Empire Slice House - Downtown Tulsa — Restaurant in Tulsa

I have never been so dehumanized as I was this evening. My party of 7 was the only table in the restaurant at 2 pm on Sunday. It was my birthday celebration. We live an hour and a half away, and made it a point to visit this location because they offer vegan cheese on their pizzas. I don't choose vegan cheese because I prefer it or because I'm picky - I have Alpha Gal syndrome, which leaves me allergic to dairy and mammals. I communicated that I can't have dairy when I ordered. I had to order a whole pizza because they don't offer non dairy by the slice. It's understandable. it's probably not a high demand item - really cheese is king! Everyone's food but mine came out. mine finally comes out, and it has ricotta cheese on top of the vegan cheese. I didn't even order a pizza that comes with ricotta. I am very confused by a kitchen that wouldn't think twice about making a vegan cheese pizza and adding a dairy item on top. I heard our server (who was alone and overworked and helping multiple tables) tell the kitchen what happened. I assumed my pizza would be remade and sent back out ASAP. As normally happens in most restaurants where an error occurs. Everyone at my table finished eating. 45 minutes after we got our food, my pizza still wasn't out. Turns out they had filled their ovens with a catering order and my pizza was forgotten. I didn't know this when the server tells me my pizza is in the oven. mind you this entire time there was not a single bite of any food on the table that I could safely consume without an allergic reaction. I then find out that no, my pizza STILL hasn't been made yet. My friends are long finished eating, and ready to go. I wasn't wanting to make them wait all that extra time just for me to have my food made, then wait for me to eat. this was exactly the kind of embarrassing scene that I feared a food allergy would cause me. I hate being in this position. I hate being that freak that can't be normal and eat what everyone else eats, when before I was an absolute foodie that would try anything, and would have made due with a couple of ready made slices. My friend approached the manager, Dodge. She did not acknowledge me one time. She did not apologize. She rolled her eyes as my friend explained that I have an allergy. As I sat there, like a fool, having been the annoying person who ordered vegan cheese (that they offer) on my pizza. I was hungry, far from home, with friends, and didn't have a backup plan for a safe place for dinner. I was looking forward to finally being able to eat pizza with some form of cheese, as a normal outing with friends. I'm so disappointed, I don't think I can...

Update 5/18/23: Our experience this time was excellent so I gave it another star. You can get buy one, get one free slices the day of shows at Cain's if you bring your concert tickets! The MCA was fantastic.

Original review: Not too much of a wait (I think I overheard it was the hostess's first day so totally understandable), plenty of seating for dinner before a show at Cain's. The the staff and our waitress were friendly. Laid- back pop culture kinda vibe. It was a bit too warm in the restaurant to be comfortable. I was sad about the $10 loaded garlic knots, they were served burnt on pieces of burnt parchment paper, I could not chew them and they forgot the marinara (the tiny cup in which you had to soak the knots in order to make them chewable). The waitress was nice and apologized, and brought us the marinara, which was flavorful. I should have just ordered a bowl of marinara and ate it with a spoon, to be honest. I paid the $.50 for a tiny cup of pink sauce which just tastes like ranch and thin pizza sauce mixed together. There is such a small amount, it was not worth it. We had the pepperoni and the No Sleep Til Brooklyn. The pepperoni was reminiscent of Mazzio's in flavor, slightly better perhaps. No Sleep Til Brooklyn was pretty tasty, though there was a lot of crust on my slice. The arugula is overpowering on pretty much whatever you put it on, so I ate that separately. I'm not complaining about that since the toppings are clearly stated and I knew what I was getting. Everything else about it was nice, and the crust was crunchy. For $4.25 a slice, it was a fair deal, but they did us dirty with those $10 charcoal briquettes. It was a bit awkward when we paid, because it was on a handheld device and the staff showed me the screen and askes how much of a tip I wanted to give. Again, not knocking any points off for this, but it's the first time I've encountered such a thing. I think I'd give it one more shot, but this experience was sort of a miss for me.

Update 6/5/22: Gave it another shot. I tried the Rocksteady this time, which is blue cheese, bacon, red onion, and balsamic drizzle. Definitely did not order garlic knots this time :) the pizza was much better than last time, and we had...

The first and only visit was 11/25/23. I am going to start off saying that I am not a vegan but I respect my wife's decision to be one.

Problem #1: If you are vegan, beware that there is an upcharge on vegan options. A slice of vegan cheese was an upcharge of $1.25. which I am sorry to say but if you are a restaurant you should manage your prices better so the customers doesn't think they are getting shamed for wanting another option besides cheese that came from an animal.

Problem #2: Customer service. We were asked if we would like a drink to go with our food and we decided on 1 drink to go and asked if it was a fountain drink and the short haired blonde girls server said it was a fountain drink. So we thought nothing about it and when I went to the restroom I got a text with a photo showing that is was a can of soda. My wife asked about it and the server said that it was the same amount anyway. That's not what we asked when ordering and definitely not a fountain drink. If it's going to be a can then just say that it will. Thank goodness for QT not being to far away and I am glad we didn't ask for two drinks.

Problem #3 Food. So we finally got our food and since we were on a road trip we got in our vehicle and left. We got something to drink at a QT down some ways and started driving and then we went to eat our pizza and I must say there was definitely vegan cheese on it and that's just about all there was. We order a vegan cheese with a split of spicy sauce and regular sauce and I can definitely tell you that there was a lack of sauce on the pizza. About 90% of the pizza was sauceless and the flavor of the pizza was pretty much non existent.

If you are going to offer vegan options please try your best to make it the best you can. This may have been a one off thing the restaurant was experiencing or it could be that that staff don't care about people who diets don't align with their own views and punish vegans when they come in. I may give this establishment a second chance in the future but at the moment I won't.

The music choice was great with bands like Taking Back Sunday, Good Charlotte, MCR, and Blink-182. The decor is nothing fancy but the color scheme and...