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| - I don't particularly like chain restaurants, but when getting a relatively large family together, sometimes a chain is the only way to go. California Pizza Kitchen is a frequent choice for our family, as we all have various dietary restrictions that this restaurant can easily accommodate.
The gem (and the drawback) of this place is consistency. The food is consistently good (not great, but not mediocre). The service is consistently bad, mediocre on a good day.
Our most recent trip resulted in a dinner mistake that both the server and the manager defended, though it was clear that a mistake had been made. This is not the first time that I've been on the receiving end of that type of conversation, and it makes me wonder just what makes the staff here so condescending to the needs and requests of customers.
My aunt ordered a pizza Margherita, but asked for sliced tomatoes on top in lieu of the sauce. If the staff spoke the lingo of New York-style pizza restaurants, she would have ordered a white pizza with sliced tomatoes. Regardless, she was incredibly clear with the waitress what she wanted, and her order was repeated back verbatim. The five of us at the table all believed that everyone was on the same page.
However, when the food actually came out, it was clear that our server was not on the same page as our family. She explained that, upon placing the order for the pizza, that the tomatoes normally on the pizza (a diced variety, supposedly part of a "chunky sauce") WERE the sauce, so she had the kitchen go ahead and make the pizza without tomatoes. "Was that okay?" she asked, apparently suddenly unsure of her decision as she was just now bringing everyone our food.
First, the decision was contrary to what my aunt had asked for. She asked for tomatoes, but no sauce. While the kitchen may put diced tomatoes on this particular pizza, I have ordered varieties of pizza at that very restaurant before with sliced tomatoes (the requested substitution). I'm not sure why sliced tomatoes were impossible, but they were. Furthermore, it is up to the server to communicate about substitutions with the kitchen. It seems that, had she done a bit more probing, she could have had the right pizza brought out the first time.
Second, if the kitchen is somehow completely unable to make that kind of pizza, she should check with the table BEFORE putting the order through. Her decision to just wait until the order was out left my aunt waiting an additional twenty minutes for another pizza to be made. Our experience would have been totally different if she had spent 45 seconds checking back in with us to communicate about what our options really were.
When the manager was brought over, he asserted the server's story that the tomatoes are part of the sauce, and because my aunt asked for "tomatoes but no sauce," the kitchen went ahead and made the pizza without the sauce. Only after a few minutes of discussion did he offer to have the pizza re-made with diced tomatoes.
While they attempted to rectify it by comping the pizza, the damage had been done; our experience had been ruined by our server's decision to not confirm her understanding of my aunt's request.
I wouldn't rate this a two-star restaurant if I hadn't had SEVERAL similar experiences here. It must be the management, as other CPKs that I've visited throughout the valley are quite good.
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