Hungry Howie's Pizza — Restaurant in Bartow

update review 09/05/25 Apparently we are gluttons for punishment, since the only reason we keep trying is because our kids enjoy your pizza subs. Unfortunately, our last two experiences have been beyond frustrating.

On Friday, August 29, 2025, we placed a $60 order of pizza and pizza subs. My boyfriend chose to pick it up rather than wait two hours for delivery. When he got home and opened his sub, he found it was nothing but a ton of bacon and lots of sauce—despite him requesting pepperoni and bacon with light sauce. He called, and the manager offered to remake the sub if he came back to pick it up, which was unreasonable after he had already gone once and worked all day. Instead, they placed a credit under his name for a free sub.

Tonight, he decided to use that credit while ordering a pizza, three subs, and breadsticks. His son requested a turkey club sub with no bacon and ham. When my boyfriend got home and his son opened it, the sub contained only ham—no turkey, no cheese, nothing else. This is completely unacceptable.

The manager’s excuse this time was that there are three new employees. While I understand the challenges of training new staff, that is not a valid excuse for repeatedly failing to fulfill simple orders. Customers should not have to pay for mistakes or lack of training.

At this point, we will not be spending another dime here. I strongly suggest the owner/management team improve employee training or have them train with the staff at the Hungry Howie’s near McIntosh and I-4. That location is consistently excellent and never has these kinds of issues.

We are extremely disappointed and hope you take this feedback seriously so other customers don’t have the same experience.

Previous review: Gave them two chances because I love the flatbread from the hungry howies by my job, but this location is awful!! The first time we ordered delivery. It took 1.5 hours, which they were up front about, but it was cold and nasty. I couldn’t eat a quarter of it before tossing. The second time was tonight. My boyfriend tried calling in a pick up order for over 5 minutes while driving to the location. When he arrived he was still on the phone trying to order. In the window he could see the guy on the phone. When my boyfriend would ask hello, he could see the guy put the phone down. Also, one of the girls working was wearing pajamas. Probably should have turned around and went somewhere else at that , but we love the flatbreads from the one by our work. He went in and ordered. He gets home, and my flatbread that was supposed to have extra cheese(that we paid for) has light cheese, the pizza crust on the pizza ordered was flat, like it wasn’t prepared properly. The bread sticks aren’t breadsticks. They were a giant bread bubble, hollow on the inside, not cut and no flavoring. We will drive further from home to enjoy hungry howies!! Hoping this review will make a difference, buy know it...

This USED TO BE a decent pizza stop for all my local errands. I have spent a lot of money here. Service AND food is getting worse and portions and amount of toppings extremely smaller. Yesterday was the last. Keep in mind it was NOT during a busy part of the day. About 4:30 and they had one order in the system (told to the next customer when their order couldn’t be found) I came in to order and no one at the front counter, and at least 5 people saw me but no one came up for SEVERAL minutes. A lady finally came up and asked if I had ordered already and took my order and told me 10 minutes, so I pulled down and across the street to get some sweet tea and came back (two red lights). They hadn’t even put my order in.

Another couple came in to get their order, left standing for several minutes, and the biggest guy there came up to help them after hollering at the group for not getting my order in (even though earlier HE was on the line with them when my order was placed.) Their order wasn’t any where to be found. While he is “helping” them, he is coughing everywhere (mouth not covered).

The couple are trying to figure out what to do, while I’m standing there (now about 20 minutes) waiting on my pizza. The coughing guy goes back and hollers at them to get my bread “because I’m staring at him”....what??? Then proceeds to do something with it behind the counter before bringing it out to me (NO gloves on his hands) and he’s been handling money and coughing! I ask him if he cut my pizza because he had been coughing and no gloves and he hollers again and tells me no, the other guy did. So I kept the Howie bread against my better judgment and now a little scared of this guy.

Yep, I’m sick this morning. I hope the owner reads this and does something about this guy. But I guarantee they won’t be seeing another...

After scrolling through endless reviews (some recent) I'd like to maybe offer a little insight on a few things:

WEB ORDERS PLEASE BE ADVISED WE MAKE THE FOOD BASED OFF WHAT Y'ALL ORDER so PLEASE check your orders before submitting! IF you forgot something or want to change it just give us a holler we'll be happy to try && fix it before it's completed to ensure your satisfaction!

1. YES the default delivery time typically ranges from 45 - 1 hour. Even if you live 2 seconds away from us yes its still that time frame unfortunately. Furthermore, YES we have been known to have delivery times of up to two hours. We can't predict our level of busy-ness throughout the night. Depending on the time of night determines how many drivers we have as well. We do service Bartow; Connersville; some Alturas; Highlands City; && some parts of Lakeland!

2. Soggy pizzas. Okay this issue has a couple possible contributing factors.. IF you order any crusts with butter the box could become soggy. ESPECIALLY if you ask for extra butter cheese or butter garlic! Should you want extra of butter cheese specify light butter extra parm🖤 Also, the longer it sits the soggier it'll get unfortunately due to no fault of our own.

3)Someone mentioned burned pizza.. unfortunately our oven is temperamental as sin. Some pizzas get cooked perfectly others, welp come out either too light (still completely cooked) or too dark but I PROMISE not a single employee intentionally burns the food!

4. Forgotten food/orders. Firstly, it's not intentional I PROMISE! We aim to keep customers happy && we strive to provide excellent customer service but even we're human && forget things🤦🏻‍♀️

5)Contact less delivery: This ones new. Not every driver is perfect && we strive to respect our customers wishes.. we'll do better at reading...