Pizza Ranch — Restaurant in Ankeny

I would give zero stars if I could. Let me start off by saying this is my daughter’s absolute favorite place to eat and all she wanted to eat for her 15th birthday was pizza ranch. However we were too busy to eat in the restaurant so we got the take out meal for $8 each. Upon checking out the cashier guy (Nick) was so rude, started charging me extra for each and every “side” from the salad bar, carrots (extra charge), cucumbers (extra charge), cheese (extra charge), etc. when we asked why we were getting charged extra mind you my husband and I only got salad and the salad bar toppings, no chicken, no pizza literally nothing but salad nick said we could literally only get salad and no toppings. He then stuck his fingers in my salad to see what else was in there which was only salad, told me I had “too much salad”, charged me for extra pizza in my daughters meal which she had 3 slices and was extremely rude. Nick said the signs were posted behind us with what we could get and said “it’s not my fault you cannot read” he then insulted me by saying I was uneducated and needed to learn how to read (yes I have this part on video because at this point I was pissed). My daughter asked if there was going to be a pepperoni pizza coming out or if she could request it to go and he told her no she could not request it. He then brought out a pan of pepperoni pizza like 2 minutes later and carried it through the buffet area holding onto it while she attempted to pick something else. Once she picked a different kind of pizza he put the pepperoni pizza on the buffet.

We ended up leaving all of the food and going elsewhere. When I initially asked for his name the other employees refused to tell me. He finally told me what his name was and when I told him I was going to make a complaint he said go ahead I have already talked to the owner about this.

Save your money and go elsewhere! We will not...

Writing a bad review is easy. I don't like doing that. I alway try to look for good things to say and areas for improvement. Plus, I generally like Pizza Ranch. It's an Iowa company. So, with that, here's my experience. First off, there's ample parking. You walk in and the staff seem to be pleasant. I genuinely think they are. Most of us have worked in customer service of some kind and, although you're smiling on the outside, you're really playing out in your head how to make that ONE customer disappear with no witnesses. Also, there were many staff on the job and ALL were busy doing something. Sweeping up the floor, tending to the buffet, bringing fresh food out, removing empty pans, and bussing tables. It was a flurry of activity, all the while, unsupervised children milled around their feet and the feet of other patrons. However, after sampling some of the food, it was uncharacteristically subpar to what I expect from Pizza Ranch. Their standard chicken was good, but just good. The only other menu item that I thought was good to my expectations was the pickled herring from the salad bar. Everything else wasn't really palatable. The BBQ chicken was dry and burnt. The macaroni had less taste than the napkin I spit the burnt chicken into. Which leads me to my last point. The restrooms to small for such a big building. I'll leave it at that. Businesses, like people, can have a bad day. I'm hoping that's all today's lunch hour experience was. I won't say, "don't go here." Just writing an honest opinion and hoping it was...

I'm not sure what happened/changed, but I'm thinking the short, bald guy and the tall Italian guy were corporate trainers who assisted in the opening of the new restaurant because as soon as they left, the place went sharply downhill. We've spent a LOT of money with you but will not continue after what happened last night. Multiple plates on the buffet were VERY, visibly dirty. I informed the manager(?) who then had an employee stand at the buffet visibly inspecting both sides of every plate, right in the middle of a busy restaurant. If you watched her for 5 seconds it was obvious what she was doing. The correct thing to do in that situation would be to have all of the plates moved to the back to either be inspected or rewashed and then replace them with new, clean plates. After witnessing this I thoroughly lost my appetite. It appears as if the plates were only rinsed and put back on the buffet.

Waking up at 3 in the morning and again at 7 with intense diarrhea is also another reason we will not be returning to your restaurant. This is not the first time since the original management left that I have been extremely underwhelmed with my meal.

I don't know if it's a trend but I've heard that the one in Ames is dirty and people don't eat there for that reason.

Something has definitely changed with the food quality/freshness and needs to be turned around. Sounds like management needs to get their...