Cold Stone Creamery — Restaurant in Virginia

On Monday 8/12 I went to Cold Stone Creamery on Atlas Walk Way in Gainesville VA (store #1248) to place an order for a custom birthday cake. The size, flavor, design, and pick up day and time were chosen, and I paid the $75 fee. The cake was to be picked up at 12:00pm on Thursday, August 15th, 2024.

The morning of the pickup date, I called the store to ask for the dimensions of the cake in its container, to ensure that I would have enough space in my freezer. Immediately, it was made known that my order was nowhere to be found. There was, however, an unmarked cake in the blast freezer, with no way of knowing whose order it was or the flavor inside. It was suggested that perhaps that could be my cake. Either way, it was un-decorated. Worried, I asked the employee I spoke with what to do, and she said that she wasn’t sure, that she would have to call her manager and get back to me.

After not receiving a call back for quite some time, I called the store again, to find out the status of my cake. The pickup time was getting nearer, and the employee stated that she still had not been able to get in touch with her manager and was waiting to see if someone would even be able to come in to decorate my cake at all.

After some more back and forth phone calls, it was determined that the manager, who is also the cake decorator, had a doctor’s appointment and would not be able to make it into the store to decorate my forgotten cake. It was then suggested that I pick up my cake the next day, the day after my son’s birthday, and the day after his party.

At this point I asked for a full refund for the custom cake that they had completely forgotten, and if I could have a pre-made non-custom cake from their cooler free of charge, in an attempt to make up for the cake they forgot. Even without the theme that I had chosen or the custom flavors that I selected, I would still be leaving with a cake. Again, another call had to be made to check if this was something they could do, this time, to the franchise partner of this location.

It was finally determined after the staff member spoke with the franchise partner, that despite forgetting to create my custom cake and making no effort to remedy the situation other than to pick it up a day after my event, that he would only be willing to give me 25% off a pre-made cake in their cooler. No apologies were offered for their mistake. As for the refund for my forgotten custom cake, I would have to wait until the manager was working next for the refund to be issued.

I am at a loss for words as to how a business can admit to a mistake and make no real effort or give any viable solution to fix it. This location’s business practices are rudimentary to say the least, and when given the opportunity to allow me to leave with a pre-made non-custom cake free of charge to make up for the order that they forgot, both the manager and franchise partner dropped the ball.

Word to the wise: If ordering a custom cake from the Gainesville VA location, call the store the day before picking up to ensure that your order has been made, and again the morning of to double check that it’s been finished. Based on my personal experience, I would order a cake somewhere else if you want your...

I genuinely tried so hard to be patient in every instant with cold stone but I’m so frustrated with their lack of care considering their insanely expensive prices. I pre ordered a cake over a month and a half before the date so that everything would be set in stone. I ordered in store and had to stay there ordering double the time because the lady wrote it on the wrong paper apparently and so she had me re answer all the questions, I didn’t have a problem with it. They gave me a time to go at 11am on May 10th. May 9th comes around and they call me say “hey so yeah there’s like no way we’ll be able to have your cake ready by 11am so come at 12:30 to pick up the cake.” I said okay no worries again not having much of a problem although it is a major inconvenience for me and was told to me very last minute. I show up May 10th at 12:30 and pick up the cake, drive home and look at it. At the store I checked to see if they wrote the name right “Isaiah” only thing I really checked hard for. I didn’t think I would have to check the word happy, yet they managed to mess up the word happy, writing “hppy” on an over 60$ cake! How does one mess that up and I now have no time to go back and fix it because I already had to go an hour and a half later than supposed to so again, I pushed it aside. Now it’s the party, we already sung happy birthday and birthday boy is now cutting his cake, he asked for all vanilla cake, from the icecream, to the cake to the frosting all vanilla. Super simple and easy to remember right… WRONG. They gave us chocolate cake which he hates, with Oreo, caramel and vanilla icecream. You can imagine the look of horror on all of our faces when we saw that. So so disappointing and I expect a FULL refund for coldstone ruining this birthday and leaving a birthday boy with no...

So annoyed by the unnecessary. Bought $30 worth of Groupon but oddly it came in as 3 x $10 coupons. Went to store with my parents and two nieces to use on last day promotion valid. Told by 3 kids running the shop that owner's policy is 1 Groupon coupon per account per day. I explained I made a single Groupon purchase and didn't realize it was 3 separate coupons, they're only valid at this store and today is the last day of the promotional value. They didn't care and the boy told me, yeah but you still have the value of what you paid after the promotion expires. Thank you Einstein. Upon payment on almost $30 of ice cream, saw the way they recognize the coupon is not to scan it, but tap your phone screen to mark it as used, then manually enter a discount code on their register. In other words, there was no restriction on them using discretion and common sense to allow me to use the full promotion value of $30 worth of Groupon coupons as there is no system block or lockout based on having already scanned one Groupon code on my account that day. Never shopping there again. Will go to the Cold Stone Creamery in Manassas, VA, instead; their staff is also very young, but way better trained at customer service. I can only imagine that comes from having a more caring and less greedy manager.

OMG, only after posting the review about that I see all the horrible other reviews below also commenting on the staff and the manager. I guess I should be calling...