Cold Stone Creamery — Restaurant in Tampa

Edited I’ve raised this to a 4-star because the owner/manager and I spoke, and they refunded the cost of the milkshakes, which we’ve already received, and offered us 2 free milkshakes on a future visit. I very much appreciate them doing that, and for taking the feedback seriously.

Original: I’ve been coming to this location for many years and have always left positive feedback on surveys and recommended them to family and friends. I personally wish I could have left this as private feedback via receipt survey, but I was not given a receipt (or even asked if I wanted one, before the person ringing me up threw it away). Apologies for the length of this review, but hey, I’m pretty annoyed that we spent $42 just to throw half of our order in the trash. We visited around 8:30pm, and it was pretty crowded outside, but only 1 family actually in line so we didn’t have to wait long. There were about 5 staff members that I saw (I don’t know if there were more working in the back, but I counted 5 people working in the front). Ironically, there was a sign posted on the counter that said they were short-staffed…but it seems the issues aren’t with the quantity of staff. My husband and I ordered milkshakes, and also got 2 pints to-go to bring to some friends. I ordered a cookies and cream shake, and when the gentleman gave me my shake, it had no cookies. He was very nice and apologized for forgetting the cookies, and remade it for me, but I watched him remake it by just putting my same shake back in the blender and added cookies. At that point I could no longer see what he was doing, and assumed he added a thickening agent, because obviously re-blending a shake = liquid. Then another staff member helped my husband, and took his milkshake order. Then ANOTHER staff member put our to-go pints together. Yet another staff member then rang us up. I will say, the woman that put our to-go pints together was great! Very friendly, attentive (repeated our to-go order back to us and verified it was correct), and she seemed to be helping everyone else when she could, as well. Absolutely zero complaints about the service we received from her, and I wish I’d gotten her name to provide positive feedback directly. The person that rang us up, however, had a serious attitude problem towards everyone — customers and staff alike. We were still waiting on receiving our items, and every time I told her each item so she could ring the correct items up, she kept interrupting me. I went to ask about the rewards program, as she didn’t ask me if I was a rewards member or even ask for a phone number, etc., just told me my total, so I assumed it was too late to apply any rewards/gain rewards, because I didn’t want to deal with her attitude if she had to ring my order up again. Even so, I still left a 20% tip. I did not get a “thank you” for the tip, and she did not even offer me a receipt, just saw the tip amount, added it to their tip jar, and discarded it. I would have appreciated the receipt, again, to not only provide for the people we were bringing the ice-cream to, but also so I could leave feedback. Then we received our shakes — mine was liquid. Literal liquid with crushed cookies, and was room temp before we walked out the door. My husband said his strawberry shake was “liquidy” so I’m guessing his was the same, since he threw his away without drinking more than a couple of sips. I saw another review saying something similar about how multiple employees rang up one person/family and it was chaotic, and I couldn’t agree more with that. I’ve been here for many special occasions since the store opened, and have watched 1-2 employees max help lots of people efficiently and accurately. No clue why 5 people made things so chaotic. If the issue was lack of training, then a supervisor/owner should have been there helping them. As someone who worked in hospitality for a decade, I very rarely regret leaving a tip. I definitely regret leaving a 20% tip for the cups of milkshake-soup and attitude problem from the person...

This Cold Stone Creamery location has a habit of not allowing refunds and an owner who thinks it's alright to belittle both customers and employees. We had a little mishap with an order and wanted to request a refund for the one mistake, not the entire order. Now normally, this is a simple request anywhere else. Not in this case as unfortunately, the employee informed us that it was unlikely that we’d receive a refund as they aren’t able to give a refund due to the limitations set by the owner, still, they tried reaching out to the owner to do right but proceeded to be screamed at by the owner over the phone, the employee then had to reluctantly give over their cellphone to me the customer as requested by the owner themselves, only for the owner to then have no professionalism as they tried yelling and talking over each and everything I tried to say. I didn’t have an issue with the employee nor the establishment as it were, but when your owner thinks it is privy to talk like that over the phone to customers that’s when we have a problem. Eventually, the owner folded and gave us a refund. Won’t be returning to this location anytime soon, also worth mentioning this but at the time of this writing, the banner outside states “Now Open Under New Energy New Owner” With an owner mindset like that, I expect that sign to soon read New NEW owner….

Edit Update: You can witness the unprofessionalism down below as the owner does not take responsibility and instead opts to blame the customer while making false claims in the process, My wife requested three flavors and tried them, she then requested 2 of the same and asked for a separate flavor for the third, the employee made a slight mistake and gave the exact ones that she had taste tested instead, hints why she did not finish the Ice cream you claim that she had finished. Which then resorted to her requesting a refund. Interesting that you would claim otherwise given that you were not present during this encounter whatsoever but were instead informed by your employee over the phone to which you proceeded to berate and verbally abuse. But hey Irony right?...

This “free stuff” that you claim wasn’t so free when we still paid for the correct portion of the order itself so try to make that make sense. It’s pretty laughable that you would assume I would go as far as to ruin other businesses around you given that I frequent these small businesses and don’t have trouble with them whatsoever. I’d also like to mention that you are not a small business, you are a franchise owner, which means you have a higher-up… I plan to have a chat with them on your behalf regarding your piss poor behavior towards both customers and employees.

As for this strange flex of review scores, I didn’t ask and it wasn’t necessary, it only serves as a further example of your disconnect from how to run a business and how to conduct yourself with customers.

In your final statement what you will be offering next will be my full refund as I intend to return for the full amount this time.

I plan to update further when you...

Just writing this review to let the management know that they close the store 5 minutes beforehand so that they wouldn't have to do the Uber order that I had to pick up. The young gentleman told me that they were not only out of everything but that they would not make the order even if the Uber sent it to them as they said that they did not have the order but Uber again said that they sent it to them but they did not want to take the order and make it even though the store was supposed to still be open because they I guess just wanted to leave. But they literally said they were out of ice cream which I know is untrue as well as closing early and refusing over orders I'm going to have to let Uber know and Uber is going to have to handle this on their end. I don't think that this is how this establishment is supposed to be run. If you have any questions or concerns and the manager or owner wants to contact me I would be more than happy to tell them about the situation thanks again and hopefully in the future your employees don't treat situations this way just because they are lazy and would like to go home early. Not only did I lose out on a $15 order Uber lost out on their money the store lost out on their revenue for Cold Stone and the customer was let down and will probably write a bad review as I let them know what the employees...