Express Entree

Express Entrée Washington DC was the company that was contracted for my order from eat24. The order I received is not what I wanted. The order I received is what the driver felt like giving me.

Your delivery service is the most horrifying thing since ice cream trucks. Your driver called four times, and your office called once! They had the audacity to call me rude because your driver couldn’t find me house! Funny thing, the United Postal Service can find my house!, Amazon seen to have no problem finding my house!, I can find my house after 15 beers and the IRS can certainly find my house, here’s the thing, URBER and the local bus company, hell even the cab company can find me — but! Express Entrée cannot, but are happy to call you rude! and other things because they cannot. Man I pity the restaurants that have placed there trust in Express Entrée because you are doomed to fail!

Slow to deliver

I had a gift certificate for $ 200 for EE. When I called, the staff was helpful, but my order was about 40 min late, so I gave up and made dinner. When I called back (20 min late), they were completely unhelpful– and then they didn’t cancel my order. My order finally arrived 40 min late, and they were unwilling to refund my money. I wish I didn’t have a remaining balance. Not to mention– all of the food went in the trash. Think twice before ordering from them.

just like many of the other reviewers, i waited two hours for food from Delias. I ordered through grubhub, after calling the incorrect number listed on grubhub, i found a good number on Unilocal.They explain it wasn’t grubhubs fault, but Express Entrée that delivers it. If Delias wants my business, they’ll ditch this loser delivery service.

Tried to order through Seamless for a restaurant named Delias in Alexandria. Apparently EE has posted the Delias menu with EE’s phone number that was never answered. 2 hours later and Delias never received the order and said that EE is only place they contract through for deliveries. Not only did they charge a hefty delivery fee but they also uncharged on the food. If I were Delias I would never use EE again.

I had to put in my address to find whether they would deliver to me from my restaurant of choice and happily discovered I was able to. I placed the order, which totaled around $ 50. The money immediately came out of my bank account, plus $ 10 extra. A few minutes later, I get an email voiding my order. The email doesn’t explain WHY my order was voided, so I called, only for them to explain that they don’t deliver to Northeast DC. My problems are myriad: 1) what’s the point on entering in my address and ensuring I could order delivery if they don’t even deliver to my quadrant of the city; 2) other sites like express entrée will catch the error before you are allowed to place an order, so why didn’t this one?; 3) if they screen the orders before approving them, they should do that BEFORE charging my card, because now I have to wait who knows how long to get my money back; 4) why did they charge me more than my order total; 5) the email voiding my order should explain WHY the order is voided — why do I have to call to figure that our? I’m so unhappy with this place and would give zero stars if I could. I don’t mind them not delivering to my address, but have the safeguards in place to prevent me from being charged and placing an order that they refuse to fulfill.

No more express. entrée. delivery. I had just finished a delightful relaxation session when hunger hit me. I had been craving mexican all day and thought ooo baja fresh. So I wen with the usual verde enchillada, love got fajitas, and we began to wait, estimated time delivered 2:20 — 2:30 we then sat and made sure to look at the time. Being in my room I did not hear the door being knocked on at an incredibly early 2:00, usually id be happy to have my food earlier, but in this case I didn’t even know. in which case the driver sent us an email, which i did not see, which was my fault. regardless I called the number when i saw this message at 2:15 (5 minutes before earliest delivery time) and called the number, which is stationed in HERNDON by the way (im in alexandria. yea.) I spoke to a woman and asked if the driver could drive out again and deliver the food, seeing as he was on the road to his next delivery, maybe only 5 minutes away. I was then rudely exclaimed to that once the delivery is tried, its a one go show. No second chances. I then asked what the process of a refund was. No refunds. What? No refund on food that I didn’t consume, nor was even attempted at being redelivered? You tellin’ me, that I just paid for a delivery drivers early bird dinner? Alright. Calls store. Same story, call back express entrée. In which case i was greeted with a rude «HELLO?» in which case I hung up. After careful thought, I agreed to disagree and parted ways with those 28.62 dollars worth of scrumptious mexican cuisine. But I conquer no. more. express. entrée. delivery.

This place gets zero stars.
I recently I placed an order through Express Entrée. An hour and 15 mins later my food was not delivered. i called the restaurant to find out if they received an order from Express Entrée and they said an order never came in from Express Entrée… they had not received any calls from them all night. I called Express Entrée and the phone kept ringing and their mailbox was full. I checked my online banking and could see that they had already charged my card, except that my total on the express Entrée website was about $ 65 but the hold on my card from Express Entrée was $ 80+. My food was never delivered. The next afternoon i received an email saying my order has been voided. It’s been 6 days and the $ 80 has still not cleared off of my bank account. Never again! Express Entrée is unreliable. I will never trust a 3^rd party delivery service again.

2 hours and my food had arrived when I was told it only take 45 minutes. Will not use this service again

Zero Stars… they deserve none!
I ordered my food through foodler. I have never had a problem with the foodler site, but they should cut ties with Express Entrée. The food arrived within the estimated time. Okay great, but it was cold… that’s not even the worst part. The driver is a smoker and that’s fine too. Although you should never smoke around people food. When my food arrived I could smell cigarettes as soon as I opened the bag. The chips, food, and drink all smelled and taste like cigarettes. That’s just nasty! Completely destroyed my appetite.

Still waiting for Unilocal to allow zero stars.
We have made a great effort to be loyal customers of Express Entrée over the past couple of years. We got on board so early, I’m pretty sure the owner delivered us our first couple of orders himself. Unfortunately, in the past year, they have almost never gotten our order right. An item is always missing. In the past we have always just called and asked to have the cost of that item removed. This time I decided to avoid the issue by entering into the notes in the order that a particular item is always missing from the order and could the driver please make sure that the restaurant includes it this time. Once again, that same item was missing from the order. When I pointed it out to the driver, he informed me that it was not his problem and that I needed to call the restaurant. When I explained that I was not doing business with the restaurant, but with Express Entrée, he told me that I needed to call Express Entrée then. I replied that HE was Express Entrée and I was telling him then and his reply was that he had to go and ran to his car and drove away.
Upon calling EE to explain the predicament, and calling again a few minutes later to point out a second missing item, they said they would have them re-​delivered, but that we would have to wait another 45 minutes because they were busy. It is now 3 hours and several phone calls later and we finally have given up and eaten the limited food that WAS delivered. Upon our last call, around 7:40, we were told that it was delayed because of the festival in a part of town which is not near our home or the restaurant. We checked online and found that the festival ended at 5:00, confirming our suspicion that they were just telling us any lie they could come up with to justify their poor service.
I’ll reiterate that we have tried hard to be loyal customers for years, ordering both at home and at work, but we just cannot take the frustration any more. Express Entrée is incapable of doing what they promise, and has terrible customer service when dealing with the resulting issues. PLEASE DO NOT PATRONIZE THIS COMPANY!
UPDATE — Almost a full 3 and a half hours after the original order, a driver finally arrived with our re-​delivery. First he called and asked me to walk a half-​mile to where he was rather than delivering the order himself. Then he questioned whether or not I was an adult and not a teenager. Finally, when he brought the food, he only had one of the two missing items. I called EE and demanded a full refund because this has gone past the point of ridiculous. The person on the phone told me that he was not authorized to do that and that I had to call tomorrow to request that. I explained that they needed to call me tomorrow to confirm my refund instead. We’ll see what happens tomorrow, but I don’t have high hopes.

I ordered food via GrubHub from Kabob Palace in Arlington and my eta was 1 hour.
1 hour later I got a phone call from the delivery guy who wanted to know which drinks I had ordered and I told him I had gotten two Cokes. He let me know that he was out. Okay whatever. I told him I’ll take Sprite.
He knocked on the door about 5ish minutes later. He handed me a clipboard with a receipt and I asked him what my total was, he pulled out his phone and told me «40.24. Without tip» ok… that’s rude. To be honest I was planning on giving a cash tip based on the service so I had indicated that when placing my order. ANYWAYS I signed the receipt and wrote 40.24 as the total. At that point (before I gave him the tip) he proceeded to drop my sprite. 2 cans. One after the other. He then grabbed the clipboard, left the bag of food on the floor outside my door and just stood there. He left my food on the floor outside my door and just stood there. Yes I just repeated myself and it was worth it. I then waited for a few seconds and when he didn’t do anything I picked up my food and closed the door. Done deal, right? Wrong.
I got an email a few minutes later notifying me that due to requests and changes in the order my total has been changed to 43.24. The guy apparently gave himself an unauthorized tip. Who the heck does that? If I’m not mistaken that is against the law, right?
I called express entrée and talked to them and was refunded my unauthorized tip. Thank you guy on the phone.
And to the driver: nope not gonna happen. Not with me buddy, nice try but NO

If I could give them ZERO stars, I would! GrubHub has their phone number listed for the delivery service for certain restaurants. I called the number on GrubHub’s site for delivery from Saigon Bistro in DC. Express Entrée told me they no longer deliver from Saigon Bistro, even though it shows up as one of the restaurants for delivery on their website. When I asked why they wouldn’t update it, the girl on the phone had no real answer except to say «Well we just decided not to do it anymore sometime this week… I think» and when I asked why they wouldn’t honor their advertisements online for delivery services, she said «You can go pick it up yourself» and hung up the phone.
WOW. Worst customer service ever. How are they even in business?!

Delivery service is on par for the most part. 1 out 5 orders comes with delays and issues — the real kicker are the crazy delivery and handling fees. For a 25 $ order of Chinese food you get to pay 12 $ more in fees? For a company specializing in delivery service this is a bit steep.

The first two times I ordered from them, the food got to me in a reasonable time (an hour), what I asked for was there, and it wasn’t totally cold.
My most recent (and last) order with them was a complete fiasco. You won’t believe it, but you should, because it happened.
About an hour and twenty minutes after placing my order, I checked in with Express Entrée. They checked with the person making the delivery and told me it would be 5 – 10 more minutes. Fine, sometimes things get fouled up, right? I reminded them of the instructions we included in our order and asked them to ensure the delivery person had and understood them. Our apartment complex is on *the* major thoroughfare in Alexandria and no one so far has had trouble getting to us with those directions in five years.
Then my phone rang. It was the delivery guy. He was lost. I gave him directions again.
He called back again ten minutes later, still lost. He was clearly having a hard time, so I reviewed the directions and asked a few questions so I could understand where he was coming from. He acted like he understood and said he’d «be there in a few minutes.»
By the third time he called me, my husband was out looking for him. I tried to vector the delivery guy in, again. He asked if I could meet him several blocks away (which kind of negates the purpose and extra cost of delivery, doesn’t it?).
The fourth time he called, he’d flagged down someone walking by to help, and put HIM on the phone. They kept passing the phone back and forth, asking me if I could meet them somewhere. I tried explaining the directions again, and tried further to understand where they were (it was admittedly difficult, since their communication skills were… poor). I called Express Entrée (again) to let them know what was happening. They apologized, but offered nothing else to help straighten this out.
The fifth time he called me, we’d waited well over 2 hours for our food. In this call, the delivery guy insisted we come to meet him… somewhere else. For delivered food. Seriously. We declined since we couldn’t be quite sure where he was (or really, why he might be asking us to meet him somewhere). Then he got angry and hung up on us. I then called Express Entrée back to tell them that he MUST stop calling us and deliver the food already. It never did arrive, so we called Express Entrée again and asked to cancel our order.
Imagine my surprise when they said that the delivery guy had attempted to hand us our food, but that we’d refused it. We did no such thing. We tried to help him, we gave him directions, we went out looking for him, and we waited a very long time for our food. We were really hungry. We never once laid eyes on him.
I can’t make this stuff up, people.
Express Entrée’s management and delivery staff both need improvement. If ExpressEntree is going to hire people, management needs to ensure that their delivery employees are properly trained and minimally capable of dealing with information and with people. That alone is the single best investment they could make in their business, period, full stop, hands down. It really, really shouldn’t be this hard to get food delivered to an easy-​to-​find residence.

I ordered from the Washington DC location and not only was my food late but I found a HAIR in the food! Don’t order from them!

I just made my first order from EE. The food arrived about 15 minutes before the predicted delivery time. The cold dish was placed right in with the hot dishes though, which resulted in everything being the same lukewarm temp when it arrived.
I think maybe the fee for «packaging» would be worth paying if they did something to separate the cold dishes from the hot dishes.

**April 7, 2010: This is an update**
I placed a order. Got my total from EE but then got another total from the restaurant. Two different prices. I called EE to dispute this information and was told that the food prices on the website is marked up by 10%.
Their words exactly:
–A regular employee does not know the price difference between dine in and delivery. (way to lowball the hardworking people)
–Each item was completly visiable as online ordering.
-*** changes their prices four to six times a year.
–We have to update the prices immediately or they will not give us the food.
–It has to be distinguished that we are a delivery company.
–Our price is a little higher than the dine in price.
So to recap: all the prices from EE are delivery prices which is completely different from dine-​in prices. yeah, no.
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I’ve ordered from them several times and always gotten my food within an hour sometimes earlier. They even call me to let me know that the item I ordered wasn’t available anymore. That’s excellent customer service.
Pro: Fast and quick service.
Con: High Fees (packaging fee? really?).

OK, now that your website works, I say FAIL.
They just delivered me ICE COLD FOOD. Well, actually, only the hot food was cold; the cold items were equally lukewarm Clearly, my food was left in the driver’s car in the uninsulated brown paper bag that it was delivered in for quite a while. All the food was lukewarm and extremely dried out. Inedible. Definitely not interested in having food mishandled like that again.
Another vexing matter: Mandatory tip. Yep, you HAVE to tip the driver before you place an order so, if your food comes ice cold, they still have the tip. I am a pretty generous tipper — usually I give more than 20 percent for good service — but based upon my many, many mishaps with take-​out-​taxi, I was extremely uneasy giving a tip ahead of time (but I did anyway). Turns out, my trepidations were well-​founded. Not that I’ll ever use them again, but at least take-​out-​taxi allows for a tip to be provided upon delivery.
UPDATE: After reading Michael R’s review, I gave it a third try. It DOES add a tip — no matter what. Also added approximately $ 10 for «packaging.» Food was warm, but inappropriately packed (again), so I’ll attribute the appropriate warmness to the fact that the restaurant is 5 blocks away.