Cold Stone Creamery — Restaurant in Holmdel Township

After being a loyal and regular customer to this Coldstone location for years, I stopped being a customer after my father bit into his ice cream cake and bit into a capsule/pill that was inside of the ice cream. The pill had an exterior similar to omega 3 pills and a white powdery substance inside. I immediately called the store to ask them if they made the cakes on site (so they couldn't try to pass the blame on to someone else). After the store's owner told me that they did make the ice cream cakes, I told them what happened and hoped that it was some kind of ingredient that wasn't dissolved properly. When they told me that there were no ingredients fitting that description, I called the Holmdel Police Department and opened a case as I feared food tampering. If you doubt me, copies of the reports can be gotten via the Open Public Records Act (OPRA). The store tried to back peddle by saying the the cake comes pre-made from a factory in Kearny (I believe) and the ice cream cakes are only assembled in Holmdel. Luckily, my father did not swallow the pill and it was turned over as evidence. The case hit a dead end when the Holmdel Police Department, FDA, State Police, and Monmouth County would not spring for the very expensive testing to learn the identity of this foreign substance. The reason I was given was that because no one was killed or seriously ill. Upon speaking with the owner of the shop again, he apologized for the ordeal but did not take any blame. He didn't even offer to refund me for the cake. He told me that he would give me 50% off my NEXT cake! Haha! If I thought I was poisoned by your food, why would I buy more food? Great customer service, huh? Luckily, I partially purchased the cake with a Groupon. Upon hearing of the store owner's lack of remorse and after receiving documentation of the tainted food, they immediately refunded me for the purchased cake and also refunded me for approximately  $100 in unused groupons for this location (told you I was a good customer) as you couldn't pay me to eat anything from here ever again. The Holmdel Coldstone should take a lesson from Groupon in...

My family and I visited the store yesterday. Have the prices of the ice cream gone up? Absolutely, but so has the rest of the economic community. Complaining about the price increase won't change the outcome. You can either choose to not partake in the service, or bring your family for a once in a while treat, full well knowing you could pay $50 for ice cream.

With this said, I witnessed a customer who was unhappy about the cost of ice cream and the service delay. They did have 3 employees servicing customers, and quite frankly, the delay was extremely small. The customer was rude to the employee and I witnessed the aftermath of that customer's behavior and how it negatively affected the employee.

I decided to validate the employee and jokingly stated... I will not be a challenging customer and I smiled with gratitude. I then shared a story with the staff about my childhood and how exciting cold stone was when the doors first opened and I was blown away by the idea of mixing the toppings into the ice cream. I also commented on how hard it is to mix the ice cream and as two employees were doing it at the same time, it sounded like they were making a music beat with the mixing spoons. I suggested they capitalize on that and maybe make a little show out of it, just for fun! They enjoyed the praise, comments, and appreciated the positive impact of a kind human.

Many of the employees are young adults learning how to map through the world. Show love, spread kindness, enjoy their hard working service and the ice cream!

The employees working the day I went were: Jamal,...

I put one star because zero was not an option. I went into cold stone earlier in the day and waited 20 mins to pick up a door dash because there was only one worker. I went back later that night and there was three workers, one of which was the manager from earlier in the day. The two workers were helping the in store customers but no one was helping any of the three people waiting for doordash and uber pick up. As i asked the one worker if anyone had started any of our orders seeing as I had a second (different customer ) order of hot food that needed to be picked up, the manager proceeded to walk out , leave her employees short staffed, and no one to do the mobile orders. I waited almost thirty mins to pick up one ice cream order that was placed through doordash. There is no way this is how a good business should be run. I felt like the pickup orders were not a priority as a customer and as someone who was delivering for tips it very much affects how much money I make when it takes thirty mins to leave the store with an order. The other two workers were really out numbered and did the best with the situation they had been given. The manager had zero care that she left her workers understaffed and left them to deal...