Cafe Smok N Pi — Restaurant in Valle Township

I will start from the beginning as anyone should hopefully see this and see it as a warning to not eat at this establishment. Today 1/25/25, I went for a hike with my wife and dog, while driving to our location we passed the Cafe Smok N Pi and thought it looked like a good place to have dinner on the way back from our family day. We called the restaurant to place an advance order after looking at the menu online. We were told that the order would take up to 30 minutes due to having ordered a pizza(15-30 minutes for a pizza). After 40 minutes I entered the establishment to pick up my order. I then had to stand and wait for a full minute without any hostess or manager to welcome me. At that point I walked through the restaurant to find my mobile pick up order. It was after walking to the back of the restaurant that I saw a sign for the “CARRY OUT ONLY” I was then informed it would be a 5 minute wait. I politely agreed and then proceeded to wait another 25 minutes while another customer came up to the “CARRY OUT ONLY” counter and then ended up with his food before me. While waiting for my food and only pacing between a 15ft area, I witnessed two servers (both young girls) that were being belittled for what could only be seen as a customer issue they have NO control over. I watched as a server went from happy to depressed while throwing away 3 trays of food. I looked in the trash and saw it was nothing more then normal food and saw the female employee walk away almost in tears. After calling the establishment to voice my opinion I was confronted with a manager that was, through his own words “The one who yelled at the server”. (Nick) He then attempted to say that the female server was at fault as he had communicated to her “5-6 times” that she had some sort of attitude problem with customers despite that not being what was observed while waiting at your establishment for as long as I did. While also having this observation I noticed many customers that were acting as if it was their own home. During the time waiting by the mobile order pick up I witnessed many people openly pointing at me and seeming to have an issue with my presence. With that being said that is no way to create a positive and welcoming environment for your employees or customers. Now that that has been said it’s time to address the food that was ordered. We decided for a 10” pizza with hamburger and Italian sausage. We were then informed over the phone that they don’t have a 10”. Only a 12” and 16”. So after checking the online menu and the one in store, it shows that there is a difference of 1-5$ of each meal or order. After getting home the food was not at all what was to be expected. The sides ordered (Fries & Country Cheesy Potatoes) where 100% along with the entrees made from frozen and re-heated food. The potatoes themselves were burnt and dry while the “cheese” that was supposed to be in too was on the side and dryer then I could have possibly imagined. The main meals (Pulled pork & Smoked chicken breast) were dryer then the Sahara and more rubbery then a tire. After calling the restaurant and speaking the manager he admitted to belittling his server and making her throw away the larger platters of food she had for a table. He seemed to have no remorse and avoided the idea he was genuinely at fault as he had “told the employee 5-6 times” about her performance. I then argued why she is still and employee if that’s the case. I hit no solid answer and have now come to the conclusion that this business does not care about its employees or customers. DO NOT GO HERE. I will be disputing this charge with my bank as this business had done nothing but lie to...

Well, second time here, probably my last. The beer battered bacon SOUNDS great, but it is far from it. I don’t think it is real bacon. The chips are best described as an Always Save tortilla chip, maybe a Doller store quality chip, maybe. And the pizza, that looks great, but the sauce is just way too sweet for me, and the chips had a sugary seasoning to them too. Not a good combo. Staff forgot my drink, and honestly I’m glad because it probably would have had something wrong as well. I tried hard to like this, but . . .

Edit: Bill C, thanks for the response. As for notifying our server, we did not. She seemed to be having a very rough night & by the time we got our second pizza (first one was cheese only no toppings not what we ordered, and dropped on the floor by our table) we opted to not add to her night. There was definitely some tension between her and the young gentleman that brought our food out, he was not happy with her, but he went out of his way IMO to make things right at our table. As for the “bacon” it isn’t real bacon as in a piece of bacon that you would normally have a breakfast, it’s straight and flat as a board, not sure what it is, maybe ground bacon that is processed into these sticks? Anyway, that’s just how Smok N Pi makes them, telling the server would not have improved that anyway. As for the pizza, you are correct everything was fresh, and all great EXCEPT I don’t like sauce that sweet, that’s just my preference and nothing wrong on your end, but if your menu states sweet sauce, I didn’t notice it on there. Now those chips, do you “sugar” dust them? They definitely had sugar sprinkled all over them, wife and I both tasted it. The gringo cheese sauce was really good! But the chips are of a much lesser quality. If you want to improve on those, it shouldn’t be too hard. Thanks again for the response, hope this helps answer...

We stopped here on mother's day for lunch. We sat our party on the patio and the service started out fine. Once we got our drinks though everything went downhill. Multiple people in our group had small gravel sized pieces of plastic in their drinks when we told them about this they said sorry and informed us they were new cups and hadn't been washed!? After that it was a long time for our food to come but it was mother's day so we expected a little wait. We didn't expect to be ghosted by the staff. We eventually had to get up to fill all of our own drinks and even go inside to hunt down our own silverware. When the food finally came only half our group received their meals. 15-20 minutes later they were finished eating and the rest of the food was nowhere to be found. We went inside to ask and saw all of our meals on the kitchen window. We asked another server and were told that they wouldn't help because they "didn't want to get in the middle of it" another 10 minutes later we received our meals. Our server informed us they didn't know we only got half our food but that would be because we had not seen them for 45 minutes at this point. Our burgers were cold and so dry they were hardly chewable. The "bacon" they use in the food is not bacon but jerky? And the fries fries had so much sugar on them they were practically frosted. When we received the checks I found it odd they still charged us for everything including the plastic filled drinks served in unwashed cups. Not even a visit from the manager to say sorry. I'm sure they would just blame the "worker shortage" but that's not really a valid excuse when the workers they have refused to help. Not to mention our food was done and no one cared enough to...