Saigon Grill-icious
To contrast my negative local restaurant rant, here’s a positive one. Tonight Lizz and I returned to one of the first NYC dining experiences: Saigon Grill. We were staying at a B&B in an Upper West Side brownstone, and were too hungry to hunt down a “recommended” place, so we settled on the Vietnamese place up the street, which turned out to be incredible. We visited again tonight. Like Mama Mexico, it’s not “authentic” cuisine (not that I have enough experience to judge this) and is set up to handle heavy crowds. However, unlike MM, this place has incredibly reasonable prices, the food is consistently good, and the service is prompt, if not verbose. And definitely not pushy. We were so pleased with everything, even the uninvited guest that crawled out from our lettuce (a very small, green worm-like catepillar. Inchworm?) didn’t ruin our dinner. It helps that we’re now veterans of organic produce and are used to encountering the occasional worm trying to devour our green leafies before we can.
March 17th, 2007 at 8:07 pm
Saigon Grill’s three locations make more than $2 million per month. But they pay workers as little as $1.60 per hour. Even at this measly pay rate, owners charged delivery workers ridiculous fines, such as for taking a sick leave, slamming the door, or entering an order into the computer after 15 minutes. Restaurant owners cursed and harassed delivery workers, calling them “dirty dogs.” They did not allow them any time to eat or call their family. Meanwhile, Saigon Grill owners forced delivery workers into dangerous work conditions. They disregarded workers’ safety in unsafe buildings. And when they were robbed and beaten, they had to pay for all the orders they delivered that day. Furthermore, if they had an accident or got hurt on the job, workers had to pay for their own medical expenses. Workers who spoke out against these conditions were automatically fired.
March 17th, 2007 at 10:04 pm
That sounds really shitty and if it’s true I probably wouldn’t eat there and would make it known to them that unless things improved I’m done. Can you back that up?