South Lake Pizza — Restaurant in Lake Stevens

I usually don’t write reviews but I’m a long time customer of south lake, over 8 years now. I’ve probably ordered over 80 times. Its been really subpar lately. I just got my order a few minutes ago and its shocking. I'm pretty pissed. See pictures. First off I’ve ordered the Bobcat Special many many times its my favorite. For the last couple years it has literally been getting worse every time I order it (and the Philly pizza). Just hit rock bottom like a 180 from how they use to be. I’m not sure why I kept trying thinking I'd get the same thing from a few years ago…

Their pizza use to be very good with a ton of cheese and pepperoni. This pizza I just got obviously doesn’t have “Two layers” of pepperoni (barely has one) as their website states. Nor does it have very much cheese. $26 for it? Seriously? From about 3 years ago I’d say there’s roughly 30-40% of cheese that they use to put on it.

As for the Philly Grinder. I have almost no words. There is nothing on it. It’s the worst I’ve gotten from them. How do you send this out the door like this? Its bread, peppers and onions with nearly no steak or cheese. You guys seemed to just give up and don’t care anymore.

For the owners… You guys changed things obviously. I’m sure I’m not the only one that has noticed. If you start seeing a decline on repeat orders I’m telling you why in this review. The quality and value for the price is not even close to what it use to be. I paid nearly $60 (tax, delivery and tip included) for a pizza and grinder and got about the lowest quality you could provide.

This will be my last order from you sadly. Everyone reading this you are way better off going with contos or cathouse. Contos doesn't deliver yet but if they do I don't see how south lake will stay in business. These other 2 places are very consistent throughout the years. Even pizza hut, at least I know what I’m going to get.

RESPONSE:

Okay that makes sense I think that timeframe is when I noticed the big change. I’m glad you guys are profitable but in all honesty I see why. Over 7-8 years of buying your pizzas I can tell you that 20% cut on cheese like you say isn’t close. I’d say closer to 50%, same with bobcat pizza. I have old pictures on my phone. For the bobcat and others you should really update your website so people know what they are getting. If you advertise 2 layers of pepperoni and send what you sent me you can see why I was upset. That and I had the old pizza in my mind. The grinder sub though I mean that was really bad I'm sorry it just was. I think the strategy won’t work long term as repeat business will lag. You’ve thrown out what made your pizzas special in the first place and stand out over other places. Personally, I would have preferred you kept your quality the same and raised your prices. I would have paid a lot more if you kept it the same. $35 for the moose bobcat no problem. People will pay up for higher quality pizza. But good luck maybe I'm wrong, if you do go back to how you use to make them, I’ll come...

Placed an online for delivery order at 7pm Thursday night. The email confirmation said 8pm delivery. so far so good. 20 minutes later we get another email(not a call, luckily I was watching my phone) saying our delivery would be another hour and 50 minutes longer. REALLY? It took you 20 minutes to say you were now gonna push our wait time back another 2 hours? Your online order system originally said nothing about a 2&1/2 hour wait when we placed the order on the website. We were new customers to your business and you had a good chance to impress us. FAIL! So then we call to inquire about why we got an email saying it would suddenly be delayed. Girl asks what the name is. Places us on hold for 7 minutes claiming she would check to see if they have it. Comes back on only to ask what the name was. Again said the name and the order, again on hold 3 more minutes....just to have her come back the 3rd time and ask what the name on the order was. We still haven't told her what the issue was or that we were wondering why such an added delay. 10 minutes wait just to find the dam order! RU effing kidding me? Then the 3rd chat with girl was more of a chat with us, her, and the people in the kitchen about our order. Really? Why didn't you have this chat in the previous 10 mins before you came back to the call the 3rd time and asked for our name again the 3rd time? UUUUUUGGGHHH!!! Then after 12 mins of BS, she says our pizzas haven't been made yet because they only have 3 drivers and they make them closer to the time they go out to keep them fresher and hotter for delivery. Ok fine but it would be nice to know the actual wait time is gonna be 3 hours at the time we placed an online order so we could come in to pick it up. NO...instead you have to jerk around with hungry angry people who just want to eat by having a chaotic ordering system in place where incompetent employees don't know much of anything and finally agree that coming in to pick up our pizzas would be faster. We wasted an hr of time that could have been better spent going grocery shopping in town, and cooking a meal at home. You need an incentive in place to better your business and get people to show up to pick up food in your store(20%off carryout?). Not even an apology from the kitchen staff who were all too busy with other stuff in the store to bother being concerned(as well as some employees half eaten meal sitting out on the front table collecting flies! Really?) Instead you have ensured we won't ever order again from South Lake Pizza Lake Stevens. This was a Thurs evening. You probably wouldn't handle a Friday night well even more so....

First of all Im a pizza fanatic! I love pizza with such a passion. This review will only make sense to anyone whose had PRE 2021’ SOUTHLAKE PIZZA. I first tried Southlake back in 2019 and let me tell you it was by far the best pizza I’ve ever had. I would go there as often as I could and order the same thing. ( light on the sauce, pepperoni, pineapple and jalapeño. The dough was the best it had a nice sourdough taste with a nice volume it wasn’t all thin like most places. The pepperoni was placed underneath the cheese so when you saw the pizza it was only pineapples and jalapeños. I thought that was different and cool. The flavor though it was just amazing. I have to add the CHEESE the pizza was the cheesiest I’d sunken my teeth into ! Like I said by FAR the best pizza AT THE TIME. I moved to Port Orchard WA and since my pizza addiction had made me gain a little weight I decided to not eat any pizza until I had to leave the state. (Military life right?) fast forward to April of 2022 I drive the two hrs and was so exited to have my favorite pizza on EARTH! What an absolute shame ! They had switched the recipe ! Toppings were no longer as much , the pepperoni was now on top like any other pizza, the dough wasn’t as tasty and pizza wasn’t as cheesy . It went from being the best pizza in my opinion and I say this with zero exaggeration to becoming the most basic pizza I’ve ever had. It makes me sad to write this but I just had to because like I said I was caught by surprise ! Why would they switch the recipe ? My name is ERICK GOMEZ if you look me up on the clients list you’ll see my same exact order time after time. If for some CRAZY way I can contact the owner id love to discuss the old recipe and am willing to buy the recipe at whatever cost. ( keep in mind I’m a poor Marine Mr. Owner) I have no intentions to ever open a pizzeria because I’m afraid I’d eat my business away lol but in all seriousness I’d like to have a phone call and just understand what changed and if I can have the honor to know my favorite pizzas recipe! Thank you So much . Southlake is a great pizza joint I love it still and I was able to experience a pre 2021’ pizza . I am just writing this review out of...