California Pizza Kitchen at Annapolis — Restaurant in Annapolis

I’m a fanatic when it comes to pizza, all things pizza! I’ve had a chance to cook in some of the best pizza ovens in the world. So it’s kind of a drug for me to be around the kitchen, and watch people make pizza and or cook. Now to the review! Don’t be fooled by the Photography! Looks can be deceiving! Now, don’t get me wrong. I love California Pizza Kitchen, when they are spot on. I never had a problem with their pasta dishes and most pizzas come out great! But this review will be on my most recent experience. This is Not a negative review. It’s Not a positive review. It’s in the middle. 😬 We ordered their Thai Crunch salad, which was perfect and always is! My wife loves that one! We tried the NEW! Burnt Ends BBQ pizza, the NEW Braised Short-rib Ragu and THE west Coast Burger- The “WCB” the only burger on their menu. Made with Wagyu, Chuck and brisket meat. Which makes it for a very flavorful burger. But a burger joint they are not. With one burger on the menu you’d hope it would be made properly, right? When I told the waiter, what temperature to cook my burger at he came back and said, “we don’t do temperature.” It’s a company policy. But they were nice enough to cook my burger and keep it juicy! When the burger arrived, it looked good, But the only problem was the CHEESE was NOT melted at all! 😢 It was very cold and totally distracted from a nice moist juicy burger. Anybody knows when you grill or cook a burger with cheese, the cheese must be melted. The melting of the cheese on a burger takes it to the next level. That’s like raw onions on a burger, may give it a crunch, but when they’re cooked or roasted those onions sing! It’s a bummer because that would’ve been an awesome burger. Trying a new dish on a menu is like trying out a new pair of shoes, needs to be broken in. The braised short rib Ragu was OK. And again, the pasta was not as warm as you would like it to be. Flavors were there! I just felt like something was missing. Now let’s move onto the pizza, we were with friends so I let them order the pizza. Not my first choice, but we did try this NEW Burnt Ends BBQ Pizza! When we got it, the first thing my wife mentioned was it’s cold. And she’s a pretty hard critic when it comes to food and dining out. I guess that’s because of the way I cook at home lol! Sometimes she’ll say, “yours is better!” And I won’t deny that most home cooking is better than dining out. But you go out for the experience, the food, and friends. And sometimes that experience is not what you’d expect. It was a newbie night and we were trying out things we hadn’t gotten before. So, This was one of those times where things weren’t as good as they could’ve been… I did let the waiter know about the burger and the pizza and I believe the manager did subtract one from the Bill, which was nice. But personally, I would’ve preferred a resend and got it how it was meant to be served. Maybe next time! and I hope they let the chef know the cheese was not melted, and if that was how it was meant to be… I probably won’t order it again. Now, like I said, most times I’m very happy with the food I get here. We’ll see on my next visit! 😋 So if you’re in the Annapolis Mall and looking for some pizza, pasta, or something a bit different, try them out! Tell them Jack Julius sent you from Google reviews. Have a great day! See you in the next review! #pizzatime...

This was a very frustrating experience from beginning to end. There were eight open tables and the Mall was dead (this is not an exaggeration, half of this mall is empty storefronts), but they told us there would be a wait because our group was too small for the bigger tables. (The larger tables hold five or six people.) So we had to wait while those eight tables were empty and no one came in the entire time we were eating, so those tables remained empty.

Then we sit down and the waiter comes out and he asked us about our drinks and we ordered drinks and he let us know the soda machine is down. OK that’s fine but they’re also out of several other things so you basically have a choice of tea or tapwater. Frustrating but not his fault.

So we order a pizza and a dessert. We asked for the dessert come out first. The dessert came out incorrectly. Not only did it not match the picture, but it was missing toppings. I asked about the toppings and he said he didn’t think I wanted the toppings even though I did not mention not wanting toppings.

The dessert was gross. It was dry and crumbled and overall terrible.

He brought out the pizza which was undercooked and doughy. By this point we had given up so we just attempted to eat what we could in order to pay and leave.

We had to wait for him to walk away from the table to our right in order to ask for our check. He spent almost our entire meal with that table. They were dressed in business clothes and was the only table he cared about. We were ignored for most of our meal, never offered refills or anything else or even checked in on but the business table had excellent service and I’m sure they had a great time.

He finally drops the check after being asked twice and we pay. I’ve never been to this restaurant before, but I have to say I’ll never be back. My husband, as we were leaving, remarked to me that he will not be shocked when this place closes. The mall is basically dead already most of the stores are shut down and with that horrific service and food like that they are next. Truly, a disgrace in terms of what...

Let me start off by saying, I love the food at CP. My adult children and I eat there every time we go to Annapolis Mall. We usually sit at the bar and eat and drink mojitos. However, on 3/2/19, I went there with two friends and to save time we sat at the bar because there was a wait for the tables and the bar was available immediately. I was raving about this place all the way there. To my chagrin and great embarrassment, the customer service that we received at the bar was horrible, disrespectful and unnecessary. The bartender John never greeted us and brought our drinks after an unnecessary wait. The bar area was not full and he didn’t appear to be inundated with drink requests from the tables. Much of the time he was just standing behind the bar waiting for drink requests. In addition, we waited for our food while patrons on either side of us had eaten their food and were waiting for the bill. They came in after us. It got so rediculous, that a regular patron asked John what was the problem with our meal and why were we still waiting. We overheard him telling her the reason and still he said nothing to us. She then spoke to the manager who then came over and apologized for the wait and said that there was a problem with one of the meals. This used to be my favorite place to eat in the mall. However, after that experience, I will no longer be frequenting that location and that is a shame because like I said in the beginning, I love the food. A little communication about our wait and better manners were what we deserved and did not receive. BTW, my friends and I ate out the very next day at an establishment in Prince George’s county that had excellent customer service and the tip...