Cold Stone Creamery — Restaurant in Columbia

Tdlr: go to a different ice cream shop. Avoid at all costs.

The service was horrible, ice cream subpar and parking impossible.

Service- when we first walked in, the line was so long, as to be expected on a warm Friday night. What was not expected is the crew of teens bickering with each other to the point getting ice cream was like pulling teeth. The one guy had his airpods in and was harassing one of the girls working there. The other two girls working clearly had some beef because she was ignoring everything the other one was saying. 3/4 were all just picking on each other, and the girl the guy was bothering seemed to be trying to keep her head down and work. Not only were they fighting and arguing behind the counter, they were also yelling at customers. They kept telling for people to move forward before they had ordered, and when people over forward they were more in the way since there was such a delay to the register. The animosity was felt in every customer interaction and made the entire experience unpleasant. The couple in front of us was equally annoyed, and talking to each other under their breath after being shouted at to move without having received service.

Ice cream- not only was the service chaotic, but the ice cream was as well. All of the ice cream was heavily cross contaminated and their areas they were using were hardly being scraped off. The rest of my party ordered, and just picked flavors that didn't have too much mixing. I'm very lactose intolerant and can't really eat dairy, so I was very excited to try the dairy free silk option, which I absolutely was not expecting! However I can't give it my review, because it was so cross contaminated with a whole scoop of vanilla ice cream in it, that I couldn't try it, same with the lemon sorbet. I suggest that cold stone put their dairy free options in one side of the case. It's understandable that a little cross continuation could happen, but I should be able to get a clean scoop of chocolate regardless. Also my family members that did get ice cream didn't all get spoons or offered lids, so the ice cream had to go in the freezer since it couldn't be eaten right away. The workers were so involved in themselves that getting a spoon after paying wasn't going to happen. The family member that got a spoon said the ice cream was good. And of course, because cold stone is tasty! But the ice cream was not worth the experience.

Parking- for the weak parkers, it's a tight crowded lot that's shared with other businesses. On a popular night expect to park farther away.

Overall this experience was so bad, that I went from advocating for the quality of cold stone ice cream to likely never returning. Baskin Robbins has dairy free flavors, lots of topping choices, and positive vibes. Go...

Such a horrible experience. I have always loved this cold stone and gone to it many many times with my family and friends but I will never go again. I went with my family on July 3rd at 9:40pm. Keep in mind that we are in the middle of a GLOBAL PANDEMIC that has killed so many people and has no vaccine/control. All places have enforced precautions such as required masks, limited customers inside, and 6ft apart distance in lines. When we walked into this coldstone that night it was incredibly hot. But that wasn’t my issue. The employees had said themselves that people’s ice creams were melting as they were handing them to customers because it was so hot inside. You could also tell by the sweat/perspiration on their faces. But that wasn’t my issue either. My issue was that there is a sign on the door that states customers cannot come in without a mask, yet THREE out of the four employees I saw working at the time all had their masks half off of their faces. Every single one of the 3 girls had their masks pulled down below their noses and a few barely had them covering the top of their mouth. The only employee to wear the mask properly was the 1 male employee. Not only is this against regulations and allows so many opportunities for germs to be spread, but this is a store that works DIRECTLY WITH FOOD that customers are eating. There is no protective barrier between their faces and the ice cream that they are huddled over making for several customers. There was horrible sanitary behavior (ex: employee went to ring people up at the cash register, handled their card/money, touched the machine, all while wearing gloves, then proceeds to go back and make ice cream with those same gloves). Absolutely horrible. This should not be something that is ever allowed, taken lightly, or ignored. These employees could easily spread such a horrible deadly virus to hundreds of people they came in contact with. I will never be coming back again because now I know how this store is poorly ran. In general and especially during a global pandemic there should be some kind of older supervisor there to reinforce and make sure that the store meets the expectations it is supposed to meet let alone the bare minimum of cleanliness, but instead there were 4 teenagers/college students left to violate every...

I highly recommend avoiding this Cold Stone, and really just choosing another place to get ice cream, if possible.

We placed an online order around 9 pm on the website for pickup. The website said the order would be ready for pickup at 9:26. We show up at 9:30, there was one customer leaving and no one else in the store, and there were 8 employees standing in the back room/hall talking/playing around and not even paying attention to the front of the store. One of the female employees finally sees me waiting and comes out. I tell her I'm here to pick up an online order and give her my name. She looks around and can't find the order. It turns out there were at least three order tickets for online orders just sitting in the printer that they didn't bother to touch. It took another 18 minutes to make my order (finally got it at 9:48pm). During that time, another two people who placed online orders came in that they didn't make either, and a steady stream of customers was coming in. While another female employee came out shortly after the one helping me, the other 6 employees just stayed in the back until finally the employee helping me called back and said they needed help. At this point there were a good 10 people in line in addition to the 3 of us waiting on online orders that weren't made.

Looking at Google reviews, this seems to be a common occurrence at this location, and this is the second time in a row I've had an absolute awful experience with online ordering...