Upper Crust — Restaurant in South Carolina

I tried to like this place. But, on my second (and last visit) I just gave up. It was an early Friday night. I ordered this time off the menu on line. My order was lasagna dinner $14.75 spaghetti with meatballs $13.75 an order of buffalo wings $10.50 (I got 6 wings that were drier that the Sahara desert. 3 thin strips of celery and no ranch dressing. And like I said, the wings were totally dry. The one good thing I’ll say about the wings. They weren’t the tiny things you get at Buffalo Wild Wings. I also ordered a Cheese Calzone $11.95 after I ordered, the girl on the phone told me it would be $67 and change. As I was driving to pick up my order, the math, didn’t math. So, when I got to the restaurant to pick up my order, I looked at the menu in they had at the counter. And the prices had changed drastically on every item but the Calzone. Lasagna Dinner $19.25 Spaghetti and Meatballs $16.95 Wings $13.95 it doesn’t say how many wings but 14 dollars for 6 wings? Come on! With no sauce, 3 strips of celery and no ranch. Not even close to being worth $14 then they handed me my order. I went to my car checked my order and realized they never gave me my Calzone. I went back in to get the rest of my order. I drove five minutes to get home. When my son got his calzone, the had put sauce inside. When I called to complain, the girl said all calzones have sauce on the inside. I told her that is not true! A calzone should never have sauce inside, that it comes on the side. And, sure enough, there was a cup containing the sauce. She proceeded to argue. When I told her I’ve owned restaurants and that this was not the case, she insisted that I was wrong. And that she’d call the manager. But, she wasn’t going to remake a new one. That’s when I got angry. My son did go back with the Calzone and they noticed it also had pepperoni in it. I even went online to pull up the way to make and serve a Calzone, just incase she wanted to continue to argue. Of course I was correct. While waiting for my dinner. I saw a table right behind me get their dinner. A few minutes later, their waitress walks over and says to the table. My manager cut me. I was wondering if you could give me my tip before I go. I literally thought to myself. If this girl worked in one of my restaurants, I’d have fired her right then and there. I would also have fired the manager for cutting her at 6:50 pm on a Friday night. Now to the food. My wife said the lasagna was not even as good as Stouffers frozen lasagna. The sauce was bland at best and it was drowned in that sauce. The bread that came with her dinner was nothing to write home about. Not one bit of fresh garlic. It tasted of garlic salt or powder and was soaked in oil. And not a good olive oil. But, maybe a pomace oil. Her side salad was ok and she ate all of that. I had the Spaghetti and Meatballs. Again, very bland and boring sauce. The pasta was WAYYYYY OVER COOKED and not drained before it went into the take out container. Then the sauce was placed on top. The meatballs were mushy a flavorless. I ate one meatball and gave the other to my dog. I tossed half the pasta. It was just too over cooked. My Caesar salad was brown and the dressing I will bet everything I own, came from a can. Meaning it was bought and more than likely came from US Foods or some other food purveyor. $70 later, im throwing half the food in my trash bin and eating popcorn for dinner. My first visit, we had a pizza. As someone that came from the Pizza Capitol (New Haven & New York) I can tell you, we know pizza. This was not as bad as most places down here. But, we ate it and were ok with it. I’d probably irder a pizza again. Due to the proximity of the restaurant to my home. But, I’ll not order anything else. They say their “Desert” is homemade. I doubt that. I noticed their offering in a case near the cash register. Those are frozen and sliced from a box. Put on a plate and have absolutely no appeal to them. This place deserves the review I’m giving. Now, they need to fi the online prices. Someone may get upset with...

I've been ordering take-out pizza from Upper Crust, Okatie for about two years. Always a great pizza with good cheese, nice sausage and best of all, plenty of fresh basil. They have kept a database of phone numbers and pizzas ordered so usually when I called, they could see my phone number and would just ask if I wanted (whatever I ordered last time).

Called in an order this evening and had a much different experience. First, the person on the phone couldn't get our last name correct and didn't know anything about a phone database. Instead of the usual 15 minute quote on time, she said 25 minutes.

I drove over after 15 minutes and found my pizza boxed and ready to go. There was a little problem finding the order since they had misspelled my name and didn't seem to have the order by phone number any more.

When she opened the box to show the order, the pizza definitely looked different than any prior order. First, there were about 5 little slices of basil (on a large pizza). The cheese actually looked like some kind of yellow (cheddar?) instead of the normal light colored mozzarella. The pizza also had a shiny look (i.e. greasy).

I requested some more basil then took the pizza and headed for home. My wife took one look at the pizza and asked where I got it. I definitely didn't look like Upper Crust.

I took a slice and gave it the test. It wasn't bad pizza (for me pizza has to be very bad before I complain). It was, however, not what I expected. The ground sausage was definitely something new. It was greasy (thus coloring the mozzarella orange) and added a lot of salty taste to the pizza. The mozzarella didn't pull out in strings like I was used to (I assume because it was a different brand/quality of cheese).

I got the impression that Upper Crust has either changed ownership or management and have taken steps to reduce the cost of ingredients. It is definitely not the pizza they were serving this time last year.

The next time I have an urge for pizza, I will probably go looking for something new. I'm afraid that Upper Crust may have gone the way of many good restaurants--build a good reputation and client base, then screw with the formula.

Sorry...

They said my order would be ready by 5:35pm. I showed up on time, and they said that it would be another 5 or so minutes. I said ok, they looked pretty busy so I understood. I didn’t get my food until 6:05pm, a full 30 minutes after I was supposed to have gotten my food. I drive home, I open our food and it’s not even what we ordered. We simply ordered a calzone and garlic bread and they couldn’t take the time to look at the receipt and confirm the TWO items before handing it to me.

Over priced, mediocre food, disregard for your time, and disregard for what you actually ordered is an easy 1 star review with ZERO chance of a second visit.

(Update) 30 minutes after I got home we received a call stating that we forgot our garlic bread. I stated that I didn’t forget it, and that they gave us the wrong food. They apologized and offered to refund the garlic bread we did not get. Another hour and a half passed and they called again. This time they went above and beyond to make it right. The manager refunded the entire order for the mix up. As such, I felt compelled to update the review and give 3 stars instead of 1 for making...