on my contact form: Gainesville, VA. Except, I did not, because I know where I live and I live in Manassas. Not to mention my laptop usually autofills forms with my address and I didn’t spontaneously forget where I lived. I think she just got sloppy and assumed since the restuarant is in Gainesville, I must be too. I was not concerned with gift cards, but the delay, arguing and WEEKS of back and forth were amusing in the worst way: service is just bad all around. Eventually she resorted to FedExing the cards to me to ensure they got to me. Just insane. It took more than a month, and I hope there’s an identical address somewhere so someone else can at least benefit from this crap with some free food!

So a couple times now
I’ve gone and waited 1 hour for a simple meal. Yet when I say something I get a attitude as if it was my fault? The last time I was there I went during my lunch hour and never got to eat, never got my order… Asked them to put them to go…
And was given the stink eye…
Sorry… Stay away!