Boston Pizza — Restaurant in St. Albert

I was at this Boston Pizza with my family a couple of weeks ago and I can definitely say, big wigs of Boston Pizza, give these two ladies a raise! Best customer service in a restaurant I've had yet to date.

One of our family members is anaphylactic to dairy - it's an incredibly severe allergy. Even a droplet of cross contamination results in throat closure in 40 seconds. While I understand eating out is a serious risk, it's nice to treat themselves to something different than the same diet day in and day out that avoids dairy.

My experience here was with Jane as our waitress and the manager Kelly. Jane completely understood everything regarding our allergy and insisted she check on what we were ordering would be free of dairy. She made numerous trips to the back to verify everything. We usually have chicken tacos (with modifications) for our family member, and even though we have had it in the last, it'd a good idea to check ingredients again as recipes do change. Jane was super attentive, she got our orders perfect, checked for dairy and also informed Kelly of the situation.

Kelly came out and introduced herself and said she would personally take care of the allergy situation. She was very detailed in checking for any dairy allergens and believe it or not, the other Boston Pizza's we have eaten and had chicken tacos - no one has come forward saying in the fine print they may contain dairy. This is a rather serious red flag for our family member. May contains have triggered him before. Kelly said with the may contain she did not feel comfortable with us ordering the chicken tacos but this is where she went above and beyond. She sat beside us and personally went through their BPs allergy menu and said she won't stop until we come up with something he can eat, safely. I've never had an employee sift through the menu and suggest menu items that they could build that weren't part of the menu, just to accomodate. That is customer service!

Thanks to these ladies we had a great time, hot delicious supper and felt completely safe (usually we are on edge). Definitely our go to Boston Pizza now.

Thanks guys! Very, very much...

As a franchise, you should expect the same at every location…I know BPs has an in-house training program for BOH and FOH, and that should, in theory ensure a standard experience that everyone is familiar with. Today, my youngest daughter (6) chose Boston Pizza for a lunch date. In general, it was an average experience with two exceptions 1. It took nearly 5 minutes to be seated when it was not busy. I attributed this to the staff being busy trying to sort out lunch orders in the expo area for diners already in the restaurant, I understand that, but many others could have been easily irritated by the wait. 2. The food… the ordered a lunch combo, consisting of a Chicken club and a Caesar salad… my biggest gripe, the Caesar salad was that it seemed as though the lettuce was rubbed on the exterior of a dressing bottle at best… it came out topped with croutons, bacon, and freshly grated Parmesan, but dry as a bone. How this made it past any quality controls is beyond me. The sever was friendly, but clearly was busy managing a section beyond what should be expected of a single person. The potential of low staffing also affected table maintenance, I sat with dirty plates for an extended period of time (5-10 minutes) with the plate sitting at the edge of the table ready to be cleared, even looked at by staff, only cleared once the sever was available.

I hope this was a one off. Maybe it was my fault for not ordering a pizza at...

Let me give you all a time line of my tedious attempt to order a pizza from this establishment (spoiler alert, I did not get the pizza):

11:11: first call to Boston Pizza asking for a delivery. The hostess gives me a delivery number and hangs up.

11:17: call the delivery number. They tell me that this location will not allow delivery beyond 11pm. At this point I wonder why I was given the delivery number and not told they were not doing deliveries.

11:20: SECOND call to Boston Pizza where I ask why I wasn't informed of the delivery hours. They tell me "oh, that's so strange, we close delivery at 11:30." I ask if I can order something. "Ummm let me get my manager..."

I talk to the manager who says "there's nothing I can do but call the delivery line but..." so I just hung up and called back myself, at this point debating whether or not I should just give up.

11:23: call the delivery line and explain how ridiculous this process has been. They try to place the order and again are unable. The dispatcher on the phone then calls this location. I am put on hold.

Approx. 11:31: I am taken off hold to be notified that this location, despite being aware of a customer trying to place an order, sent the delivery driver home while I was on hold.

All that for trying to order a pizza. Not going to bother with that...