Empire Pizza — Restaurant in Jacksonville

Bad service on NYE and no effort to make things right. Such a bummer. Shortly after 3pm I placed an online order for curbside pickup at 530pm anticipating they were going to be busy. One stuffed pizza. Went ahead and tipped $5. Almost $30 spent with the tip. Arrived shortly before 530, called to let them know I was there. Micah answered and said it wasn't quite ready yet. This was no problem as I said I was a few minutes early. There were not any customers in the store when I pulled up, but by 540 they were packed, I still didn't have a pizza, and now my 2 year old was getting antsy. I called the store again and was put on hold.. understandable given all the customers in the store. After over 4 mins on hold I hung up and called back but the line was busy. I tried a couple more times, still busy. Our order was now over 15 mins late, and my 2 year old was now screaming, so I just got him out and we went in to see what was going on. I told them I had a curbside pickup for 530 that I hadn't gotten yet. They verified my name, and come to find out my pizza had been ready and sitting on top of the oven. They said they didn't know I was there. I told them, as this review starts out, that I had called when I got there and spoke to a Micah. They all said Micah didn't tell them I was there. A girl brought my pizza out for me still which was very kind given my arms were full with my toddler. She apologized multiple times for the mishap. It was a bummer though they didn't do anything besides apologizing to try to make it better. By the time we left it was 5:50pm. 20 minutes past our order time. We were trying to support local but almost $30 for one pizza and no real effort to right the wrong.. we'll be going back to Little Caesars in the future for a lot less money and on time orders. Also, not sure if this is normal of the stuffed pizzas but the cheese and toppings didn't come close to the edge of the pizza....

This pizza is awesome. This is what pizza should be like; DELICIOUS! And at a fair price. Highly RECOMMENDED!

Update (11 months after the original review): WE LOVE Empire Pizza!!! We tried Napoli’s Pizzeria (located on Richlands, NC) many occassions over the years, but they have declined in service and food quality.

Here is a recent review we posted on Napoli’s Pizzeria…

“Disappointed. The past several months their food quality and customer service has significantly degraded. It’s the 5th time, consecutively, that our orders are incorrect and/or contain soggy bread, cold items meant to be heated, rediculously thicker meat slices on subs, dripping calzones, burnt and stiff pizza, and their wait times have doubled to tripled. An average-sized order took them nearly 45 minutes to make. We normally pick it up, so this isn’t including delivery. Concerns were raised to a young woman at the register and she shrugged her shoulders and stated “yea, well, that’s what it is.” Wow! Now Napolis Pizzeria (Richlands, NC) has become complacent and sloppy. There are plenty of other options that provide better services and end products. The changes are so drastic, there must be a change of management. Whoever is overseeing operations is slacking. Too bad. Next! Lol.

OUR SOLUTION: We now solely purchase our NY style pizza and other delicious goodies from Empire Pizza between the Yopp Road Walmart and Lowe’s. Empire Pizza is everything we used to enjoy at Napolis and then some. Great food, affordable pricing, friendly staff, and a premium overall experience!!

Disclosure: We are not affiliated with Empire pizza other than being highly satisfied customers. They have no idea we’re writting this review.

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I did it to go order so I’m not real familiar with their with their place. I usually go to another pizza place that happened to be closed and this pizza. The crust was very hard on the bottom. I requested a refund and they were very ugly to me about it. I told them that I think that the crust should’ve never been that hard. I had the pizza to bring it back to them and they still were being ugly to me. I tried to ask for the owner or manager or someone to call but no one ever called me. They didn’t care they acted like it was my fault because I said that I took too long to pick up the pizza and I made the crust get hard but the crust on the bottom, it was chewy in the middle and like there was something wrong with the crust. I think it wasn’t done right that I don’t understand what the problem was, but it wasn’t done right And they tried to blame me instead of take responsibility for what they did. Horrible customer service, and horrible experience when there was really an issue and they made me feel like I did something wrong instead of just saying you know what will refund you or will replace it or whatever he said that they would replace it immediately but I had to go to work and I didn’t wasn’t able to call till the next day but still crappy service, Crappy treatment because he kept trying to say it...