Cold Stone Creamery — Restaurant in Pleasant Hill

Cold Stone Used to Be Great, But It’s Going Downhill Fast

This location has been going downhill for at least a year, and it’s sad to see a once-loved spot ruin itself with what seems like short-sighted cost-cutting at the expense of customers and staff.

Smaller Portions, Higher Prices: You’re now paying more for less, and the portion sizes have shrunk to the point where it feels like a rip-off. Cold Stone used to be generous, now it feels like they’re rationing every scoop.

Poorly Trained Staff: It’s clear they’re hiring inexperienced workers, likely because they don’t pay well and don’t treat staff right, leading to constant turnover. The result? You get slow service, confused employees, and orders that aren’t even made correctly.

Customer Experience Has Tanked: Employees seem miserable, which makes the whole atmosphere uncomfortable. There’s no energy, no care in making the ice cream, and no effort to actually serve customers well.

Management Doesn't Seem to Care: Whoever is running things clearly thinks cutting costs on quality, service, and staffing is a smart business move, but all they’re doing is pushing away loyal customers. It’s frustrating because locals used to love this place, and now it’s just a disappointment.

Honestly, there are better dessert spots nearby that actually care about quality and service. Unless they wake up and fix their management issues, this location is on track to drive itself...

I am changing my rating tonight. We went to this store tonight to get ice cream, after we were waiting in line a few minutes they announced the computer was rebooting and it would be 10 minutes. After waiting another 10 or 15 minutes they announced they're closing the store and we have to leave. Now, this was a great opportunity for them to provide good customer service for all the people that had been standing around awaiting and taken the loss of 10 or $20 and given everyone that had been waiting at least a small ice cream. This would have created an opportunity for all of us to go hey last time they had problems but they still gave me ice cream I'm going to support them. They had problems but they still gave me ice cream I'm going to support them. Instead they tell everybody to leave, sending all of us to their competitors and giving them the business. Next time we are more likely to go to their competitors then back to Cold Stone. Sometimes it's better to give away 10 ice cream cones and create that loyalty and thankfulness that it is to kick everybody out after we have been waiting for so long. This is just a lesson in good public relations and how upsetting your customers can cost you a lot more down the road than taking a little hit right now.

Gotta love Oreo Cream ice cream, it would get 5 stars if they took the Oreo cookie pieces out of it. It's Oreo cream not...

Customer service here is neglectful at best, and shady at worst. Only had one staffer handling customers by themself. While the manager idly stood by. Once the ice cream was made she did ring me up, and this is where things got strange. I was provided a janky card terminal to process payment. Through my own negligence, and the poor quality of the terminal with small text, I accidentally tipped a large sum thinking that I was requesting cash back. I respectfully informed the manager heading the cash register. She went on a long tangent about why she couldn’t simply rectify the mistake through a return, or just adjusting the correct tip amount. She urged (nearly pleaded) me not to get cold stone corporate and my bank involved. She said she’d correct the issue and gave me some personal number that I’m not even sure is real. And said she’d follow up and correct the issue and pass it up through their team. But then later revealed that her husband owned the shop. Confused, I said that would fine if I had no other option. Then she tried to slyly walk off with my receipt which really struck me as fishy.

Coldstone is still pretty great in my opinion, but would NOT recommend...