California Pizza Kitchen at Short Pump — Restaurant in Short Pump

This comment is only about customer service, I can't comment on the food. My husband and I went to this location last night for our 10th anniversary with our children and mother. We were told it would be a 35-40 min wait. One of us stood out front while the other entertained our kids adjacent to the restaurant in the kids area. After 30-35 min passed we went back inside to see where we were and were told there were six people in front of us. So my mother stayed just adjacent to the front door next to their outdoor eating area while we took my kids inside an adjacent store for no more than 2 min. After another 20 min sitting outside we went inside as everyone around us was getting called in. The girl up front said they had called our party once no one answered then they took the next person. They then told my husband the only solution was to go back on the bottom of the wait list for another 20 min. So after 1.5 hrs of waiting outside with a 5 and 7 yr old and senior citizen we left without food. There has to be a better system for those waiting! If someone misses a call (for many numerous reasons like my mother not hearing it in our case), call the next person, but come back and called the missed party again. If after 2 calls then feel free to bump them. Or if a party has been missed prioritize them when they show. This was a horrible experience just to eat at your restaurant. It is very...

My husband and I went to the California Pizza Kitchen for dinner tonight. We walked in and were seated immediately. We looked over the menu while waiting for our server to come. A family was seated right behind us two minutes after we sat down. The waitress went to their table, took their drink order and left. My husband made eye contact with the waitress, so we figured she'd take our order upon her return. She came back out with their drinks, took their meal order, and left again.

We saw three servers in our area, not one came to our table to see if we had been helped (we didn't have any drinks so that should've been a clue). We ended up leaving once the family that came in after us received their appetizers. My husband told the host that no one served us, and we received an "Oh, sorry." We will not return to the California Pizza Kitchen.

We went to the Honey Baked Ham Co. around the corner and had a fantastic meal and service. If you're in the Short Pump area, I recommend you go to the Honey Baked Ham Co. We've also had great food and service at Firebirds and Maggiano's.

2/10/2024 Update - Someone reached out to us to state that they are looking into what happened and why we weren't served. I appreciate the update that we were provided and the effort to make sure this does not happen to anyone else...

I used to go to CPK locations around the country all the time since I’m always traveling for work. This time, I visited the Short Pump location, and the experience was terrible. The food was horrible and overpriced but considering the current situation in the country, I can understand that part.

What really shocked me was the staff’s behavior. The managers were joking and playing around with the team, while the pizza staff were on their phones! Even though they were wearing gloves, they kept touching their phone screens which is actually worse than touching a toilet. Some of them even had headphones on and were fooling around. The whole scene felt more like being in a zoo than in a restaurant.

I’ve never had this issue in any other CPK I’ve visited. To make things worse, my server, Lauren, provided very mediocre service. She didn’t even bother to ask how the food was and seemed more interested in hanging out with her coworkers. It was a slow day, yet she disappeared for long periods and only returned to ask if I wanted to sign up for the rewards program.

With that kind of service and such poor kitchen hygiene, even if I were offered free lunch for life, I would never come back to this location. Be careful you might get sick...