California Pizza Kitchen at Jacksonville — Restaurant in Jacksonville

This was quite the disappointment. My girlfriend and I were trying to take our friend out for his Birthday. He had mentioned wanting Cheesecake Factory. However they were too crowded when we arrived. So I figured we could give California Pizza Kitchen a try. I've never been there, all of us worked in the pizza industry and have a love for the food. Pizza is almost never inedible.

When we walked in it was crowded but not packed. We were the only ones at the host station. There was a hostess, and what I assume was the manager. They didn't say hello, or greet us. After standing there for about a minute the manager said "3 of you?" I confirmed, and he said we'd be seated in a moment. Then went back to looking down at whatever he was doing. The host came and took us to our table fairly quickly after. So I wasn't too upset. She however didn't say a word to us walking all the way to the back of the restaurant. I even thanked her and she didn't respond. Oh well, maybe I didn't speak loud enough.

After being seated and looking at the menu we realized this isn't a typical pizzeria. The menu didn't look bad, but it was definitely odd. They also didn't list anywhere that any of us could see the size of the standard pizzas on the menu. The waiter came over asked us for our drink order, and returned quickly with them. I then made a point to ask what size the pizzas are. He then proceeds to tell me that they're 11" which can feed 1-2 people depending on how hungry you are. We then needed to take another moment to select a second pizza to order because 1 wouldn't cut it. The waiter (Josh I believe was his name) left.

Within about 2 minutes we had selected a second pizza, but couldn't get over how an 11" pizza cost $16+. Normally this wouldn't bother me if I try it and find the ingredients are of high quality. Unfortunately the waiter didn't give us straws so we didn't feel like drinking our drinks from the rim of the glass. So we waited, and waited, and waited. I checked my watch, looked around the restaurant, saw the waiter making drinks, talking with the man whom I assumed was the manager at the host station. No acknowledgement to us though. After waiting for 15 minutes for what we thought might potentially be a bad experience any way due to the fact we expected a pizzeria styled restaurant and them being more of a restaurant that serves pizzas, we left. As we walked out, we walked right past our waiter. He said nothing to us, and I'm not even sure he noticed.

I love making pizza, I love eating pizza, I love talking about pizza. I often try pizzerias and very rarely have an overwhelmingly bad experience. In this case, I didn't even get to eat the food and is was overwhelmingly bad.

So good job to California Pizza Kitchen of...

I have gone there twice and both times the food was terrible, the 1st time I got the nashville pizza and the cheese was rubber and was drowned in honey. So I tried to give them a 2nd chance and did a take out order, and when I got home there was no chicken, no honey, no cheese and a crap ton of pickles just thrown to the side of the box after driving 50 minutes, thats what we found. After I found this out I called. She said she called us. Which she did, but when I answered it went to voicemail so then I called back within 30 secs and nobody answered. So 5 min later after I tried to call them back and before I picked up the pizza, I come inside and they didnt say anything, they actually just handed us the food but we haven't paid yet so I was a good person and said we didnt pay but I shouldn't have because the service and pizza was so terrible. So I called again right after I found out abt the pizza and the receptionist was so sweet and transfered me to this nasty takeout manager or employee, she was so rude and had an attitude. She said that "the app says that everything was removed so thats not my fault you didnt answer the phone." Which was true but there must have been something wrong with the app beside I did not remove anything. Also what makes you think I wanna spend 20 dollars on a pizza and removed everything off of the 20 dollar pizza. So I asked for a refund or atleast something, she said "no but you can place another order and just pay for it" Whoever was working in takeout on Sept 27th at 6pm, needs to be re-trained in customer service. As someone who works in customer service I would never be rude to such a misunderstanding, I know that it partially my fault but thats not an excuse to treat a customer so rudely and like im stupid, especially since I...

9/28/2012. This is the third time we have gone to another restaurant. We usually come in between 5-5:30pm. We are rewards members. We have an emotional support small dog who stays in her stroller and is very quiet. We like a specific booth so the stroller can be up against the wall and is not blocking a walk way. The last 5 times we have had to wait either for the booth to be cleaned or sat in the booth waiting a long time to get service. Today again we walked out. The booth was empty but had not been cleaned. The receptionist walked to the back area where 4or5 people were just standing there visiting. After getting their attention she found a guy that came out of the back to bus the table. First he goes to a totally different area and started bussing the table knowing we were waiting to be seated. That did it we walked out AGAIN. We use to really enjoy going for their pizza but the last couple of months the service has been terrible. I have never seen a place managed so poorly. There were only 8 customers in the place. Two each sitting at tables in the front and two each sitting in the middle booths. More staff than customers. If I could give a zero I would do it. We eat out all of the time and don’t like making a fuss but my anxiety level was...