Rosati's Pizza of Bloomington/Normal — Restaurant in Bloomington

Review Date: June 2nd, 2013

Three people. Zero likes.

Matt, Erin, and I decided to check out Rosati’s Pizza one day while exploring Bloomington/Normal. In theory, all three of us love pizza and the three of us are not food snobs.

We arrived at Rosati’s on a sunny afternoon with empty bellies and an unhealthy desire to put down some pizza. The place was fairly empty. We must’ve just missed a lunch rush. What luck! We were seated at a table and given menus. It took us some time to adjust to the menu offerings and how to split an 8-slice pizza between three people. After much deliberation, we ended up with the pizza you see below. I don’t remember how we arranged the toppings. I think one side was meat lovers and the other a cheese lovers?

We made small talk while we waited for our food to come out. The smell drifting out from the kitchen was heavenly. This gave us all a sparkle in our eye and some drool in the corner of our mouth. The waitress brought our pizza out and it looked and smelled fantastic. We each grabbed a piece, put it on our plate, thanked the pizza gods, and dug in.

I didn’t need to take more than a few bites to know we were doomed with a bad pizza. There really is no other words to say besides it wasn’t good. At all. I ‘m normally not harsh but Rosati’s is the worst pizza I’ve ever had… and I used to eat Jack’s pizzas by choice. (Nothing against Jack’s, I just find them not filling and a waste of money when you can buy better frozen pizzas for the same price.)

It was a struggle to wolf down the pizza and act like it wasn’t bad. Not that I had to pretend it was delicious in front of my friend and girlfriend but I didn’t want to ruin the magic of the shared misery until after we were done eating and were far away from this place.

I had brought up Rosati’s to another group of friends recently and they all had the exact same reaction as we had. I am usually up for second chances but I will have to decline to give Rosati’s another chance. If you are a fan of Rosati’s, that’s great! It has to be a pretty popular place as they have quite a few locations throughout Illinois. I just know...

Visiting from St. Louis. I always wanted to try Rosati’s in person as we usually purchase it from the freezer at our local grocer. Upon receiving a pizza from this establishment, I definitely should’ve heeded the other reviews, but always try to patronize different restaurants. My husband and I ordered a 1/2 and 1/2 pizza with one half being - bacon, sausage, pepperoni and the other half just cheese. When getting my slice I noticed a piece of sausage was on my side and I just picked it off (ok, no biggie) then I tasted bacon. I went back to inspect the rest to see if the “cheese” slices had meat on them, and in fact they did. I’m not one to complain or call things in as I usually can compromise, but the cost of the pizza was way too expensive to just “let it slide”.

I called to explain the happenings in a cordial manner as I understand mistakes happen. No big deal! I wanted to explain what I observed and tasted in hopes to get the pizza just re-made without hassle. The young man I spoke with was unprofessional/rude to say the least. What turned into what I thought would be an even exchange of a correct pizza.. it turned into a back-in-forth of “there’s no way the pizza could’ve had meat all over it”, “I cut the pizza myself”, “I don’t know what to tell you”, some sighing etc., almost as if I was fabricating or didn’t know what I was talking about. After my husband getting on the phone to settle things after overhearing how the situation was being handled- the young man stated he needed to see the pizza for himself to prove my case. Sheesh! A new pizza would be made and sent out, but by that time I was so turned off by the whole thing, that I wanted nothing to do with the pizza or receiving another one. The defensiveness and turning a minor situation into a debacle was extremely off-putting. I’ve worked in the food service industry.. this is not how one should rectify an issue. 8 minutes of going back and forth over a pizza is unacceptable....

Unfortunately, we’ve had repeated bad service from Rosati‘s in Bloomington Illinois. We initially had a Pizza delivered that had been dropped on its side so all the stuffed crust ingredients were shoved to one side of the box, not even remaining on the pizza. So we spoke to the manager, who said that we could get a replacement at another time. Just spoke with Victor, the manager, who said that while they show our phone number in their system, they don’t show that this replacement had been extended to us. Was unwilling to do anything about it, was unwilling to follow through on the replacement of the damaged Pizza, and essentially claimed that the only thing that he could do is pass this along to the owner, Phil. the biggest challenge of this whole experience was not the fact that they couldn’t deliver the initial product without damaging it, was that the customer Service in both instances was extremely poor, highly unprofessional and unwilling to accomplish any type of customer satisfaction. Although Victor is the manager, he is not empowered to help customers at all. This all aligns with their rating of an F on the better business bureau site. The product itself is a C minus product to begin with but with the extremely poor customer Service. This takes the overall Rosati’s of Bloomington experience down to an F minus. It’s a shame that running a pizza place is so difficult that a manager must receive owners approval to follow through on a mistake their company made in the first place. Too many strikes against this place! Terrible, terrible, terrible. Perfect example of what not to do in customer service and why so many are going out of...