Gumby's Pizza — Restaurant in College Station

Our interest was piqued because we expected a wide variety of pizza ingredients with a unique selection. There are currently two locations in College Station. We decided to visit the original location on Dominik.

FIRST IMPRESSION: There is not much space for ordering when you first walk in. Behind the cashier is a menu selection board to place your order or take a look at a paper to-go menu.

DINING AREA IMPRESSION: While waiting for 20 minutes we noticed a significant number of water stains on the ceiling and extremely dirty air vents. We became uncomfortable sitting at the table we were at initially because it was right underneath an air vent that appeared to have black mold on it. While we are not air ventilation or mold specialist, we are consumers of food and worry about anything that may contaminate our food so we moved to a different table.

We decided that we would go ahead and stay and try the food so that we could provide feedback on the taste and overall quality of the food. However, by the time our pizzas came out and one of our reviewers tried to take a bite, the psychological effect of the terrible condition of the ceiling had taken its toll. We have to ask ourselves, if a restaurant allows the dining area that their customers dine in to deteriorate to a condition such as that, what is the state of the condition of the kitchen that the food is prepared in?

After taking only one bite and getting nauseous, one of our reviewers had to walk away from the pizza and go out to the car. “I really don’t even remember what it tasted like, I just couldn’t stay there and eat any more under those air vents.” We decided that we should just ask to get our money back.

When brought to a manager’s attention, he said “We just had a health inspection and we passed with a 94. They didn’t say anything about the mold, they just said something about the flies.” We asked them regardless of whether it was mold or not, why weren’t the vents cleaned and his reply was that they were busy. Quick recap, we were the only customers in the restaurant at that time. We feel like the manager just kept giving excuses and did not really care or value the important of our observation. We asked for a refund and the manager at least agreed to give us our money back.

OVERALL: After leaving we checked out Gumby’s core values listed on their website. While their core values sound great, this is not what we experienced. We did not feel the passion from the menu selections as there were so many staple pizza items not available, such as basil and oregano. While superb service is one of their foundational building blocks, our pizza’s were stacked in a window, not even brought to our table personally even though we were the only customers in the restaurant. In regards to the value-based pricing, we were again disappointed. Two individual size 10” pizza’s (one with 2 toppings one with 3 toppings) plus 2 drinks were $25. Other pizza places we’ve been to have been able to give customers far better deals for $25.

1⭐Atmosphere (very dirty and unkept) 1⭐Price (overpriced) 0⭐Food (we don’t feel like we can rate this at this time) 1⭐Service (no one else was in the restaurant but we still had to get up to get our food) 1⭐Critic’s choice (worst dining room we’ve seen in a while, possible food contaminants and poor air quality)

TOTAL = 4 ⭐OVERALL CE Score

GAMBLE OUTCOME: LOSE We always say that trying new places is like a gamble, sometimes you win, sometimes you lose. This was definitely a loss! We will not be going back, at least not to this location.

ABOUT THIS RATING: To give our rating the most objective weight we use 5 areas to score the restaurant: atmosphere, price, food, service and critic's choice. The maximum score in each area is 5 stars for a possible total score of 25 stars. Because most review sites use a 5 star rating system we then divide our total score by 5. Therefore,

21-25 stars = 5 stars 16-20 stars = 4 stars 11-15 stars = 3 stars 6-10 stars = 2 stars 1-5 stars = 1 star

*visit culinaryesquire to...

Husband and I had a terrible experience with Gumbys today. I called in to get our pizzas well done. The guy who picks up the phone says "We don't do that here". I told him we've been getting our pizza well done all these years so I'm sure it can be done. He says we'll see. Fast forward to when we pick up the pizza. It was far from well done (in fact, it was not even done enough). He then proceeded to deny that they can ever do pizzas well done (they don't take special orders, in his words) Husband insists that we've been regular customers for over 3 years and always get it well done (he still insists that that can't be done) (but how did it get done all these years I wonder). We are honestly disappointed with his bad attitude, and lack of basic respect. We have had a really good experience with the owner Jason whenever he was around, and he has been nothing but nice to us. Jason, please look into your employees behavior. We are disappointed, upset and hurt.. Being such regular customers for more than 3 years, unfortunately, we do not think we will be coming back here again!!

EDIT AFTER SEEING A REPLY: WOW! I did not personally attack anyone via this review, but the person responding to this decided to personally attack me. We did not treat your staff badly in anyway, but your attitude and rudeness was and is uncalled for. What's the point in crying about it here? I'm not crying, I'm just writing a review based on my experience, so that everyone else can see how you treat customers.(they can also read your snarky reply) There were literally like 5 people when we ordered the pizza that day and at that time. The point was not about accommodating it, the point was you denying that you ever made your pizzas well done (oh we never do it) and downright refusing to do it. (There's always a way to say and do things) What was the point of going the extra mile all those times? (This is not the first time I've had a bad experience, a couple of weeks ago, I called in a pizza with pineapple+pepperoni) and you forgot the pineapple. ( we did not make a scene) This experience pushed me to write this review and I'm glad I did. All I have to say is, everything you write on the internet is always going to be there, and you're just bringing a bad name to your business by responding to a customer this way. So much for customer service ! And so much for basic human respect! P.S One time is all it takes to have a bad experience! :) please treat your...

Pizza driver seems to have driven around for about half an hour with my pizza before it was delivered. Apparently there was a question with the address, even though I double checked the given one and referenced it with Google Maps and it was to be delivered at an extremely obvious location. This problem could've easily been fixed with a 5 second search from any staff member. Pizza arrived extremely cold chewy. First and last time with Gumby's, I'm afraid.

Update: If the very “professional” reply from the owner doesn’t sum up the experience, nothing else will. And yes, after looking up the address on multiple apps and multiple devices, it does, indeed, take you directly to my complex. When the driver called, he was about a 1 minute drive down the street and still took 20 minutes to show up after I told him the complex name and where it was (a VERY obvious location). Delivered the cold pizza without so much as an apology. If your drivers do not know the area or are not provided with GPS, this should be fixed. I live a two minute drive from the store; this shouldn’t have been an issue. No other person has ever had a problem finding this address. And rather is issuing an apology as any decent business would do, the owner goes on a rant I would expect from a 13 year old. Great job. I highly recommend checking out how they respond to bad experiences on here and on Yelp. The place is run by a toddler. Side note: I threw up your cold pizza after eating it but chose to leave that part off of my initial review. Update 2: Since the childish owner insists I did not answer my phone.. he is correct. I was called four times within a two minute span FOURTY MINUTES before the expected delivery time I was given per email notification. I had no reason to believe it would've been them and was in the bathroom at the time (god forbid). Then once he called from the store phone 5 minutes later, I immediately answered. After this, it was still over 30 minutes before the cold pizza was delivered to me. I'm sorry that your staff cannot follow simple...