Slice by Saddleback — Restaurant in Lansing

I generally don't review restaurants after one visit so, this may get edited or added to later.

Let me start out by saying Saddleback is one of the premier BBQ places in the Lansing area. They have branched out into the pizza business. To me, this seems pretty risky considering how competitive the pizza market is in the Lansing, East Lansing Metro area. I had been wanting to try Saddleback Slice for sometime. It was just a matter of getting around to it.

First of all I found their online ordering process off putting. I could find no option to pay cash at pickup which is how I like to pay. They also use a third party vendor to process and pay for your online order. I wound up placing my order over the phone. There was no problem doing that.

Pickup went smoothly. There was a short wait but, the pizza was ready at approximately the time promised. This was great especially given how busy they were at the time. The personnel were help and polite. Parking was easy and plentiful. They even have reserved spaces for pickup which is a nice touch.

The pizza itself wasn't great which disappointed me. It wasn't bad. It just didn't meet my expectations. I had the Meat Lovers and my wife had the Hawaiian. The toppings and cheese were great but, the sauce and the crust were just kind of mediocre. They did not skimp on toppings which was a plus. I prefer a little more sauce than they put on but that's not a big deal for me. I don't think I would order extra sauce. They hand stretch their crust which you don't see often anymore.

The highlight was the value. They have BOGO pizza free on Mondays. They recommend ordering early. That is one of the best values if not the best value on pizza I've run across ever. There are no points to redeem or club to join. It's such a great deal I don't expect it to last. It made the cost less than $10 per pizza. Tax made it $21 and change for 2 14 inch pizzas. I didn't measure mine but it looked more like a 16 inch pizza.

Because pizza preferences are so personal and subjective, I'm going to recommend Slice by Saddleback. I would ordinarily rate this a 3 but value and service pushed it up to a 4. Will I go here again. Definitely! I'm curious if the quality will improve in subsequent visits. Plus there some interesting pizzas I haven't tried yet.

Addendum: I haven't been there recently. I follow them on social media and they have been working to improve their pizza. That's one thing I like about this company. They work to earn your business because of that I have raise my rating to five stars.

Update: This is my second visit to Slice. It was again the Monday BOGO deal that lured me in. It remains to be the best Pizza deal in the Lansing/East Lansing area. If you haven't tried it, what are you waiting for?

The quality has definitely improved. The crust is wonderful and the toppings are high quality and they are great. The sauce is great as well. I have one minor criticism that's more of a personal preference thing than an actual flaw. I would recommend a little more sauce on the pizza. The sauce tasted great there just wasn't enough on my pizza to fully enjoy it.

Slice by Saddleback is a solid 5 stars. Is there room for improvement? Probably,...

First time trying Saddleback last night after being excited about the Crab Rangoon pizza and we were thoroughly disappointed. While the Crab Rangoon pizza had a great flavor, it was severely lacking. I get that photos don't always dictate what you'll get when you order but ours was a poor representation compared to the photo advertised. The pizza had very little sauce on it, a small amount of wontons and the crab was nearly non-exsistent having only a few slivers on each piece to the point of asking "where's the crab?"

We also ordered the Ricotta Roni which seemed to lack Ricotta but was very tasty otherwise. The main issue with it was they didn't even cut it, we had to do it ourselves. Not a big deal but a sign of laziness given there was about 4 or 5 people working and not one customer there.

We tried the breadsticks as well as the jammer squares. The breadsticks were nothing like the photos. Undercooked, gooey dough with nearly no seasoning and were about half the size shown in the pictures as though they were poorly stretched out. The jammer squares we were excited about too but they also lacked in sauce to the point where you could hardly taste the red pepper jelly. The best thing of the whole order last night was the ranch.

I'm not going to say either way if I'd recommend Slice By Saddleback or not because I may have just gotten a bad overall order compared to normal. Even though my wife still wants to try the bbq, we may be one and done. Saddleback, I would highly suggest that you reconsider the photos you use on your website if they are going to inaccurately represent what you make. Driving in the snow last night and spending $60 for dinner for what we received wasn't worth it. If we decide to try again in the future I really hope our experience will be...

So disappointed in this establishment!

We had pick up orders two other times over the last year or so and loved the food! We decided on delivery this time since we were not feeling well. Placed order online 6:49 via the Slice website and waited patiently for it to arrive. Got text at 7:45 letting us know the driver was on their way (we live 5min from there) and then 7:57 it was CANCELLED??!! I immediately called Slice and no one answered that location (they close at 8pm) and I left a message asking for a call back. We received nothing and CC still charge for order + delivery. Next day no one returned my call so I called and spoke with the manager. She took ZERO responsibility for the situation and would not refund my credit card, saying it was not their fault but instead I would need to contact DoorDash as they do their delivering and apparently the driver stole our order and money. It sounded like she was not surprised this happened at all. She was rude and had no customer service skills at all. I was irate. Called DoorDash (she would not give me their phone number so I googled it) and was told that I would have to work with the business as DoorDash cannot provide a refund. I didn’t even know I was doing business with DoorDash! I called Slice back and she ended up crediting our Slice account (NOT credit card) toward a future food order. I asked her why they would hire DoorDash if they steal from their customers and she told me it’s because they don’t have enough staff to do deliveries and the deliveries bring them a lot of business. WOW.

I do not recommend this business at all and am disgusted by how we...