California Pizza Kitchen at International Plaza — Restaurant in Tampa

I will do my best to make this short because I really love this place and I hate to do this but I cannot go without explaining my experience. We arrived when they opened and ordered two berry sangrias and water. The server came out and said she was waiting for our drinks and asked if we were ready to order which we were. A few minutes later she came back and said she was still waiting on our drinks because she could not find a bartender. Eventually, the manager ended up making our sangrias and when they came out in identical glasses there was at least an inch difference in the volume. I quickly brought it to the manager who was standing at the hostess station and her immediate response was oh, it's the ice. I was like okay. Regardless I need them remade. Our server brought out our new drinks and food arrived, not even 2 minutes afterwards so we really got to enjoy them. I ordered a sandwich with a salad which was good. My partner ordered the Kung Pao spaghetti and it came out with virtually raw spaghetti that you could not even bite. We sent it back and it came out again and once again it was underdone, nowhere close to Al dente. We sent it back and told her to bring our check. We were done and it was removed from our bill but this entire time the manager not once delivered our remade drinks or our twice refired order. I have never ever sent a plate back to the kitchen that a manager did not come out to address and I'm about as dissatisfied as they come and will never...

They're always running out of something! Once it was the strawberry puree for the strawberry lemonade, then the mint leaves for the desert pear lemonade, and the breaking point for this review was the substitution of broccolini for potatoes. The waitress claimed to not have known there weren't any potatoes and the one who prepared the plate just substituted anything, without asking or offering an alternative option (What about food allergies? You shouldn't just take it upon yourself to substitute just anything). What makes it worse, we were told there would be an up charge for an alternative side when substituting was not at our request, it was an obligation due to the potatoes not being available. Is losing a returning customer worth charging that extra dollar or two for corn, since you were out of potatoes? That's bad business, very bad business!! Since I'm taking the time to create this review, I'll also mention that the Chicken Picatta always has too much lemon and the Chicken Tequila Fettuccine had way too much lime with little sauce (it was horrible, but I didn't complain until now), so good job continuously running out of items to trigger this review. The only thing we've had that tasted good were the Chicken bacon avocado rolls and pizza. We make a pretty good drive to visit this location, but now I'll hesitate. You couldn't pay me to visit again, but you might be able to...

An extremely popular pizza chain located inside International Plaza. To be honest, my expectations were as high as the pizza chain itself. Without a doubt, the restaurant appears amazing in terms of the structure, interior, layout , seating arrangements outdoor & indoor plus the bar within. They offer takeouts, also multiple vegetarian options along with a few Gluten Free options, Kids menu & crayons/activity sheets for their entertainment too. The service was expeditious for the staff, as I observed, was quite efficient, moreover, Our server was super friendly & quick.

Now comes the food, we ordered for Schezwan Chicken Dumplings, Shaved Mushrooms & Spinach Flatbread, A Platinum Margarita and a couple of beer. Everything mentioned above was drool-worthy and palatable until the pizza arrived! I set my expectations higher when rest of the food I devoured was utterly delicious, Not the Pizza for sure! The hawaiian pizza we ordered for, wasn’t appetizing, the base felt off & nothing else surprized me about it, only parmesan I could taste & of course that wasn’t enough to please us.

So 5 stars for their amazing service, family friendly environment, lively ambience while only one star for the...