Joy Luck House

After an almost 2-​hour wait last night, I’m done with this place.
My husband and I have been ordering from them for the last two years, only really when we’re absolutely desperate for delivery that’s not pizza, so maybe about 6 – 8 times total. Every time, it takes over an hour for the food to arrive and it’s always lukewarm. Beggars can’t be choosers, right?
Last night we ordered at 5:40, hoping to get our food between 6:30 and 7. The food arrived, I kid you not, at 7:35. We ordered food for two (Hunan Beef and Sesame Chicken, plus rice and soup) that didn’t require any sort of special effort, and we live at most two miles away. I ordered online because it’s always a shitshow when you call them, and online ordering ensures nothing is lost in translation.
Just before we actually *got* our food, my husband saw the delivery driver sitting in his car across the street for a few minutes. WTF? And when we got the food it was lukewarm and we had to nuke it.
Now, I will clear some space in my freezer so I always have some emergency easy food on hand for the rare cases that we would have otherwise turned to delivery. I will NEVER again order from Joy Luck House in Napa!

Two motherfucking hours for you guys to drive 1.3 miles,
Seriously! What the fuck! Oh and top it off I see your driver out in the parking lot touching her boyfriend «I’m guessing» out in the car! So now my food has that nasty shit! He looked fucking dirty as fuck! So them having to fuck is what took so long! Good job!
Never again! I’m going to hopkings kitchen next time! You guys suck!

Food was really good… lemon chicken was just the way I like it with sauce on the side. only downside is the portion size… just too small… it’s not any cheaper either… but I did enjoy… plus they delivery which is always a plus!

Ordered beef chow fun, Szechuan string beans, honey walnut prawns, fresh garlic chicken, & steamed rice for home delivery. Arrived 15 min later and everything was delicious. Will order take out/​delivery from here again.

Don’t even waste your time. My friend had spoiled shrimp. I ordered the cashew chicken and it was 99% celery and 1% chicken. It just wasn’t good. At all.

The food was mediocor. However the service was TERRIBLE. Not friendly and literally took about 15min to return our ATM card. Unfortunately the three other people along with myself will not revisit this resteraunt.

Love this restaurant! We go about once a month and always have great food. The owners are so nice and friendly. If our family is undecided where we’ll eat on our monthly family dinner outing, our kids always request the Joy Luck House. They have been cleaning up the outside more, and it’s definitely more inviting. Try the Mongolian beef, you won’t be disappointed :) Hands down our favorite Napa Chinese restaurant.

Second time here love this place its clean and the staff all ways checks in on you no need to hunt some one down i hate that

I ordered the chicken chow mein and fried wontons. To start it off it took over an hr to get delivered. The chow mein was burnt and had too much pepper that all i could taste for seasoning. The wontons were just the skins fried no meat cheese or anything. Everyone i talk to agrees wontons are to have meat or cheese well not these people. I was warned not to eat there and lived and learned not to eat there ever again.

No rice delivered with the order, no chop sticks, more cold than hot.
Flavors are pretty good though.
Seriously need to tighten up the total vibe to move up in satisfaction for the masses.

Although the décor of the restaurant is very dated and there doesn’t seem to be a lot of activity, the food is actually quite good and very reasonably priced. We particularly enjoyed the sesame chicken and the Mongolian lamb.

How is it even possible for a restaurant to keep its doors open when it is steeped in sub-​mediocrity. My standards are high, but can be met quite easily. Quality ingredients is a must tho, and here they are severely lacking. It’s wasn’t the frozen peas, or the rice that literally tasted like cardboard, it was the the complete lack of attention to detail or balance. The Kung Pao chicken was 95% vegetables and three spoonfuls of chicken. The shrimp chow mein was just meh, flavorless noodles, shrimp cooked to oblivion, like they had been reheated in a microwave… but at least there were 6 shrimp as I had expected to see only 2 –after discovering the measly offering of chicken in the Kung Pao as well as the Chicken Noodle Soup.
It is shameful that a restaurant can get away with serving this to the public.

Mediocre food. Panda express is much better. Delivery took double the quoted time. Fifty dollars for food that was fed to a trashcan.

Great people, great food, simple ambience. We came a little bit late to get lunch and some things were kinda cold. But it was good. Just don’t be late for lunch xD

They have some Great yummy food, and very nice people! Every time we go there, they are always so nice and we are definitely regulars here because its just that good. We LOVE their Sizzling Rice Soup and Honey Walnut Prawns for sure!

We used their delivery service. We were told it would be there between 30 and 45 minutes. The food was delivered on time. We were unable to eat it as soon as it was delivered, maybe even an hour later. The food was still amazing. Imagine if we got it right away. For two people we ordered (1) Sweet and Sour Pork, (1) Broccoli Beef, (1) Chicken Chow Mein, (1) Chicken Fried Rice and two spring rolls. There was plenty of food for 4 people and all for $ 42. Definitely will use their service again

As a kid I remember Joy Luck House as a colorful bustling palatial restaurant that was a favorite of my family. Each time we went, the entire place was packed with diners. As I grew older and started working I would often order food to pick up and they seemed to do a good business. Every time I have been in the last three years I am the only diner in the entire place (unless I have a friend with me.) Upon walking up to the door it is hard to tell they are open and once inside, the lights are always off. It is eerie sitting in a large room by oneself looking at the old condiment bottles that look about 30 years old and the stained carpet. My mind wanders and I fantasize about what Chef Ramsey would do to pull the place out of obscurity. They seem to get a fair amount of Delivery orders, so I supposed that was how they are still in business. They must own the building or have cheap rent. One room near the entrance looks like a storage room.
Anyway, I digress. I do like the food here. The garlic chicken is really great, although it’s no longer served with broccoli, it’s now served with shredded cabbage which isn’t as great. The soups are good and the lemon chicken is good too. The gentleman who maybe owns the place is very nice. I don’t know that I will go back though, it’s really depressing to sit in the dark in an empty restaurant and I wouldn’t spend the money on take out or delivery, especially since they seem to be cutting corners on ingredients. Really sad, hopefully some sort of miracle could restore this restaurant to its glory days. Maybe the fact it is hidden from any main streets isn’t helping.

We have been ordering delivery at least once a month from Joy Luck for about 12 years primarily because there is no other Chinese in Napa that delivers. The food is usually pretty good although the quality and order size has declined a bit over the years. The reason for the 1 star is the absolutely unforgivable service. I learned over the years to call right when they opened if you wanted to see your food at a reasonable time. Late delivery was common so I expected if they told me 45 minutes it would be an hour an a half. What I can’t get over is the way the owner treats you if there is a problem. The first time we called with an issue we had ordered cashew chicken, and there was only one small piece of chicken in the sea of vegetables. I called to let them know and the manager/​owner wouldn’t get on the phone with me but told me through the very embarrassed employee on the phone, that I was mistaken. We had ordered this dish many times so it was obviously not our mistake. Anyone would complain if there is no chicken in the cashew chicken right? Of course they did nothing to rectify the situation except treat us rudely.
These types of incidents happened more often over the next few years, and shame on me I would swear I wasn’t going to order from them ever again. A few months would go by and I would come home tired from work with 2 hungry kids and I would cave.
The final straw came when they were supposed to deliver food within an hour. After 2 hours and several phone calls (I was told they were minutes away both times), I finally fed my kids something else, put them to bed and called again to let them know that I wanted to cancel my order. Now we are going on 2.5 hours.
They refused to cancel my order and actually hung up on me! I called again and said if the driver showed up at my house I would not accept the food or sign the credit card receipt. Again I received the slam!
Sadly with that kind of rude service we simply can’t return. If Joy Luck will not take care of long time regular customers, then I doubt they would think twice about how they treat tourists or any other customers. They must stay in business because of the delivery, because from the reviews it sounds like the restaurant is a disaster.

It was freezing upon entry. Several tables still had uncleared plates from previous guests. Window was closed yet breezy. Ordered ribs as appetizer which took forever to come out. They were chewy and I asked for 2 knives so we can eat them however the knives never arrived. We returned the entire dish.
The main courses took a long time to come out. My wife’s dish was OK. Mine was OK, too, but cold.
The bathrooms were filthy and this is what really sent me over the edge. If the bathrooms are filthy then what does the kitchen look like, etc???
The service took a long time. It just seemed neglected, not-​maintained and had absolutely no ambiance.

The bathroom was filthy. No soap and no paper towels. I should have left, but I ordered the food before going to the bathroom to wash my hands. When we got plates for the meal, the plates had dried up food and was greasy. I opened my paper napkin to clean the plates and there pops a dried up rice that was between the paper napkin.
The pork fried rice was tasty, but it was under cooked. The inside of the rice was rock hard. I complained and the owner told me that there was nothing wrong.
This place has a sign outside, «Still Open.» This place needs to be closed. After we got home, we had major GI issues.
Avoid this place like the plague !!!