California Pizza Kitchen at Bethesda — Restaurant in North Bethesda

Last weekend, I had dinner Montgomery Mall's California Pizza Kitchen (CPK), with a friend.

CPK's service was OK, but there were times we felt neglected by the waitstaff.

For extra fun, the waitstaff dropped three or four plates; each created a piercing sound as they shattered on the floor. Glad I had worn boots & not open-toed shoes!

My past California Pizza Kitchen dining experiences featured generous portions of every food on the menu. Previously, I appreciated larger food amounts that were great for sharing with dining partners or for eating lunch, the next day.

The spaghetti with marinara entree came with the option adding various proteins: shrimp & chicken. Unfortunately, the add-on chicken portion was small, about half the size of a standard deck of playing cards. The marinara over spaghetti tasted fine, but was not spectacular. CPK didn't meet its past entree quality with this dish.

For an appetizer, we split the chicken peanut salad & opted out of the chicken. Unfortunately, we didn't receive any discount for the omitted protein. Considering the entree's tiny chicken portion accompanying the spaghetti, paying for food we didn't receive was somewhat vexing. Anyway, the peanut salad was crunchy, tasty and fun.

Dessert was the size-challenged, barely sharable chocolate souffle. That said, a small scoop of vanilla ice cream and a dollop of whipped cream helped CPK to normalize the dessert's diminutive size. Another dessert bonus: the chocolate souffles are usually made with food-service grade chocolate that's always above standard. As far as I am concerned, any amount of chocolate is a gift from God. However, at the end of the day, more chocolate is better than less chocolate.

The CPK meal's winner was the wine list. Great varietals from an array of regions. Best of all, wines by the glass have three different size options! One caveat: the smallest wine offering was nearly $11.

Bread is one of my great loves, in life. Carbs rule the day, I say. CPK's formerly free bread, now costs $3.50. The delicious bread always made California Pizza Kitchen visits feel special.

Frequently, the bread was served pleasantly warm, fresh from of the oven. Typically, accompanying the bread was a delicious dip of olive oil; dried, ground sage; and dried, ground spicy peppers. The best part: the herbal olive oil dip is made fresh at each customer's table.

Overall, CPK's scant amounts of food, compared to previous visits, was a disappointment. I understand inflationary pressures affect everyone, so expectations must be adjusted.

However, my guess: CPK's upper management has experienced few, if any inconveniences. Lower wage employees and paying customers have to carry water for CPK's higher-ups, most of whom are making millions.

At the end of the day, CPK's business plan forces restaurant employees and customers to pay higher business costs while heavily-monied, upper-management personnel continue to profit, despite...

If I could give this place a negative stars I would! Upon my first bad experience of this restaurant I have decided to try them again only because this first time I have tried this restaurant they notified us about being short staffed and I understood. My second try was even worst and they wasn’t short staffed. We ordered two pizzas a plain cheese pizza and a chicken pizza which contained a lot of mayonnaise. As we waited forever for our pizza it finally came. There was so much mayonnaise and bacon on the pizza. My family and I do not eat bacon which we have notified the unprofessional waitress about that she said okay but still brought us the pizza with the bacon on it. So she took it back and then brought the second pizza with so much of mayonnaise on the pizza it was beyond disgusting. So she took it back again only to bring us a pizza that contained a base with lettuce and some chicken thrown on the top of the pizza. So we was in a restaurant for 2.5 hours and three times we send the pizza back and the manager approached us and asked us what happened and how he could make it better but we was already starving and already annoyed with the service. I proceeded to tell the manager that we would like a kids pizza because the baby was starving and his pizza didn’t even come out of the oven in that entire 2.5 hours that we was there. He said okay and we waited again for the child’s pizza which we waited so long we asked the waitress if the pizza was coming and she asked the manager only to realize the manager had forgotten we ordered a kids pizza which I had told him about. This isn’t the type of place or service that we as customers would like. I was really trying to give this place the benefit of the doubt. It was just awful all around and I will not be going back to...

Despite being seated right away, our food took almost two full hours to come out.

It took 45 minutes just for an appetizer to arrive, and not once during that time did the server offer us water or bread — we finally had to ask about it ourselves nearly 50 minutes in. After asking, the server brought what looked like a single piece of bread (already divided into smaller portions), sliced into three, and commented, “Here’s a little more bread” — despite this being the first time any bread was brought to our table.

One hour and 15 minutes after we arrived, two out of three entrees came out — one of them was incorrect — and the children’s pepperoni pizza was still missing, even though it had been ordered at the very start.

One hour and 45 minutes after our arrival, the incorrect pizza was finally remade and brought to the table. However, the kid’s pepperoni pizza was still missing. At that point, we asked for the adult pizza to be packed to-go, but reminded them that the children’s pizza was still for dine-in.

After nearly two hours (1 hour and 57 minutes after being seated), the children’s pepperoni pizza was finally brought out — also packed to-go without asking, after all that waiting.

To say this was disappointing is an understatement. The manager was condescending and unapologetic when we raised our concerns. The server repeatedly tried to excuse the long delays by saying it was the end of a promotion and “everyone was visiting today” — yet the restaurant was not even at full capacity and nowhere near as busy as we’ve seen it before.

This was hands down one of the worst dining...