Italian Pizzeria III — Restaurant in Chapel Hill

Ordered pizza online through DoorDash as that is IPIII’s online order tool. Show up to pick up pizza 30 minutes later when it was supposed to be ready. I head to the counter, state I’m here to pick up an order and give my name. Dude looks at me then down at their DoorDash tablet to pull the order leading me to believe they never prepared the order and doesn’t say anything.

I sit down for a minute at a table near the register as I worked in food service and understand things happen. Another employee starts putting pizzas on the table I’m sitting at for other customers telling me I could sit there, but he’s using the table. Dude bringing out the pizza brings more pizzas to the table I’m sitting at so I get up and move. Thought it made sense to move away and not hover/breath all over someone else’s to go order…

The dude at the counter, who I’d spoken to previously looks at me about 3-5 minutes after our first encounter after I moved tables to wait. He asks if he can help me. Internally, I ask myself what is this guy on as we just had a conversation. I again state I am here to pick up an order and give my name to the same person I did so 3-5 minutes before. The dude asks if I called the order in or placed it online. I said I placed the order online. Dude looks at me and tells me it will be 40 minutes, no reasoning, no acknowledgement of the conversation again that we had 3-5 minutes prior… Like the dude was a zombie.

I advise cancel the order as I wasn’t waiting another 40 minutes after someone simply ignores they messed up or pretends we didn’t have a conversation 3-5 minutes ago. I’m told I need to call DoorDash to cancel the order as I’m walking out.

I call DoorDash and they advise IPIII had marked the order as picked up and they couldn’t cancel or refund. I then patch IPIII into the call with DoorDash, again, asking IPIII to cancel the order, state what had occurred, called out the fact we had a conversation, they pretend we didn’t, never prepare the order, then mark it as picked up, I’m now out money, have to spend 20 minutes on the phone with DoorDash. The gentlemen at IPIII now puts someone else on the phone, I advise they need to cancel the order, they can call DoorDash, and they need to refund my money. Dude on the phone starts dropping f bombs, cussing me out, for their mistake telling me DoorDash has my money…

We’d go here occasionally in the mid-nineties. The jerks working the counter would insult us for no reason. Seems like not much has changed. Do yourself a favor, go to Papa John’s across the street. Papa John’s is trash pizza, however, I’d sooner eat trash pizza than give these jerks a dollar.

The floor in this place is garbage as well. Someone is going to trip and sue...

This place is good if you have no problems. We've happily spent over $1000 at this business. However, our patronage is done. Briefly, we ordered $120 in pizzas for my daughters birthday party through DoorDash. One minute after placing our order we were alerted that pizzas that were supposed to take 20 minutes to make were now expected in 80 minutes. So, we immediately canceled with IP3 and no pizzas were made. No biggie. This was in October.

In April (yes, 6 months later!), we are still trying to get our money back, trying 3 different avenues! IP3 management has not been helpful, basically saying they couldn't heIp after DoorDash and our credit card company refused to issue a credit. Even more strange, IP3 disavowed any and all responsibility! Trying to take the middle road, I asked for a gift certificate, since we did pay for food we never received and they got paid some fraction of the $120 (with a tip nonetheless). After the owner bragged that he did $25K a week of business with DoorDash, he refused to give me a gift certificate. (I am clearly in the wrong line of work. Regardless, why is this information pertinent? So you're getting handsomely paid, but can't rectify an error that represents 0.48% of your weekly business? A mere pittance!)

In the end , why does this need to be so hard??? We paid a vendor IP3 selected, IP3 and the vendor got paid, but we got nothing. In an attempt to compromise, we requested a gift certificate. Heck, we would have taken the five pizzas during either of the special trips I made to the restaurant during my work day. The owners were adamant... no refund (in any form) for you!

We will never order from this business again and you shouldn't either, unless you can guarantee that there will be no problems. Try Carrboro Pizza Factory down the road in Carr Mill. That owner is nice!

Update: after trying my very best to be kind and clear to the latest DoorDash rep (breathe!), my husband just received a refund. How many hours of my life have I wasted on this stupid issue? If you don't want to waste your time with a similarly annoying, frustrating experience where a business is, in the end, stealing your...

So disappointed about this whole experience. I ordered ahead and was told my order is ready in 40 minutes. I show up, make it through the line to pay and am being told that it'll be right out. After waiting for 20 minutes and seeing the people behind me in line eating (in the restaurant) plus witnessing at least 3 other parties inquiring about their food I asked how much longer it would take. Their universal answer to this is that the pizza is in the oven. After another person inquired about their order the owner (Vincenzo) throws a fit announcing to the whole restaurant that if we want pizza it takes 40 minutes (but does it?) and if we don't want to wait we need to go elsewhere where it takes 2 hours. He also screamed that he works so hard and barely has a day off and all his customers do is complain. Wow!! I should have gotten a refund at this point but was too invested time wise and had to feed my family. After another 10 minutes I received the pizzas and Stromboli - plus the sandwiches that had been sitting on the counter in a bag with my name on since my arrival at the restaurant... I grabbed my food 35 minutes after they told me it was going to be ready and hoped for at least great tasting food. Well of course the subs were cold and soggy by the time the pizzas were ready since they were not even placed in heat wrap but only in a plastic container. The pizzas and stromboli were really salty - that's all we could taste. The marinara sauce that came with the pizzas was a thin awful tasting red something but we usually don't need sauce if the pizza tastes great. Well in this case it would have helped to mask the salt taste. First italian take-out ever that made it into the trash after the absolut worst take-out experience ever had. So dear Vincenzo - since you claimed that customers complain all the time while you work your butt off, maybe it's worth restructuring your order intake and fulfillment instead of throwing fits in front of your customers because obviously something doesn't...