Oregano's — Restaurant in Cave Creek

This is the first time I’m leaving a negative restaurant review and I’m doing so in hopes the new chain owner sees this and realizes that cutting corners and changing recipes to dishes that have been a menu staple for 20+ years, your regulars will notice. And not in a good way. My husband and I are native AZ, and Oreganos has always been a restaurant we frequent. It had been a few months since we had been to the Cave Creek location, and I’m going to say, it will be the last time we go to any Oregano’s. When we got our Boom Dip as our app, we noticed something was off. The quality was not the same, there was a lot of excess white liquid in the dish, even after it sat and cooled off. It seemed like maybe they changed their recipe. As we waited for our pizza, we witnessed a couple who had ordered a deep dish and a thin crust pizza nearby. They each took one bite of their pizzas, finished their drinks and left. They did not take their almost whole pizzas with them. We witnessed countless pizzas being brought out where their crust was completely burnt. Completely black, not browned. We were dreading ours would come out the same, since it was especially important not having burnt food since our young kids would be sure to refuse to eat it. We ordered Alfredo the Dark to share and we were very disappointed by the dish. It is priced the same as it always was, but now it comes without chicken and is being served on a round plate (instead of the long oblong dish) which is half the size of what it used to be served on. Our pizza came out, and luckily it was not burnt, but the crust was definitely over done and if left in for a minute more, it would had not been edible. When we bit into our thin crust pizza, it was super chewy and almost hard to eat. We had to work to chew that thing. We brought up our concerns with our server who was super sweet and had stellar service. We were seriously shocked how the food quality was so bad compared to the hundreds of other times we had eaten at Oregano’s around the valley. She offered to comp us our appetizer since it was not edible. We asked her what was the deal, and we said the food quality has not been good the last two times we ate there. She did say that there is a new owner from Texas and he did change the pizza dough recipe and possibly the recipes/ingredients for other dishes. So, there was our answer. We were really appreciative of her honesty, and you could see how she was almost embarrassed by the changes as well. Seems like she had heard this feedback before.

If the new owner is reading this, please go back to Oregano’s roots. The pizza recipe was perfect, why change the dough? Serving portions at half the size and leaving out ingredients and charging the same price, you will lose your regulars and you will lose a lot of love for your restaurants. And you cannot call it a “family portion” as that size of dish is a personal size, not large enough to share. Please consider this feedback, it took a lot for me to talk bad about a place that I seriously once loved so much. Things need to go back to what...

We need to start this by stating that my partner and I are fans of Oreganos. We have been to multiple locations, we have taken our families and our employees there. We have always had a great experience with consistent quality food and service. On August 12th, around 6:30pm my partner and I went to your Cave creek location. We sat on the north side of the bar by the wait station. We ordered 2 belinis, calamari, Oreganos favorite salad and a small pizza. While we were sitting there eating this is what was observed: • We witnessed a very busy bartender pocket cash more than once. Paid by customers ordering drinks at wait station with cash. The bartender was very nice but under a lot of stress as he was the only bartender serving at that time. • We also observed the manager at the wait station dealing with a customers complaint about their red wine tasted old. After which the manager had to go through a whole process to confirm the customers complaint. Meanwhile the bartender is three deep at the bar. • Food was not up to Oreganos quality that we experienced at other locations. Example, the lettuce used on the salad was frozen and wilted. Some of it was brown. There was a lack of ingredients such as, pine nuts, olives and red peppers. • CLEANLINESS: Every time we have been to this location the floors always seem greasy, and dirty. Bathrooms disgusting. There was a strong smell of urine, the floor was wet all around the toilet, toilet paper on floor, sink was dirty. We waited outside the restroom for our turn. The person that came out was a Oreganos employee. Wow can't even clean up. Instead while in parking lot we saw him taking a smoke break. Makes us wonder, did he wash his hands? In closing, we too are in the food service business and if this were our business, we would want to know this is happening. It's important for you to know we are not in the habit of writing complaints and we also will never go to that location again nor will we recommend it to anyone.

Thank you...

First of all, I would like to say, I am a “CHICAGO GIRL” who loves her pizza. Oregano’s did not disappoint. We were headed to Cave Creek and I decided to do a search to look for a good restaurant to try. I read all the reviews and checked the menu out before I make my decision to go to Oregano’s. As soon as we entered the restaurant, we notice how CLEAN it was. A total must for me to dine at any restaurant. We were greeted with a smile from a bubbly waitress Jennifer that was dressed for the holidays. What a doll! She made our whole experience extra special. We ordered 18” One-O Pizza, antipasto salad, LS Big Rig, Garlic cheese Bread with marinara sauce and drinks. As Jenny was taking our order for four, she suggested to order a large antipasto salad Instead of individual salads. What a great tip. I mention to Jenny, I read the reviews and people were complaining about their pizza crust being burnt and I told her I did not want a burnt crust. She totally reassured me my crust would not be burnt. When our pizza came out to our table, it was perfection! The presentation of the antipasto salad was totally inviting and well balanced. During our meal we had a visit at our table from “Mr.Michael” the manager. He asked us if we were enjoying our food. I expressed to him how outstanding the pizza and antipasto salad was and I was a girl who knew my pizza. He was very engaging and we shared with him how pleased we were at our total experience at his restaurant. I would suggest to anybody who is reading this review to give them a try and see for yourself what a gem of a restaurant Oregano’s truly is here in Cave Creek. We will be definitely coming back and looking for Jenny to...