April 23, 2007
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California Pizza Kitchen--Ultimate Thieves of the Restaurant Scene.
We
were cruising around town, looking to grab a quick bite. I didn't have
anything to eat all day, and it was lunchtime, bordering dinner--so I
was starving like a child from a 3rd world country (ZING!). The first
thing we see is a California Pizza kitchen. We look inside, counted
heads and step inside--the place about 5% occupied. I was confident
there were more waiters there than customers. But we overlooked that.
It was a wednesday after all.We step toward the "wait to be
seated" sign and are quickly greeted by a warm waitress, surely a
candy-coating for what we were about to experience. "My name's Jenny (name changed)", she chimed. "I'll be serving you today."Little did I realize this Jenny character just made an enemy for life.
We quickly order our personal pizzas. I ask for a pear and gorgonzola pizza (smell my breath).
10 minutes pass.
20 minutes.
30 minutes.
"They
better be milking the cows and picking the tomatoes fresh off the vine if
they're taking this long," I tell my friend; my head resting on my right
hand.35 minutes pass and here came the cavalry with our food.
It looked appetizing (hell, if you didn't eat anything for 12 hours,
you would think so too!), and I was ready with fork and knife in hand.
The waitress places everything down, tells us to enjoy, and walks away.
Then I realize a fricking slice of my pizza is missing.
"What the hell?!?" I exclaim. "Where the heck's that slice?!" I look
over to my friends, only to find them dying of laughter. I couldn't
believe it. Not only did they take 5 years to prepare a pizza, they
serve me one with a missing slice.To add insult to injury,
they placed salad to fill in the space where the slice should've been.
I HATE SALAD! Was the chef really that hungry? Hell, s/he should have told
me and I would have gotten him a pie.I didn't want to question
the waitress where my slice went--that's just awkward and makes you
seem like a cheapskate. I suppose thats the price you pay for
"designer" pizza. If anybody wants me, I'll be at Ray's Original Pizza
(one of 40 "original" Ray's).What are some bad experiences you've had with restaurant services?
Degrading Sports Photos of the Day
Sacked and raped. The ugly side of the NFL.
"Extra" celebratory action going on here...
THIS ISN'T FUNNY!
Comments (106)
Pizza-Pizza
aw, i work at a restaurant. no matter how many bad experiences you can have as a customer at a restaurant, everyone should try working in one, if only to realize how bitchy and unreasonable customers can be. "i know you want that booth, but someone is sitting there! i doubt they'd like it if you sat on their lap." and who comes into a busty restaurant on a friday or saturday night, with upwards of 10 people and no reservation and expect to be sat right away?! "we're on an hour wait for tables of four, for 10 you may as well come back tomorrow."
its cuz ur an asian
and i meant "busy" restaurant, not "busty," though that would be interesting.
I just swallowed my gum while laughing at this post. Now THAT'S gold.
hahaha
well boston can't make pizza like new york.
so..
I guess the designer pizza was still good?
oh california..
I feel stupid now
you should've at least questioned the waitress! haha.
Hahha, some bad service is when the bitch kept being snippy and took 40 mintues to give us our food. She also left a beautiful blonde hair off her tan ass in my food.
i had a good pizza at cpk in w. hollywood once .. overpriced but good. tha place was jammed..
hockey pic... "dude, I said we'll celebrate later... I SAID LATER!!!"
hahaha.. but i love that place... >.<
awwwww, but i actually like CPK... damn, i'd be piiiiiiisseddd if i was missing a slice. o__o you dunno how un-sanitary that could've been!! i bet you ate it with glee anyways though ~~~
CPK IS GOOOOOOD!
white pizza.
i always call it california pizza chicken. i cannot say it any other way.
if i do i will esplode.
but that means s/he touched your pizza after s/he wasn't supposed to anymore. (does that only make sense to me?) i would've questioned why..
Is that like a fruit and cheese pizza? If so, that sounds gross. Was it good at least?
you know, i had the same experience at CPK, except they didn't serve us for a good 20 minutes. don't ask me why we waited that long..but we eventually left.
ryc: true true, there was no excuse. just bad service. you should've complained and gotten it all comp'd!
maybe they were shipping the pizza from California.. -- haha bad joke.
sorry, CPK in Cali isn't all that great either.
I haven't been all that impressed by cpk. Have you noticed in general that service sucks more and more and that at fast food places, fewer and fewer cashier-droids can make change? I recently recied 6 dimes in change for the $.60 that was due back to me. I looked in the drawer and it was full of quarters. But I saw the clerk moving her lips, counting by 10s...sigh
You should have complained and gotten something off the bill or at least free dessert!
that really stinks! i went to cpk once and my pizza was super tiny compared to everyone else's. and i mean TINY!!!
<3Always,
Nary
talk aboout good timing. i have a midterm essay to write about service marketing, that is due this friday. the prof wants us to write about our 2 service encounters that we've experienced... one good, one bad. i cant think of anything first-hand.
in short, can i use this one for my essay? *wink, wink*
1 missing slice of pizza and you're complaining? I've had jap restaurants serve Nigiri sushis with the piece of sashimi missing.
LOL! funny i ordered
that salad pizza before
but never had a slice
missing. maybe the
cook/servers were hungry?!
hahaha.
how suck ass.
Pear and Gorgonzola sounds kind of nasty, to be honest. I'd take a rain check on that and stick with a Hawaiian.
i guess my all time low was at a shanghainese restaurant. they have this lil buttton where u can press for service, tea & bill. i wanted to order extra servings of dumplings and i press for the service button. i waited for 15 mins and no one attended to me, so i pressed again and again. even after 30 mins no one attended to my calls, so i press the BILL button and surprise surprise the BILL came instantly. so i said to the waiter, "oh wow! wat wonderful service u have in this restaurant? when i need something nobody attends to me. when i ask for the bill it comes instantly. i will MOST DEFINITELY come again...!!"
he was stunned and only manage a forced smile.. a**holes!
one time, a waitress almost dropped a steak knife on me while clearing the dishes from my table.
I love CPK :]
hah that first degrading sports photo is wtfpwnage
no that last one was hilarious lol
and damnn sucks about ure pizza.....can't say nething like that has happened to me really
dude, that SUCKS. but it's chuckle worthy.
hehe.
i liked california chicken
*chicken pizza
I work at CPK (in Georgia) and just to let you know. In order not to make the pizza not soggy they split the pizza in half and move it over diagonally to place the salad there. The pear and gorgonzola always came with a salad. It does look like a missing slice but there isn't. If you counted, there should have been six slices and took away the salad, and push it together to find that there is indeed a whole pizza. Trust me, I had customers complain about it looking like a slice missing but that's how they serve it. No stole your pizza I promise!
Poor Chris...
working in a restaurant = a life lesson in humility
I use to work at a traditional Chinese restaurant but now i work at p.f. chang's china bistro (hah! there's only four asian people who works there)
Here's a kicker for you.
Me: I'm sorry sir we're out of the Honey Chicken.
Asshole Customer: I guess you guys ran out of cats in the back.
Desired Response: What can I say? Your mom was super hungry.
omggg
the last picture is sooo sad
I ate that missing slice.
"THIS ISN'T FUNNY" is so funny.
wat da heezy!? a missing slice to ur pie? that is not something you overlook- you shake ur fist in anger and demand another fresh pie made and you keep the one they f*cked up on!
last night i waited for 40 minutes at olive garden at 9pm (the restaurant was 1/2 empty) and our waiter seemed to have been an ex-druggie (kept twitching and seemed amped for no reason). i ordered appetizer and soup. the guy took forever for everything! after waiting 10 minutes for a refill on my soup- i walked out on the bill.
Hah, that's why I don't usually go to restaurants. ;D
HAHAHAAH! you don't know how many times i had to doctor an order in a restaurant because of one reason or another, but i sure as hell wouldn't have hidden it under SALAD! that "chef" (aka cook, i gurantee no culinary schooling was involved in his pizza training) is a creative retard.
had an ex gf of a guy i was dating as my waitress once. let's just say...she was bitter. and made to leave work early that night
missing slice? but how?? i wouild've asked! i want answers, dammit!
hahahha. you totally deserve a whole pie and should've asked them about the missing slice, and demanded a new pie with all the slices intact. totally uncool to fill it with salad, even though i love salad. LOL.
Hah. Seriously?
I've been to CPK millions of times and something like that's never happened to me.
It's probably because she had a slice and/or she has New-Yorker-radar.
p.s.
Most all the waitresses that have served me at CPK are named Jenny.
hahahhahah
thank you that was a good laugh
Funny how your story is based on California Pizza Kitchen, because the only one bad time I've had with a restaurant is from there too. I was out with my crew from work for one of those "bound together" dinners and and we ordered everything going swell. I had ordered a chicken sandwich. While eatting I find a piece of hair BAKED into the bread so I stop tell everyone they wait for the waitress to come back and tell her what we found. So i pick up the other piece of sandwich take a look before eatting and find another piece of hair again BAKED into the bread. Never again have i returned there it disgusted me.
take you to north cali? sureeee! road trip! hahaha.
XD
ey looka that.
humping football players. how awkward.
yeah. bad restaurant experiences? go to buffet. minimizes waiter/tress serving you type of contact. maximizes your balance a-load-of-this-platter-i-heaped-on-meself skills. salad on pizza? hoh. did it taste good. perhaps it's their cali style majig or whatnot. or. they've run out of pizza ingredients and cheap-em-ized it by covering it up w/ salad. who knows. 'cause i surely don't.
have a nice day now.
that's too bad about the bad service... at least the pizza was good?
pizza with fork and knife?? for serious??
worst experience would have to be at this Japanese restaurant, the food took 30-35 minutes, and worst of all, my udon got fingered by the waitress (two of her fingers just dipped into the bowl!!). Ew.
so thats what it will be like when i make it in the nba
You could have just had a highly disgruntled chef who decided to add a dash of secret sauce (re: phlegm) to your pizza, something your savvy waitress caught and spontaneously improvised with swapping the violated slice with some salad.
I hope you tipped her extra well for her valorous countermeasures.
Haha. Woodstocks?
you should've just asked the waitress anyway! that place is good though.
You have to taste the pasta from CPK, the one green noodle one.
I mean you can't really go wrong with pasta now.
but yeah, sucky service...DENNY'S.
le props!
if you think regular CPK is bad, wait until you try a CPK ASAP (that is, if you're willing to give CPK another try - perhaps in california next time?).
CPK asap is as fast as regular CPK, the only difference being you have to get your own table and fill your own drink. how silly of them.
However, since there's an ASAP in the mall where I work, I can call my order, have it delivered and get an extra 10% discount... and have it in my hands within 10 minutes.
Pizza with calamari and eggs. Wasn't good for the stomach, I tell ya.
And one time we got a japanese guys pubic hairs in our pizza -- well his beard hairs were like pubes. hahaha
give the waitress a break. she was just hungry!!!
holy fuck.
what bastards.
X_x
CPK fired my boyfriend when he worked there. Bastards. Only 'cause he served customers full sized pizzas!
In China what you have described is unusual.
Unusually good service, that is.
Is it obvious that I am happy to be leaving here after nearly two years in this hellhole.
Good-bye China - this is my last full day here.
In China what you have described is unusual.
Unusually good service, that is.
Is it obvious that I am happy to be leaving here after nearly two years in this hellhole.
Good-bye China - this is my last full day here.
In China what you have described is unusual.
Unusually good service, that is.
Is it obvious that I am happy to be leaving here after nearly two years in this hellhole.
Good-bye China - this is my last full day here.
In China what you have described is unusual.
Unusually good service, that is.
Is it obvious that I am happy to be leaving here after nearly two years in this hellhole.
Good-bye China - this is my last full day here.
didnt know mini-me was a bball star.
ugh. never liked CPK in my life.
hghahhahahahahaha yOU got bamboozled!!!!!
You shooo should have asked! Its not being cheap!!!! Its about getting what you apid for. Awww... If I was there.. I would have handled it for you. Gracefully, of course.
I bet she reads your xanga!
You didn't complain about it?
You must have done something to earn the extra disrespect of being served a pizza that had an entire slice missing.
-LkVs
Oh shit haha. That's how they feed their little Chinese children working in the back.
aw sad... i love cpk. we have good service in hawaii
she totally thought you were probably related to the cho kid. and thought that if she could take revenge on you by giving you one less slice
That sucks I would have asked where the rest of my pizza was.
that's some crappy service =(
when the waiters refuse to serve us water!
Dang! If I had a slice missing, I'd send it back. Okay, maybe I'd be all passive-aggressive and just not leave a tip. That's what I did when the waitress at Denny's took 30 minutes in bringing our food, never having asked me how I wanted my eggs, didn't bring my roomie what she ordered, and took another 15 minutes before she supplied us with utensils. GRR.
Go Pizza Hut! Grease and all.
dude, i'd have been like ummm, some of my food is missing. i agree with the person who said 'try working in a restaurant' - i bartended/waitressed for a little while and it makes you appreciate your waitstaff. HOWEVER, some of your food missing is just unacceptable! just be nice about it and she'd probably be so embarrassed that she'd fawn all over you. i'm always super nice to people when i have to complain- it's not her fault! - (just like it's not my fault someone's food is undercooked; i didn't cook it!) and they are always super nice right back.
Check out this game site~~~~ it will bring you back your childhood memory
http://www.storm.jamroll.net/eba/ebs.cgi
man... dude, it's not about being cheap... but when you waited that long it should have been perfect!. you should had said something obviously the restaurant knew what's up.
They removed the slice they couldn't get any spit and urine on.... that's all.
i am freaking addicted to pizza. it's a shame you had horrible service. i visited a mate of mine that lives out in california, and she took me to cpk, and i have to say it was yummy scrumbos!! but alas, i am from london, and good pizza is hard to come by here. what i would give for a good pie, one slice missing or not, lol!
toodles
~annie
that just seems like a really bad joke.
i go to cpk all the time and i've never gotten a pizza with a missing slice. the only bad service i got from them was when they took the peking duck pizza off their menu and i'm still pretty mad about it.
but the pizza u did have was yummy i bet!!
That sux... maybe you should've ordered the BBQ Chicken pizza. It doesn't have salad on the top (I think) and therefore could not have been served with a missing piece disguised with salad.
I would've said something-
Or next time just order the appetizers.
http://www.xanga.com/CareyGLY/572298005/shit-head.html
i soOoOoOoOoOoOo would have bitched!
what's weird is that CPK in cali and CPK in ny are pretty different in terms of food served. also the pizza itself is actually bigger in ny from what i can remember (dono, never bothered to go when i lived there cause im not a big fan of pizza other than ny style pizza). not a fan of fusion food here!
take stuff from the restaurants, i took this sweet little "ad-bus" from red robins.
once at CPK a waitress stole my half eaten spring rolls appetizer (or whatever bullshit they're called there) ...
I went to a restaurant for a friend's birthday and not only did we have to wait 1/2 hour for our reserved table, but once we got it the server clearly hated our lives. We had to wait about an hour before she decided to come take any orders...it was a make your own stir-fry by the way so the only thing she needed to ask was what meat we wanted. Yep, took about another 1/2 hour to get our food and then we never got any drink refills and I saw our server in the kitchen dicking around when we were waiting to be served. We finally finished and flagged her down and she came out to pack up our food...she grabbed my friend's dirty cutlery off the dirty table and used it to fling her stir ffry into a take out container right in front of all of us. Took about another 15 minutes to get our dessert. THEN she tells us that none of us can leave until every last one of the like 25 of us has paid. Oh yeah, and the tip was already added into the bill so we had no choice but to pay. As if all of that isn't bad enough, I got out to the parking lot to find my boyfriend's brand new SUV with a missing passenger window. Someone smashed it in and stole my stuff out of it. Yuuupp..that was a sweet 1/2 hour drive back to his house on the highway in the middle of January with no window. We went in to tell the restaurant and our server laughed at us said and I quote "that sucks." and walked away. The manager wouldn't do anything for us.
FIRE & ICE in MARKHAM, ONTARIO. Don't ever, EVER, go there. You will be insulted, ignored, ripped off, and robbed.
i hope they washed their hands.
Do they omit a slice when you buy them frozen at the supermarket? Salad... I can't believe they gypped you.
CPK has wonderful PIZZA!!!! I mean the best....maybe you just don't appreciate the finer things in life!LOL!! Just kidding...yeah I'd be bummed about the missing slice too....you should have asked the waitress for a new pizza....I would have.
I would have complained or at least "asked innocently" if I were you.
I went to the CPK in Boston (@ the Prudential Center) and they took forever too, but I kinda like their food... so I'm going to keep going back... =| I can't believe you were missing a slice though. You should've raised hell. You have the right to be a cheapskate... you're asian! (zing zing! ...no? okay...)
I LIKE PAPA GINO'S!! Pizzeria Regina is good too. Mm, mm, mm.
aww your profile picture is so cute hahahhaa!
Hmm...did anyone else miss a slice?
Comments are closed.