Blaze Pizza — Restaurant in Roseville

Let me start this review by saying that I’m scared to death — scared because I love Blaze Pizza. For many years, this has been one of my go-to restaurants. I’ve always had great experiences here: I can make my pizza exactly the way I want it, the environment is usually lively and full of energy, and the price has always felt like a good value.

But my last visit was different, and that’s what worries me. The line was shorter than usual, the energy in the store felt muted — no music playing — and they were even out of onions. Not a big deal by itself, but it caught my attention. Then I noticed they no longer sold beer, and when I went to the soda machine, it was out of ice. The lemonade dispensers were empty too, and oddly, they looked like they’d been recently cleaned or filled with soap suds.

That’s when my alarm bells started going off. I looked around for cracked pepper or Parmesan cheese — there were only two shakers in the entire restaurant, when there used to be a full shelf of them. And overall, the restaurant just looked dirtier and more disorganized than I’ve ever seen it.

Out of curiosity, I Googled whether Blaze Pizza might be in trouble. Unfortunately, it looks like they are facing some financial struggles, which might explain what I saw.

And that’s why I’m scared — because I truly love Blaze Pizza. It’s been my traditional “night-before-a-race” meal for years (I’m a runner), and I’d be really sad to see it go. Honestly, I don’t think MOD Pizza comes close; Blaze has always been better in my book.

I can only hope they’re able to turn things around and get back to being the great place they once were. That’s my...

I don't know how this place is still in business. Every time I've given this place another shot, I've been disappointed. It always feels like it's owned and run by young kids who have no clue how to run a business.

Last time I was here, the pizza was partially burnt, toppings were scarce, and customer service was fully awful.

Tonight it was "Pi Day" (March 14th). I went in for the deal and was told they "already cut off the line" for Pi Day deals and could only be served if I had a regular order. So basically they don't want to do their job unless they're making better profit off of the deal. A tip for management: Deals like Pi Day are times when new customers might give your business a try, or older customers might give you another shot. Disappointing these customers just guarantees that they won't come back and will give your competition (Mountain Mike's, Round Table, Marcos, etc.), who make better pizza anyway, more business.

Update: I tried again on a "Mega Mushroom" deal. Still the worst pizza in the business. How do you make a mushroom pizza and still make it completely flavorless? When you pick up the pizza box, you have to check to make sure there's anything inside at all, since the crust is so thin and there's almost no cheese or toppings. Most of the pieces were half covered with mushrooms and half bare cheese. My fault at this point for keeping going back, but I always hope that maybe they've gotten better. ...

We have a child with a severe egg allergy, so we looked at their online allergy menu and were impressed. However, when we called the restaurant to ask a few questions and spoke to the manager, we discovered that they are not accommodating or even mindful of allergies. If you have a severe food allergy, you should not here. Basically, the manager treated the food allergy as a major inconvenience and said they would only change gloves, which some employees didn’t even end up doing when we went and noted a food allergy… The manager said they wouldn’t wipe down the surfaces because they couldn’t close down the line (even though we came at 4pm) and didn’t offer any extra or different precautionary measures. Their cauli crust contains egg, and she said customers ask them to be baked directly on the oven surface all of the time and didn’t offer anything else to bake our child’s pizza on (cross contamination!). Also, no new spoons or utensils were used when preparing the pizza noted for a food allergy, so again cross contamination. We did not feel comfortable feeding our child the pizza. Overall, it was very disappointing since they have such a helpful allergy menu online, but it’s basically pointless if they’re not going to follow better procedures for cross...