Moon Dog Pie House — Restaurant in Florida

We were so excited to try this place tonight. It was a special night for us on Mother's Day with our new 4 year old son we just adopted a week prior. We were excited to celebrate and try a new place to eat. I had bookmarked this place awhile ago because we like Carmine's in Riverside. We were so excited to not have to drive so far for a fun and good place to eat. We were seated by the hostess and when the waitress came to take our drink orders, my husband didn't even get "water" out of his mouth before she walked away when he was not finished ordering yet. She had a chip on her shoulder from the very moment we sat down. My husband asked the hostess if we could turn the TV to the golf channel to watch The Players final round. There were 4 others TVs with basketball on them. There was a TV behind my husband with golf on. We could have simply switched sides (we chose not to because we were in transition with our new son and it would have been worse to make him move), but the waitress chimed in that the reason they weren't changing the channel was because the OWNER and CHEF wanted to watch the game on the TV that faced THEM. I stated that was, "very interesting," really in complete and utter shock. The waitress walked over to the owner and other waitresses with me looking directly at her and mocked me. We are such laid back people, but could not believe that they would not change the channel because the OWNER and CHEF were watching the basketball game when they had four other TVs to look at. I had no idea business owners opened restaurants so that they could watch the sporting events they wanted to along with their staff. I thought restaurants opened to serve guests great food and to give them a dining experience. We purposely chose a restaurant that we could both watch the The Players and eat dinner together. We were denied that because the owner wanted to watch something else. That is quite an expensive venue he is running for himself to watch TV, it would be way more cost effective to do that from the comfort of his own living room (which is what we should have done over going to this place). We took our hard earned money elsewhere and had a great experience across the parking lot at Nippers. The waitress was so kind and made our dinner special. And the food was fantastic too! I wish I would have gotten the waitress' name, (blonde super curly hair) but realized it didn't matter anyway since I had no one to report her service to. The owner already set the tone for his staff and restaurant and it was quite clear our experience...

I want to pre-face by saying that this is a place with pretty good pizza, and a place as an actual local - I have frequented plenty over the years.

But this past Saturday was abysmal for so many reasons.

We were having a small birthday party here, in an off time to avoid business. Only 10 people total.

We had asked about reserving a table on the patio prior to the party and we were told that they do not do reservations.

Upon arrival, we were told the patio had been reserved for a larger party, completely contradicting what we had been told prior.

We were told that it is true that they don’t do reservations, but this particular party was someone they were familiar with doing parties for and they made an exception for them.

As disheartening as that was, we simply let it roll as they moved us inside - were our 10 guest for a child’s birthday party had to sit at 2 different booths (not really a great party atmosphere).

The real kicker here however is that no manager or supervisor approached us about the issue or problem that was due solely to their incorrect information, not a single thing was done on the bill as an apology or attempt to reconcile messing up our birthday dinner, or anything at all outside of a “sorry” or two.

I was nothing but polite with the staff over a mix up they were, in my honest opinion, truly responsible for - but I because of that it seems as though they didn’t value this long time patrons feelings of disappointment over the issue created by their choose your own adventure policy.

Truly disappointed as I like this place a good bit, and again - am actually a local who grew up in this area and have eaten here many times. I unfortunately will not be back. Nor...

Update: The manager (or owner not sure which) got back to me quickly after seeing my negative review. He was very apologetic and told us how to get a refund. He also offered to comp our next meal. We just ordered again (didn’t bother to get the comp since we got a refund) and went through their website rather than Uber. Per the owner this is a better way to order bc they can see the requests better and it’s cheaper. Anyway they got it right this time. As far as GF pizzas go it was good and I’m really happy w their larger selection of toppings which you don’t get everywhere. Hubbs got a calzone and inhaled it in about 5 minutes. Little one had the cheesy bread and was happy. Glad we gave them a second chance. Wish I could try real pizza bc their crust looks really nice. I’m attaching a pic of the GF pizza I ordered w: mushrooms, ricotta and banana peppers. Ordered delivery for the family. I can’t have gluten so I ordered the gluten free crust. It’s only available on their 10” thin crust so I’d think if an order for a 10” thin crust came through they check. Pizza arrived, I looked at and was pretty certain it was not gluten free. One bite and I knew for certain. I’ve had all kinds of GF pizza, bread etc. even the goods ones don’t come close to the rise and chewiness of really dough. Fortunately I’m only gluten intolerant not celiac’s so one bite won’t do much, but it was pretty disappointing to watch everyone else eat. Also they upcharge for the gluten free crust, so they should have seen that on the order as well…not to mention it takes a lot of nerve to upcharge for an option you...