La Ruota Pizzeria Kitsilano — Restaurant in Vancouver

2020Nov07 Update: I'm happy to report that the manager personally called me to apologize and explain the circumstances that caused the issue. It seems that the situation was also a bit of an anomaly so, I'm glad that it has been figured out. I will be revisiting La Ruota in future and am happy to continue to support them.

WARNING: Do NOT purchase pizza off La Ruota's website until they fix their system, and be wary of their customer service.

I don't normally post reviews, but feel compelled do so to help other customers avoid wasting their time.

First I want to share that I'm a regular customer of La Ruota, and in my opinion, they make the best pizza in Kitsilano I've ever experienced! Nonetheless, my conclusion is no pizza is worth the trouble of going through this exhausting process ever again.

A few weeks ago I purchased 2 pizzas from La Ruota via their website using my credit card. When the delivery man arrived, he asked, how would you like to pay, credit or debit? When I told him I already paid on the website he showed me it did not show up on the receipt. So, I called the restaurant while waiting outside with our pizzas, and the customer service person assured me- your postal code was incorrect, so it will not double charge you. The driver said, this happens all the time and I don't want to come back to get the money. So, I went ahead and paid again... which was a mistake.

Sure enough, when I checked my credit card statement I was charged twice. I called the restaurant three times. The first time, the day after the purchase, I called La Ruota and the customer service representative said they would call me back, but didn't. I called back a second time 2 days later, spoke to someone new named Moya whom I had to re-explain the scenario to. When she understood the issue, she thanked me and hung up (without saying anything). She called me back 5 minutes later, asked for who's name was on the order, said Ah, okay thank you! and hung up again. After this she didn't call me back. Four days later, I noticed there was no refund on my credit card so I called back for a third time. This time I asked for Moya. She didn't seem to remember the scenario, so I had to re-explain once again. When she clued in, she acknowledged that she remembered, apologized and told me the Manager was supposed to call me back but didn't. Then she put me on hold and I finally got to speak with the Manager. Once again, I had to explain the situation. The Manager blamed the website company and put me on hold while she called them. After 5 minutes, she got back on the phone and said okay they're going to refund you. Then she nearly hung up before I stopped her and asked for some form of confirmation that this time would work.

Overall, these interactions have taken me over 3 phone calls, 4 times explaining, and over an hour of my time. I'm tempted to just let it go (its just over two pizzas after all), but I've gotten this far now... At this time I'm now waiting to see if I will in fact be reimbursed by the website company.

I'm not satisfied as a customer because La Ruota didn't demonstrate or honour how frustrating and time consuming this experience was. The responsibility should not be customer to be the middle man between a business and its website provider, nor should it be on them to chase down a business multiple times for money that was double charged. If this occurs again, I think La Ruota should refund the customer their money immediately and deal with the website/credit card company one on one. My trust has been broken as a customer - I wish La Ruota's excellent pizza was matched by their level...

BUYER BEWARE!!! We ordered a pizza online for pick-up. After making the drive and arriving home, we discovered that the additional topping we paid for was missing. We called the shop and the man apologized and said that he could remake the pizza. We said that we were not keen to make another 30 minute drive, so he said he would offer us a credit for a pizza and put it under our phone number.

The next week we called to put in an order for lunch using our credit. After waiting 3 hours to talk to the manager because they could not honor a credit without her approval, she finally arrived to the shop and refused to take our call because she was too busy. She also refused to give us her name when I asked who to expect a call from which was really bizarre. Finally, Gul called us back after 8pm! She said she would NOT honour the credit offered for a pizza but that she would make things right by offering us a credit for the cost of the topping. We explained to her that the credit she is offering us is our own money that we paid them for a product we did not receive, so it's not making things right.

After a total of 25 minutes spent on the phone with this place (mostly listening to Gul with the patience of a saint and being left on hold) and 5 hours of waiting to have this issue addressed, she offered us 10% off our next pizza. We told her that at this point we would actually just be happy enough with a refund for the topping we did not receive and she REFUSED! She said we could come back to the store and buy a pizza to redeem our credit. We said we no longer want to buy a pizza from them after this experience and just want our money back for what we didn't receive. She said to purchase a can of pop or water instead if we didn't want pizza. Seriously? We just want our money back. The customer service here is APPALLING. We've tried to reach someone higher up just to get our money back, but have not heard from anyone.

If this place makes a mistake with your order, beware. This manager does not know the first thing about customer service and will literally make YOU pay out of pocket for their error!

As for the pizza, we ordered an XL pizza and it had the same amount of toppings on it as a smaller one. It was incredibly sparse and nothing like the single slices. We will not be returning here. Novo is a few blocks away and has excellent brick oven Italian style pizza...we'll be spending our money...

So here’s the thing, big picture, they know how to make pizza. That’s a great thing, however, as we are also big fans of their partner company Pizza Garden, we expect good pizza. The challenge at Ruota is in the details. For example, we just had their Caesar salad, here was their recipe... 30% croutons, which normally isn’t a huge problem since my girlfriend loves croutons (I just don’t understand them lol) however, they were stale grrrr. But literally 25 croutons in one small salad...really guys?

The second issue with the salad was that there was at least half a cup of cheese, I know what you’re thinking “that’s a good thing” right? Wrong, too much of any one things spoils the experience. Third, was they put the salad on the pizza box = hot pizza and cold salad = soggy salad grrrr. Caesar salad big rookie miss.

Now for the pizza, and the opposite problem of the Caesar, our second time in a row they were super stingy on the toppings and the crust was almost 3” wide instead of the acceptable 1-2” and our pizza had probably half the toppings it should. Why not just charge more and dress it properly?

Next is their online experience. Not bad all in all, but when you order it gives you no indication how long it will take. Last time we gave it 15 minutes before we arrived and we waited 20 minutes (35 minutes total from the time we ordered) this time we gave it 20 minutes and based on the soggy salad it was probably sitting there for 10 minutes.

The last complaint was that we made a note (there’s no option online) for a side of garlic sauce which was disappointingly not in our box when we got home. Grrr

Details guys, details. It’s the little things that keep people loyal and coming back. With covid reaping havoc on our businesses it’s more important than ever to remember those details.

“Takeaway” At the end of the day, we enjoy their pizza, not more than Pizza Garden but a second choice for sure. My point is that if you order from here, check your order, avoid the salads, ask for extra toppings and if your pizza doesn’t look right or there’s more crust than what’s fair, just ask them to make it again. It’s your...