Blaze Pizza — Restaurant in Albuquerque

Excellent pizza, service, and options -- both for food and drink. Just about every pizza you could want in the pre-selected options and you can build your own. It's basically like a Chipotle Mexican Grill/Moe's Southwest Grill setup where you make selections down the line but with 12" pizzas instead of burritos. Drinks include the expected Coca-Cola soda products, a few more delicious ones from Blue Sky, and other fruit drinks besides lemonade! It's unexpected and refreshing to have several non-soda options at a fast casual restaurant. The pizza was tasty, everyone who worked there was friendly (although one of them seemed a little bit out of it, he needs to get some sleep!), and the atmosphere was good. They also come by your table to ensure everything is to your liking, offer refills, and even take your dishes when done. Wow. What service! I let them know as much.

A couple of very minor issues happened that aren't even worth taking a star off. For one, the soda machine's Coca-Cola wasn't mixed properly and seemed to be mostly carbonated water with very little syrup. I'm a pretty easygoing person and just selected another drink, though I regret not informing them before leaving. Another is that my dining partner wanted a barbecue chicken pizza but with a couple ingredients taken off. They assured her the barbecue sauce would be drizzled on afterwards. This must have confused them the way it was ordered because sure enough it was left off until I notified them when picking up our orders. They made it right, so no problem. If these are the only issues at a new restaurant they are doing well.

I highly recommend Blaze Pizza, am glad we detoured there from our original destination of Chipotle to check them out, and will definitely be back...

Walked in at 12:27 p.m. Two patrons were waiting in front of me to build their pizzas. The two staff members present were friendly. They greeted me when I walked in and said we would be right with you. At 1:15 p.m., a staff member got around to building my build-your-own pizza. I finally walked out the door with my pizza and drink in hand at 1:25 p.m. I am not exaggerating about the times above; these are completely accurate. You might suspect this is a one-time occurrence. It is not the case. The last time I was at the restaurant was on August 4 around 5:30 p.m. I experienced something similar, about a 40-minute investment of my time from start to finish. I recognized that online orders are coming in electronically through their system, which they have to complete as well. There has to be a better and more efficient way to handle the customers that are ordering in person face-to-face. Going in person and building your own pizza is part of the experience. And for the inconvenience, I was surprised they did not even offer my drink for free or apologize for the wait as I paid. Another suggestion to handle the situation would’ve been to be upfront and honest about the fact that it was going to take potentially up to an hour to get my pizza completed. I probably would have chosen another restaurant in the general area and would’ve been appreciative that they were upfront and honest with me. Saying “ I’ll be right with you” had no value or meaning. I travel to Albuquerque once a month, and this restaurant has been my go-to place. Unfortunately, I’ve seen a drastic decline in the timely service and preparation of my pizza. Third time’s a charm; I’ll be back in October. They have one more chance to keep me...

I was so excited to go at first. I had read many great reviews. I was greeted right away, the person taking my order was helpful and kind. The guy making the pizza must have been new. He was very slow and very confused what went on my one toping mushroom pizza. He asked me three times what went on it. He also couldn’t understand that I wanted another pizza 1/2 with one topping and 1/2 a second topping. He split it into thirds and left the middle just cheese. When I asked for more toppings, he called someone else for help. Fortunately, she was smart enough to look at it and without me saying what was wrong, fixed it in 5 seconds. He finally got through the one topping pizza and he also forgot my salad several times. I paid and waited almost 20 min. The restaurant was just getting busy for the night but I was one of the earlier customers. While I was paying, the new guy dropped a metal number tag on the ground and picked it up with his gloved fingers and started handeling someone else’s food again with the same gloves. When I got home my pizza crust was not cooked so I recooked it in my oven. My kids ate the pizza and I ate my salad. I tasted a bite of two of their special pizzas and wasn’t really impressed. The flavors weren’t fresh tasting, it was surprisingly sweet for two different pizza’s and the one toping mushroom one had an unatural mushroom taste. The kids ended up each throwing away 1/2 their pizza. My Ceaser salad wasn’t great either and had two croutons. Later that night I woke up with food poisoning. Fortunately, the kids did not get sick, I guess it was the salad. Regardless on taste alone I won’t go back and I wouldn’t...