Papouli's Brick Oven Pizza — Restaurant in Lacey Township

Myself and my family are long time customers of Papouli's and I'm writing this review in hopes that the owners take notice. In recent times ordering food from here its come quite apparent to most customers that the quality of the food in addition to the wait times are getting vastly excessive, often extending unacceptably far beyond the estimated times given. Now on usual days whether it be my family, or the stories I've listened to from friends, the wait times, again are heavily extended often reaching over an hour and in the case of myself and several other customers tonight, the issue was the same on the customer end. Tonight our order was processed roughly at 5:30 and through the Slice app it was expected to be ready by 6:25-6:35. Since other orders recently were about an hour wait I thought little of it, expecting the restaurant to be busy with orders, now while this is true, upon entering the store the over-arching issues became well apparent. With roughly 6-7 other customers inside waiting for food, you could begin to imagine where the story begins to head, they are clearly backed up, busy, and it happens this is understood. I arrived to pickup our order at a little after 6:30 and after waiting for a few minutes and letting them know our order for pickup, we were told it would take at least another 20-25 minutes to receive our order. You might be wondering hmm why is it going to take an hour and a half to receive a pizza, 2 salads and a chicken wrap, well the answer comes straight down to the core problem that needs to be addressed, there is no clear management or leadership present behind the counter. The issue is not a lack of hands on deck, with 4-5 people all working behind the counter, but instead, no one behind the counter had a direction to be working towards. After waiting for maybe 5 minutes noticing this issue, I started to notice the symptoms of this issue, with no one person directing the production behind the counter, and everything working on the same few things, no one person has their set duties, and no one is really sure what they should be doing. This was noticeable clear as day when 3 people were mixed into taking care of receiving payments in the store and giving customers their orders, one or 2 people are working on separate foods that needed to go into the ovens for a short few minutes and switching out, while in majority of the time the collective group of employees behind the counter were stuck idle, clustered up into only a small area by the front of the counter, all while customers there when I returned ( I went home and came back about 30 minutes later) were ones I had seen there the first time I had arrived and told my wait will be longer. As a long time customer, the reality seen today was disappointing, and seems to be the result of the leadership of the restaurant being absent or over-extended now trying to manage the operations of Papouli's as well as their new Restaurant, El Abuelito's next door. The results of the sharp decline with the service and food is a desperate signal the something must change, or matters will only get much worse, as more customers avoid getting stuck with long waits for poor results. I sincerely hope this reaches those in charge and that they may take substantial corrective action to correct the lack of direction and leadership in...

I have ordered from this place tons of times over the past 2 years , it has been hit or miss for the most part but when it’s good it’s good. That being said I am extremely disappointed with my LAST visit and it is just that …My LAST !! We have endured the following and still have given them the benefit of the doubt and ordered again.

One time our order was completely forgotten and after 2 hours waiting for pizza delivery we had to go pick it up because The kids were starving and the order was paid but never made until we called an hour and a half later.

A couple times we called in an order for delivery and we’re given 45-1 hr timeframe but did not receive our food for 2 hours .

Many times orders have been made without key ingredients listed on the menu .

Tonight we ordered 2 chicken dinners , advertised online for $28 ( roughly the same price as every other joint in town that lists as a special ) except we were told that it was $43 and when we brought up the special advertisement we were told that comes with smaller portions and no salads. So they took our prepared salads right out of our order rather then just giving them to us and letting us know they don’t come with the special for future orders. BAD BUSINESS to take salads that were already made and cannot be served now and throw them out rather then give to a customer that has put up with the poor service and spotty quality for 2 years and still would order 2times a month on average.

2 salads cost probably $2 , keeping a regular customer happy after all the mishaps they have endured...

I've have had food from this place before at other people's houses - good food. Ordered from our home for the first time tonight at 5:15PM for delivery. Simple order of 2 sandwiches, and 2 apps. Was told delivery was an hour. I called to follow up at 6:15 to check the status.. was told it's coming out of the kitchen soon and will be put for delivery. At 6:50 the wrong order arrived. Sandwich was turned into a pizza which was double the price. Upon calling I was told send it back and they will send out the correct sandwich only it would take quite a bit of time because they were very very busy. The driver left with payment in full plus a tip and took the pizza back!!! I called back again realizing I paid for the pizza asking for either my money to be refunded or the pizza be returned. 10 minutes later the overcooked - unedible Pizza returned to my front door with an apologetic delivery man. I called for the last time asking for a manager and was connected to a very young unqualified individual who had no solution-no compensation for the error and no replacement on the way to my home. With hungry people to feed - I had no choice to other than to put out the cold Pizza. .. the whole ordeal was a nightmare and no one from Papouli's could care enough to reach back out to me to genuinely apologize for their error. To the manager of this establishment - you have too much competition in town to NOT stand by your service. This order was a waste of my money and my time and you have lost a customer for sure....