Sam & Ella's Chicken Palace — Restaurant in Tahlequah

While on a day trip to Tahlequah, The Kid and The Wife wanted to give this place a try. First, the place.... nice hometown vibe, perfect for the college town spot that it is. Lots of kitschy decor with an over abundant focus on chickens, for some reason, which is odd, because they don't serve chicken. Which is probably a good thing that I'll mention later. Seating was plentiful, since it was mid afternoon on a Saturday. Wait staff were plentiful and friendly. We were offered menus and told to sit wherever we liked, so we took a booth in the corner. Not much to see on the menu. A pretty basic set of apps, a few sandwiches and then pizza. No chicken. None. The Kid went with a small cheese pizza and a side salad, The Wife had a small supreme while I opted for the chicken sandwich, not really being much of a pizza guy. It's one of those foods I'll eat, but it's never my go to choice. The Kid's salad arrived pretty quickly, but almost on its heels was her pizza. So she really didn't get much of a chance to eat what turned out to be a pretty darn good salad. One of the better items we tasted. Her cheese pizza was pretty good, with lots of cheese and a really large size for a small. She managed about half of it, which for her is pretty good. My sandwich arrived next, a few minutes later (put a pin in that one). The Wife's initial comment was that the bread looked burned and hard, which wasn't the case. After an initial crunch from sitting under the broiler for a minute, the bread was pretty soft and chewy. Sadly, the sandwich was more of a missed opportunity than not. The chicken had no flavor at all, and the entire sandwich lacked any depth. The best thing on my plate was the bag of Ruffles. I ate about 3 bites and was done, which was pretty irritating, since I'd not had anything to eat all day. The Wife's supreme arrived several minutes later. It too was pretty good sized for a small. Plenty of toppings, good crust, and according to her, quite good. The staggered delivery of the entree items was mildly irritating. A sandwich and 2 small pizzas should have been easy to deliver all at once. I'm not sure why there seems to be a growing trend in restaurants lately to deliver your salad 7.3 seconds before your entree hits, but it's annoying as hell, and whenever I have to order the salad separately, I'm going to start asking them to take it off the bill when that happens. Overall, The Girls were happy, but I was overly disappointed and am happy knowing that I'll never have to...

This use to be my favorite pizza place and I recommended it to all of my friends traveling to Oklahoma from out of state. Last night, we went there and it was just absolute chaos from the time we walked in the door. There were two people at the register that were not greeting anyone. There was a line of people backed up all the way to kitchen. The line actually prevented people from getting in the door. The pile of lawn furniture and trash piled up at the entrance seemed like a safety hazard. It seemed odd to have to pay in advance. The woman said she would bring our drinks if she got the chance…. We sat outside and waited for thirty minutes. I went back in and ask for drinks. While I was waiting some more, I looked around. The waitress was setting at a table with a coke and was reading the menu. Two or three kitchen staff was standing around. There were people setting at tables but definitely not full. Waited another hour and still no pizza. When I went in to use the restroom there were people at the register complaining about the long wait and was told no one there knew how to give a refund. (The new owners got a nice little scam going there!) Most of the people started walking out. Fifteen minutes later, I seen some people that got there after us, getting their order. I wasn’t mad about the wait. I was mad about the fact that clearly whoever is in charge now doesn’t care about its patrons and that attitude is reflected in the poor costumer service displayed by the staff. There were to go orders piled up everywhere. Dirty dishes. Food all over the floor. The five people standing in the kitchen laughing and joking completely ignored everyone standing behind me wanting some kinda response from ANYONE working in there. Finally, one of the boys looked at me and I ask how much longer on my order. I swear to goodness he just turned around and walked out. The only female waitress had completely mentally checked out and was basically walking in circles. So, I did what I had to do and told the oven boy not to make another freaking pizza until he made mine. And, then I told everyone else to help themselves to whatever pizza was setting there waiting to be picked up because obviously no one cared. I did get our pizza. The dough was overworked and it was burnt. I wasn’t going to leave without a pizza or my money back though. It makes me sad to know this place will eventually go out of business because of bad management. If you’re thinking of going here, don’t. You’ll just be...

I was MORTIFIED at the way they treated my family!!!!

I’m from Tahlequah but moved away over two decades ago. Every time we visit, I always stop in here to eat.

However, over the 4th of July weekend I took my family, who was visiting from out of the country, as well as friends to eat dinner there on July 3 and what happened next ensured I will never return.

They were not very busy, but there was just one server working so we were very patient with her. They made us order everything at once, up front and pay for all of it )and now I know why). We spent a few hundred dollars on pizzas and appetizers as we were a large group.

Our waters took forever, the food took a long time, nobody brought us napkins after we asked a few times. At the end of the meal, we asked where our large Rock Island Red pizza was. It turned out they had given it to someone else with a takeout order. We weren’t upset, just asked for a refund. They said that only a manager could do that, and that she wasn’t there. We asked when we could come back, and they said the next morning she would be in.

On our way out of town, we stopped by for the refund. My mom went inside and was told there was no manager there, and that they had no way to contact her. My mom was a bit taken aback, as we were owed the money and had been told to return at that time. The server continued to act like she couldn’t help my mom, and my mom asked for a phone number to reach a manager. After being told nobody had a contact number, a woman came flying out of the kitchen - she turned out to be the manager and owner, Andrea. She yelled at my mom, “Why are you demanding to see me? I don’t have time for this bullsh!t!” When my mom again explained the situation and asked for a refund, Andrea told her to (and I quote), to “eff off, if you have a problem you need to talk to your credit card company.”

My mom came out of the restaurant in shock. My sisters and I went back in and demanded to talk to her. The entire staff IGNORED us, then yelled that we had better leave because they were calling 911.

I have never in my life been treated so poorly by a business I have literally given hundreds of dollars to. And that was the experience my family had, at a place I had told them they couldn’t miss out on.

I am furious, embarrassed, disgusted and sad and hope they go out of business- read the other reviews you find online……apparently this is a regular...