Vita Bella Pizza — Restaurant in Joliet

I don’t think I’ve ever left a bad review anywhere before, mainly because I know mistakes happen, people have bad days etc.

Unfortunately, my experience with this Vita Bella has gotten progressively worse and that’s why I finally decided to leave this review.

For the sake of context and the review itself, let’s start at the beginning. My fiance had introduced me to Vita Bella about a year and a half ago. First time was perfect, the pizza came quickly, and was delicious. Driver was friendly.

About 4 orders in, they messed up a calzone and pizza I had ordered. No big deal, I called up to the store thinking it would be a routine refund. I was mistaken. First the cashier or whoever answered said we had to speak to a manager (again no big deal). The manager, however, implied that we were lying to rip them off. We had about a 10 min back and forth about it, whit him asking me to send pictures of the food to prove it, until at the last minute, I guess one of his cooks admitted to the mess up right after we sent the pics.

I understand there are people out there who rip off businesses. I understand being jaded about it after so much of it happening to you. Still, the whole situation was bizarre. In my 10 years of working in restaurants, I have never once heard of needing to send pictures in of your delivered food that was prepared incorrectly. Not only that, he was pretty rude too. After the cook had admitted or remembered his screw up, the manager did offer us store credit basically, which is not what we wanted, but accepted because of how stressful just getting to that point had been. Still, I gave him the benefit of the doubt and continued to order from them.

Yet, almost every time we ordered after that, we had issues. Incredibly long delivery times, cold, messy (cheese falling off pizza and onto box, also pizza smushed with cheese on inner lid), stale and soggy pizza, and ingredients that tasted like they had gone bad, sometimes together, sometimes on different orders. We finally decided to stop ordering from them back in February.

But we broke that streak today and man what we found on our pizza (both pizzas were cheese) was disgusting. As I was eating one of the deep dish slices I bit into something that felt like it chipped my tooth. It looked like it could’ve (hopefully) been a stalk of some kind. Though it felt much much tougher than plant material. To me though, it looked like a dirty fingernail. Then came the hair. On one of my finances thin pizza slice, she saw something sticking off the pizza. What she pulled off looked like either facial beard hair… or from the bush down under. I took a picture of this too, cause I needed to see it up close. To say that we were both pretty disgusted is the understatement of the year. I’ll spare you the scene that took place immediately after. I’m not saying I know that’s what it is, but man does it look and feel like it.

So, here I am writing an incredibly long negative review for not one, but many issues we’ve had since the initial problem we had. Buyer beware, stay on their good side, or you’ll never know what’ll end up...

My husband and I have been loyal customers of Vita Bella for years, but I was very disappointed with my most recent order. The pizza we received was undercooked and the dough was still white when we received it. It was very cold too. I attached photos show how poorly it was prepared compared to the pizza we got back in March.

On Sunday, when I called about the issue, the front desk told me that their manager was unavailable. She said she texted him and said that he told her that there was nothing they could do about the undercooked pizza and to contact Uber Eats for a refund. Unfortunately, I never received one from Uber Eats, they said to just contact Vita Bella since they were the ones that prepared the undercooked food.

And so I did. On Monday I spoke with the assistant manager Debbie, she was very kind, understanding and compassionate, but the situation was not resolved and out of her grasp. She said when this happens typically make a new pizza to their customers. All I wanted was a new pizza and we were willing to send the undercooked pizza back. I don't want a refund, I just want my food I'm used to. I told this to Debbie and the front desk worker. I understand they are not in control of these decisions. Debbie was also so kind and made us feel very welcome to stop back into Vita bella and she would be there. Please promote her. It's been since Sunday and no resolution. It’s very frustrating to experience this level of service after years of being a loyal customer. I truly hope Vita Bella can address this issue so that others don’t have the same disappointing experience. We love your food! I hate leaving this review but am unsure how else to address my point. Can someone please make this right? I would hate to issue a chargeback with my CC company. Mistakes happen, we don't want a refund, just a new pizza. I don't know why the manager won't just acknowledge that we want a new pizza for the undercooked one we received.

I want to add that I sent an email and never received a reply. The email was sent on August 27th to...

I am very sorry to say that I will not be using Vita Bella South any further for catering or take out. My experiences have always been mixed in regards to this location but this week really took the cake. We ordered a catering package of 40 pcs of chicken and 3lbs of Italian beef from Vita Bella South which we have done before. The food tasted great, they were on time however when the driver delivered the food he must have packaged the beef poorly in his delivery bag because when he opened it up to put it on our "food table" he managed to spill beef gravy (grease) all over my wall, table and lightly colored carpet. While I understand spillage and can accept some getting on the table, the wall and carpet is unacceptable. He was apologetic however as my wife said she had to provide the cleaning materials and he didn't even show concern over the carpet as he was more concerned over his bag. What really sealed our decision with ceasing all business with this location is the behavior by the management with my wife on the phone. Instead of being apologetic and offering something to compensate the damage caused by their driver they decided to tell my wife that it was her fault for having the food on a table in a carpeted room. They also asked why she didn't have better cleaning supplies to better handle removing that out of our carpet. This isn't the first time that she has dealt with Raphael (manager) on the phone for unsatisfactory service. Every time she has he ALWAYS turns it around on her that it is her fault. It is a shame because we really like the food provided but this incident aside there has been too many issues similar to this one with the South location to continue doing business with them. I would very much encourage anyone to read this review to take serious note and avoid a major headache by doing...