Smoking Monkey Pizza — Restaurant in Renton

We’ve supported this place for 11 yrs but after our experience 6/19/25 & how the owner & staff handled our situation we’ll NEVER support them again. As a local Renton small business owner myself for 20 yrs, I always give owners a chance to make it right before leaving a bad review, & it takes a pretty drastic situation for me to do so.

Our order rarely deviates so we know how they should taste & smell. My husband got halfway through 1 slice of his pizza & said something wasn’t right with the linguica, they tasted & smelled rotten. It’s always red like pepperoni, but this time they were brown on their cooked sides, grey on their undersides, & smelled so bad it nearly made me sick. My husband picked the remaining linguica off & tried to finish. Unfortunately, the rotten linguica grease was all over the pizza rendering it inedible. Within mins of finishing 1 slice he was vomiting, had terrible symptoms all night, & too nauseated to eat until 6/21. Luckily I didn’t eat any of it, but my pizza was so underbaked in the center I could only stomach 2 slices.

We set the pizza aside to show them, & called early on 6/20 to alert them of the illness & remedy the situation. The employee said there wasn’t a manager available, & nothing he could do for us but Tom (the owner) would be in 6-10pm & we could talk to him then. We arrived with the pizza at 7pm & were told Tom was on a delivery. We said we’d wait. A few mins later the manager came out & says we can’t talk to Tom now bc “he’s out on deliveries all night.” We said we were willing to wait until closing. She said, “No, he told me to handle it, he’s not talking with you tonight.” At the beginning of the interaction my husband saw an older gentleman enter the back door & dart into an office. We wondered if that was Tom.

We asked her what they could do & she offered us a free 12” pizza & dessert for spending $77 on an underbaked pizza, & a pizza that caused FOOD POISONING? & he wasn’t well enough to eat yet. She argued with us & made excuses. We explained, “serving rotten food & food poisoning are actions reported to the DOH & it’s their responsibility according to their food handlers permit to know when food is spoiled & shouldn’t be served.“ Her resolution was unacceptable. We felt a refund & 2 free pizzas in the future when he’s feeling better was fair for the 24 hrs he endured from their negligence. We weren’t being unreasonable. The manager agreed this was fair & would honor it. But as soon as she started the refund Tom called her.

In front of us she tells Tom we’re upset bc the pizza tasted bad. We said loud enough for Tom to hear, “NO it made him sick! We have the pizza here & would love to show u the linguica is brown and grey!” She said, “yeah bc the pizza was out all day.” We had pics when it was fresh, & the smell alone should be enough to know it’s rotten! The cook came over to see we asked him to smell it & he refused bc he’s a vegetarian. Tom asked the gal to go to another room so they could talk privately. She refunded us $72 (not even a full refund) & asked if there was anything else. Yes the coupons for the 2 pizzas. She grabs a sticky note & asks our names & number claiming it was for the future pizzas. We said, “on a sticky note? Don't u have coupons? She said, “Actually it’s so Tom can call u, he says I can’t give you coupons. Most places wouldn’t give u anything I’ve had food poisoning before & didn’t get anything out of it.” WOW. We thought Tom wanted to know his establishment was serving rotten food that made someone sick, that maybe he’d dispose of his rotten food so others won’t get sick, & MAYBE he’d care enough to make it right to loyal customers. Tom hid from us, & & they treated us as if we were scamming them despite having the pizza there.

Hopefully the rotten linguica was disposed of, & they learn to inspect the food better before serving customers. We’re upset Tom refused to honor the resolution the manager agreed to, but their ill demeanor towards us was even...

Possibly the worst (attempted) takeaway food/customer service experience I’ve ever had. My friend and I placed an online order last night at 7:30, estimates pick up in 25 minutes. 35 minutes later we show, wait a few minutes for an employee to stop stocking a soda fridge, and ask if our orders ready. She disappears to the back, we hear a bit of laughing, a few minutes later she returns and says it’ll be another 15 minutes. All right, they missed our ticket, no big deal. We run an errand, come back 25 minutes later. Again, employee spends several minutes in the back looking for our order. Finally brings it up, we check it and it’s missing three toppings (three toppings costs $7.50), and the half and half we requested was not honored. My friend is veg so we can’t accept the pizza. It’s also burnt all over and has an anemic level of cheese, despite having paid for extra cheese. They say it’s a problem with their online ordering system and that they’ll refund it and remake it. Great. We’re going on an hour total now, but that sounded like a fine resolution. She writes down our order again and we wait in the dining room. 10 minutes later she comes and tells us we need to pay again- not really what we expected from “we’ll refund you and remake it”… we’ve waited this long, whatever. This is a good time to mention another employee is on the phone refunding a customers order, and the people behind us are waiting for a refund as well. I follow her back up to the counter, where another person is halfway through paying, but they wave them off. The employee asks what I ordered again. I recanted the order twice, slowly, while she stared at the screen. Another employee comes up and asks her what’s going on, and she says “I just can’t remember this girls order”. I recant it a third time. I pay and go sit down. Another 10 minutes go by and she brings us our pizza. The pizza is once again burnt, missing two toppings we paid for, and now has mushrooms all over it. We bring it up to the counter and this time, just want a refund and to leave. After a back and forth with the employee, she says “maybe that just isn’t your pizza”, and goes to search the back (a stack of 3-4 pizzas, and returns with what finally should be our pizza. This one is burnt as well, as anemic with the toppings as each pizza had been, and the sun dried tomatoes are burnt black. I pointed this out and she says “that’s just how our sundried tomatoes look”. Girl.. I’ve never seen sundried tomatoes look like that in my life. Finally, an hour and a half in and presented with a third inedible pizza, we ask if a manager is present. After some stumbling they say yes, and we say we’d like them to finish the transaction. The employees disappear for a few more minutes and return with a disheveled looking cook. He looked at us and said “uhhh” and I asked point blank “are you the manager” and he responds “no”. I ask once again for the actual manager. She finally emerges and tries to make a case for the burnt to a crisp sundried tomatoes. After an hour and a half of our Friday night was wasted, we just wanted a refund so that we could go order delivery from Dominos. I spent six years in high school and college waiting tables, working fast food, takeaway, etc, and frankly I can’t figure out how many missteps it takes to run a business so poorly. I’ve never asked for a manager before, and hated doing so, but this experience left me no choice. This used to be a great pizza spot, but I honestly can’t imagine how they’ll stay...

We have been regular customers of Smoking Monkey Pizza for over a year now. We thought it would be a great idea to have them make pizzas for our engagement party - what a disaster that turned out to be! What started as a honest mistake on their end quickly snowballed into the worst customer service experience I have dealt with in a very long time, including deceit, lack of follow up and promises to make it right that were never delivered on. We placed a custom order for heart shaped pizzas and were told they had someone they could commission for an extra fee to make custom boxes. I was thrilled despite how expensive the custom boxes were, and thought they were a great touch for our party. When they were delivered, the "custom pizza boxes" were horrendous and looked like school children placed stickers on them 5 min before delivery (see photos). Our guests were baffled, asked questions and wondered why we had pizza in boxes that looked so silly. I immediately reached out and after beating around the bush, the owner, Tom, finally admitted that they had accidentally sent the boxes I paid for to the wrong order. I understand mistakes happen and would have happily troubleshooted with Smoking Monkey a week prior to our event when the mistake occurred. What I don't understand is not owning up to the mistake, and instead, passing off boxes that were clearly not what we paid for. And after a month of working with the owner, Tom, to make it right, he has yet to deliver. All we wanted was a refund of the custom pizza boxes that we paid for and didn't receive. We have yet to see that despite Tom promising for weeks that he would send proof of a refund. He even over promised a full refund and gift card, and has yet to deliver on that too. Every attempt to "make it right" has failed, and proves how not only disorganized this place is but that they don't care about retaining regular customers and owning up to their mistakes.

Their pizza tastes good, don't get me wrong. But definitely don't trust them with any special occasion or event. They will disappoint you and embarrass you in front of...