Paul’s is by far the best French bakery in town, I regularly go there on weekends to buy croissants or a baguette. But I also order my lunch there every now and then. So far I used Sherpa’s for that, until I found out that Paul has its own delivery service and only charges RMB 8 for a delivery (with a RMB 30 minimum order). Sherpa’s normally delivered in about 30-45 minutes and I expected Paul to deliver even faster. But I was wrong.
The first time I called Paul’s delivery hotline was last week. It was a rainy day and I did not want to go out for lunch. I ordered a sandwich and waited. After about an hour I was still waiting and called again. Paul’s told me that because of the weather it took a bit longer today, but the delivery guy was on his way. Another 30 minutes later the food had still not arrived, but after I called once more it only took another 10 minutes for the my sandwich to arrive. The delivery guy said that he could not find it. Okay, that’s pretty stupid (he has our phone number and could call), but it can happen.
So yesterday I ordered another sandwich. It did not rain and they had been to our office before, so when I ordered at 11:45 I expected my sandwich to be here by 12:15. It wasn’t of course. When the sandwich was still not there by 1 PM I called them again. They said that they don’t have enough delivery people so it could take a bit longer. And that was the case indeed, because it took them over 2 hours to deliver a sandwich from their shop to our office…
When I called again to clarify if this was normal, they told me that I should order a sandwich 2 hours in advance! Paul’s, if you think you can get away with a 2 hour delivery time in Shanghai you are wrong. And another advice, you should tell your customers when they order that there will be a long delivery time. In that case they may not order with you, but that’s better than having unhappy customers.
Paul’s, even though I love your sandwiches I don’t think I am going to order again from you soon. I will either use Sherpa’s (which at RMB 15-30 is a bit more expensive to deliver, but at least delivers on time), or I order from one of the other sandwich shops around People’s Square that bring the food to our office for free. And by the way, not having enough delivery people is not a good excuse: then you either should hire and train some more people (they are not so hard to find) or temporarily outsource to for example Sherpa’s. That may be a bit more expensive, but at least you won’t get angry customers or lose your good reputation.
If you want to try your luck with Paul’s call 4008-800-852, they deliver from 9:30 AM -7:00 PM
Hahaha…wait, I don't get your rationale at the end of the post — if they were that slipshod, why give them the free plug at the end, unless there's something I've missed here?
I went to Paul's for a morning coffee and pastry on a Sat. morning, and I didn't think the product at their French Concession location — nor the in-shop service, which was bumbling and reminded me of a bunch of colonials being waited on hand and foot on the Aloha Deck of a trans-Atlantic Love Boat shipliner — was all that hot, if you ask me.
I'm sure it's a bit better at their Nanjing Lu location, what with all the diplomats and hotshots.
On the contrary, I thought the s service was excellent. Andreea and I finished up the SHA leg of our trip a couple of blocks from your office, M, and we ordered a dinnertime pizza from New York Pizza through the service — and the pie arrived within 42 minutes (I clocked it, stat!) and the delivery guy was polite to a fault. I loved it so much I emailed the owner, Mark S., to thank him for leaving such a great impression on us as we took our leave of CN.
So shocked you gave Paul's another go the day after, though, but I can appreciate your patient approach and am learning a heap from it.
The reason I put Paul's delivery details in my post is not because I am so happy with them, but to help people who look for the details in a search engine. Right now this post is #3 already in Google for "paul's shanghai delivery" (using my Hong Kong proxy, so likely the HK version of Google), so people who look for their phone number will see this post.
Furthermore I am sure they will eventually get their act together. It's not so difficult to organize delivery in Shanghai, but it takes time. And hopefully someone will leave a comment when that happens!
Heard today that Paul might close the Gubei Carrefour restaurant ! Join me in an open call for not closing it !
Sure the lunch cooking was a little slow, bread prices high, but for a quiet place to have a healthy lunch at reasonable price while reading work documents it is just an unbeatable safe haven in Gubei area (especially if you go for a little shopping at Carrefour just after) !
Please join me in calling Paul’s management not to close this shop, or to move it to Hongmei-Qiuxianjie or Caohejing where Westerners want to have a resourcing lunch 5 days a week.