Plank's Cafe & Pizzeria — Restaurant in Columbus

This review is from a customer I came across on fb: I will never patronize this place because of the way she was treated I’ll be sure to spread the word on my platforms!!! Over 100K followers…

Y’all…. This one hurts to write.. First let me start by saying I’m a south sider, and a business owner. I grew up there, lived on Deshler Avenue and my grandma used to love them, I admit my favorite pizza is Cardo’s Lockbourne, and Villa Nova if I’m that way… That being said, I BEGGED my husband to come to Planks on parsons.. I wanted the sweet pizza. We now live 30 minutes away almost to Granville in Pataskala. We arrive and park right in front got out it smells like a backed up sewer… okay, no big deal. I hadn’t had it in a long time and was excited for my son to try it. We come in order drinks and a salad. They bring me my $3.25 CAN of Pepsi… ok. No fountain soda. Then they bring the salad. It was deteriorated brown and I’m not kidding it wouldn’t feed a five year old. It was so tiny. In a teeny little bowl about ten shreds of cheese. It was supposed to be the anti pasta Italian, so we asked to make sure the order was correct… I took it to the manager who had asked us, after we had been sat if anyone had helps us yet, “not yet!” I responded. Couple minutes later our server came she was in training but did great, she brought us extra dressing and an extra plate because we thought for $8.95 we could split the salad. No. The place was dead btw. Maybe ten cars in the lot. Never a good sign on a Friday.

So I took it to the manager and told her how disappointed I was for how it looked, she agreed and said we wil take it off your bill. I said “okay good.” I said “because $9 is expensive I understand inflation but wow!” She said “it’s $9.00?” I said “yes!” , she opened the menu found the price.. and walked away… Not- oh that’s not what it should look like? I’ll get you a new one…What? Ok. So I sit back down, sad. No salad. The manager suddenly comes back to the table and says “That’s what it looks like. That’s what we charge.” And I said “Would you pay $9.00 for that? She says “We’re done here!” My husband looked at me and said “We are leaving!” She snatched the menus off the table and says “you gotta pay for all of this.” It was one can of pop, and two waters… I said “no problem, he has cash.” He handed her a $20 bill and said “I want change.” she walked away. I had to send someone on a hunt to get his change, and she comes out and refused to hand it to my husband, and threw it across the table, I said “Are you the manager? she said “Well it’s my family, I said so, you are the owner? She said I’m Mary Plank! And I think you are being nasty.” Wait ? ! What? I said “So you are the owner and don’t know the price of your salads? And This is how you treat someone?” At this point I’m pissed and say “well my husband told me not to come here..”

I came here to give you my money, you serve me a trash salad, I tell you it’s not acceptable, you get angry…. She then proceeded to push my son, who’s extremely polite, out the door. And told us “ to never come back.” lol 😂 What? We Were Leaving!!

I told her it was a bad move, I am going to leave a review. She said “Go ahead I don’t care.”

Well here it is. Bless your heart Mary Plank , I’m at your cousin’s restaurant Planks 888 S High-street having a wonderful meal, with a beautiful salad, I HAPPILY paid four dollars more for, and two pizzas that were outstanding!! And the service, as BUSY as they were, outstanding…. Spent nearly $100 bucks. $89 with tip.

I hope you get your act together or somebody buys the restaurant, before you put it under.… Your employees knew how terrible you are too, stood by in shame. Also apparently High street needs more servers.. so if I worked there I’d be gone! I really hope it was just a very bad day and she doesn’t treat other...

Plank's has been a spot my wife and I used to frequent often when we lived over in Columbus. After moving out east, we never really found ourselves back there.

Tonight, we had our older son with us and were over on the west side picking something up and decided to stop for dinner on our way back east. It had been quite a while since we had been there, and our son had never been, so figured it would be a good stop.

The place wasn't crowded at all, and there was no wait. We got seated right away but had to wait a few minutes for our server to take a drink order because she was dealing with a large group, which was no problem. The three of us just ordered water because soda is $3.25 a can 😳 We also ordered a mozzarella stick appetizer, which was $11.

The mozzarella sticks came out, and we immediately knew it wasn't going to be good. You could see the black charring on them. Taking a bite only confirmed that they were way overcooked and burnt. We flagged down the server and told her of the issue, and she did apologize, but then offered us something else that "we know isn't burnt.." That was a puzzling response, and my wife and I just asked for them to be taken off the bill.

Our pizza was ok, not bad, but not great. We like the sweet crust, but tonight it was almost too sweet. And the pizza was overcooked, too. The pepperoni were all crunchy, and the crust was so hard that it hurt our teeth. Our son got chicken bites, and they were ok, but nothing special. We also had to ask for a pitcher of water because we were only checked on once for drinks.

Overall, it was a pretty disappointing trip back to a place we used to really enjoy. The atmosphere is still great, but the food and service were pretty subpar this visit. For as expensive as it is, I guess we expected a bit more. Hopefully, this was just an off night, but unfortunately, it will likely be a while...

I ate on 12-4-2023 at Plank's Cafe and Pizzeria at 743 Parsons Ave. in the "German Village" neighborhood [or possibly the "Schumacher Place" neighborhood] of Columbus.

I had been planning to attend a meeting about an hour later at the Mid-Ohio Regional Planning Commission [MORPC] so Plank's Cafe and Pizzeria had been an ideal location for my meal.

During November 2015, my family had celebrated my niece-in-law's birthday and my birthday at Plank's Cafe and Pizzeria [my niece-in-law had wanted to eat there that year for her birthday] so I have been there at least one time in the past.

My food choice on 12-4-2023 had been a Braunschweiger Sandwich and German Potato Salad. I have not eaten a braunschweiger sandwich since my teenage years; the German Potato Salad had been hot like it is supposed to be.

I had to ask for a spoon because the German Potato Salad had been almost like thick soup and the only utensils that had been served with my meal had been a knife and a fork.

Plank's Cafe and Pizzeria is in a historic building that had been built in 1930; they have been in business since 1939.

I greatly appreciated the many interesting decorations that are all over the walls of the two dining rooms.

In response to my question about a very old doorway that I had seen in one of the two dining rooms, one of the staff members allowed me to look for a moment down a dark stairway into their mostly-dark basement.

If you are looking for some delicious food in an amazing environment that has many interesting wall decorations, I recommend Plank's Cafe...