IPIC Theaters — Local services in Los Angeles

UPDATE #2 TO PREVIOUS REVIEW:

After reaching out to their corporate leadership, I received an immediate response. I give full credit to their team for rectifying the situation quickly and offering us equitable compensation. We are very grateful, and my wife and her friends are looking forward to visiting iPic in the future.

UPDATE #1 TO PREVIOUS REVIEW:

Unfortunately, iPic has now decided to spread falsehoods as to what compensation was offered to my wife's party.

They claim they offered complimentary tickets and food. This is categorically false. The only offer that was made by the supervisor, Diego, was for "a couple of appetizers" the next time we were at iPic. If at any point they had offered complimentary tickets, we would have absolutely accepted the offer as that would have been fair and equitable.

Due to the fact that iPic has decided to take a false and inflammatory stance, I will be reaching out to corporate level management to address the situation at this time.

ORIGINAL REVIEW:

It pains me to write this review as this is my favorite movie theater in Los Angeles, but reclining chairs and blankets don't make up for abhorrent customer service.

My wife purchased tickets for her and three friends at the beginning of August to see the movie, It Ends With Us. As this movie is greatly anticipated due to the huge following of the book it's based on, they purchased their tickets weeks in advance.

Today my wife received a message from the theater that two of their tickets had been mistakenly sold to someone else. I can't begin to understand how this is even possible, as generally businesses cannot sell inventory that isn't available, but this is apparently what happened. We contacted the theater, as the right thing to do would be for them to contact the customers that purchased the two tickets, explain the mistake, and reissue the tickets to my wife's party as they were the original purchasers.

However, the theater's stance is that would inconvenience the other guests. When asked why it was ok to inconvenience us and not the other guests, no acceptable answer was provided.

At this point we asked to speak to a supervisor, and we were told they would call us back within 20 minutes.

30 minutes later, we called as we did not receive the promised call back, and spoke to the supervisor, Diego.

Unfortunately, Diego was truly unhelpful and simply reiterated that they would not inconvenience the other guests. The only resolution offered was to purchase tickets for a different day, which does not work as my wife and her friends specifically picked the day they picked because that was when they were all available. Considering all of this, one would expect the supervisor to be apologetic and at the very least sympathetic, but Diego's attitude and demeanor left much to be desired.

While I do love this theater, we will be taking our business elsewhere in the future as this experience and the lack of customer service outweigh the beautiful decor and...

Okay, so I resisted giving just one star, based on the fact that I really used to love the iPic in Westwood. It used to be a 4-5 star experience and worth the extra money. Sadly, the iPic Westowwod location seems to be off the rails these days.

I was there with my girlfriend to see Cinderella on Sunday 4/12/15. As a Sapphire member, I would expect to be notified by email if there are any significant changes to the perks of membership. So I was quite surprised to learn that the self-parking fee was no longer covered for members when I arrived to check in for the movie. Seriously? When did this happen? This is not a good sign when the parking fee can no longer be covered as a membership benefit. Especially when you consider how much more it costs for the experience itself! Once we arrived to our seats, we were surprised to find no iPad/tablet at all, just the fixture that used to hold it! Instead, there was an actual menu sitting on the table. This is how it was at the very beginning when this location first opened, so it seems like things are regressing! What is even worse, is that these obviously old menus don't even list everything that had been listed in the tablet system. As a beer drinker, I know they offer that, but it was nowhere to be found on the menu. Worst of all, is the obvious decline in service once you get to your seat. That is really the whole point of paying extra for an iPic experience. Sure, the reclining chairs with the blanket and pillow are nice, but without prompt service, the experience is ruined. In the past we received fast service and there appeared to be more than one server working in the theater. On this occasion there seemed to be just one server working the entire theater. There seemed to be one other person that only delivered popcorn. Needless to say, it took forever for the server to finally get to us. By this point we had lost our desire to order any food since we could not trust when it would actually arrive so we settled for beer and wine instead. When the popcorn arrived, the quality was clearly not as good as we had remembered from past experiences and it was very salty! I could not enjoy my popcorn because I had to wait so long for my first drink to arrive.

This is not the iPic experience that I have come to expect. I am now seriously considering how I can cancel my membership and I am seriously doubting whether or not I want to shell out the extra money ($50 for the two CInderella tickets) in the future. So sad to see such a great concept run in to the ground in our neighborhood. I also tried contacting via the website, but have yet to...

So I was I use to go to IPIC both Pasadena and Westwood, last visited was in 2019 stop going when COVID 19 Pandemic hit.

I reserved a showing at the Westwood IPIC this past Saturday 06/15/24 for a 3:15pm showing of BAD BOYS part 3, Let me tell you what I did not like, there was no WOW! factor anymore.

The place was practically empty, there were no hosts to walk you to your screen. No host to explain how to use the IPAD. But here is the thing, No more IPADS. Stained and sticky Menus.

Stains on rug, seems it's the same rug. They should pay outside service to come and do a professional cleaning. or just replace the rug altogether. Also, no more pillows, what happen to the pillows. And the blankets were not rolled up properly, they use to show the IPIC logo, and the blanket had bad body order, meaning it was previously used and just rolled up and put back to be reused. (not cool and somewhat disgusting)

No free popcorn which used to be included with purchase of your ticket. Only if you upgraded your membership will you get it. Thier prices used to be $18.00 per regular ticket now $25.50 there is one wow here. lol

The orange leather seats, OMG, all torn, worn out. The tables that swivel for seating weather to get in or out of your seat squeaked. The button, where one would press to call your waiter did not stay lit up and we (me and my nephew whom I watched movie with) pressed anyways, figured only light was out. But being that the waiter took forever to come by to take our orders, seems that the button is broken. Honestly the waiter probably came by because we fell under their section that they service.

So, we placed orders and we got served, we actually wanted to order desserts and candy and probably popcorn as it is my norm to get popcorn. But with the button being broken, how were we going to order. The problem was the waiter never came back to see if everything was ok or if we need anything else. This of course is bad. Waiter showed up with the bill when movie was over.

Movie was good, food was good. The overall experience definitely needs lot of work. IPIC need to address all these issues and keep up with the maintenance of the theatre.

Higher prices and lower standards. Really, I don't recommend this place at all. No more wow factor, not nice nor luxurious and they need to be cleaner and fix them buttons otherwise their waiters can't provide good service.

I don't blame the staff, I blame, the company and management as they should be on...