‘Faceless coward’: Melbourne Vietnamese restaurant owner fires back at scathing 1-star reviews

The owner of a Vietnamese restaurant in Melbourne has issued a series of savage responses to a number of unhappy customers who left 1-star reviews.

Depending on who you believe, visiting one humble Vietnamese restaurant will either result in enjoying the best pho in town or the “weirdest” dining experience of your life.

Pho A Gogo in Melbourne has more than 9100 Google reviews, holding an average score of 4.8 out of 5, quite a feat for a small venue located away from the city’s eating hotspots.

“This is the best pho I have tried in Melbourne. Super friendly owner. I will be back, strongly recommend!” one review states of the eatery near the border of Southbank and South Melbourne.

To put Pho A Gogo’s online attention in context, one of Melbourne’s most renowned venues, Gimlet at Cavendish House, has just 1200 reviews and scores lower at 4.6.

A humble Vietnamese restaurant in Melbourne has found itself in the firing line. Picture: Supplied

The Clarendon St venue has been open since 2015. Picture: TikTok/@miketango__

But many have also flooded review sites with single-star appraisals for Pho A Gogo, making claims including that staff on occasion raised their voices at customers and engaged in other odd behaviour.

Others claim the restaurant does not always allow children to enter the premises and that the door was bolted shut behind them while they ate.

“The most peculiar establishment in Melbourne,” one negative review states.

“The owner’s behavior is a major concern, as he frequently explodes in anger.”

A person claiming to be “the owner” has hit back at dozens of these reviewers, calling them cowards, stupid and alleging they are fabricating their stories.

“Who’s hurting u, who betrayed u or who broke your heart huh???” one reply reads.

In another, he called another critic a “Faceless coward: u got my message? your parent didn’t know how to teach u, that made u r today.

“I thought u already dead.”

The owner of Pho A Gogo, Duke Chu, told news.com.au he believes many of these critical posts contain “false claims” designed to hurt his business.

“I know for sure many never been here but still frabricate the story and put on Google (with no honor and dignity, they are coward faceless),” he said in a text.

“Even so, I responded by offering come forward: if I was wrong, I will fully refund and apologise them, but none come forward.”

It appears some of the negative reviews have been edited since they were originally posted in order for the reviews to appear they were posted recently

“We also know that it doesn’t matter how hard we tried or how good we are: certainly there will be someone they don’t like it then exaggerate the issue with a sole purpose to destroy our livelihood,” Mr Chu said.

In a review published in The Herald Sun in 2022, Pho A Gogo was said to boast “not only Southbank’s best pho restaurant but one of the best in Melbourne”.

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The owner has responded to many of the negative reviews. Picture: Google

Port Philip Mayor Heather Cunsolo said council had received an enquiry from a member of the public about whether it was legal for the restaurant to use a door with a latch with customers inside.

“Due to the limited floor area of the building, there is no restriction under the Building Code of Australia about having a latching mechanism on this door. Using a latch also doesn’t fall under Victorian food laws,” Ms Cunsolo told news.com.au.

“This means we don’t have a legal basis to prevent a latch being used in these circumstances. “We understand customers can lift the latch to exit if the person attending the door is not present.”

Ms Cunsolo said the restaurant had never been issued any infringements or complaints regarding food handling.

‘Weirdest restaurant interaction I’ve ever experienced’

Last year TikTok food blogger Mike Tango said his trip to Pho A Gogo might “single handly (sic) be the most weirdest restaurant interaction I’ve ever experienced”.

Mike Tango posted a video about his trip. Picture: TikTok/miketango__

He said the food was good but vibe was “weird”. Picture: TikTok/miketango__

The video shows Mr Tango and friends approach the Clarendon St restaurant to find the door locked and a sign informing customers to ring the doorbell.

A male staff member then pokes his head through a window to ask how many wanted to be seated.

In the video posted in August, Mr Tango explains at that point Pho A Gogo had been rated more than 6500 times.

Inside he complains about the wait time and muses on the venue’s atmosphere, saying that the “only word to describe this place is very weird”.

“If you care about good Vietnamese pho service, and you know friendly service, then … this definitely ain’t the place,” he said after leaving.

“But if you want to experience something we experienced – something weird and unusual – come to Pho A Gogo.”

Responses from the owner claimed the bad posts were part of a coordinated attempt “with a sole purpose to destroy our business”.

“But you are all sorelosers, because God know, and our customers know how good our foods are,” the owner wrote.

Speaking generally about the industry, a spokesperson for the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission said that under consumer law businessness cannot mislead customers regarding their goods or services.

They also said the ACCC had recommended new digital laws in 2022 to allow business owners more recourse to have fake reviews removed from aggregator platforms.