Chicken Pie Shop — Restaurant in Walnut Creek

My trip to the Chicken Pie Shop is possibly my worst memory of a restaurant. I went with my wife, parents, sister, her fiance, and a family friend. We had reservations for 6:00 on a Wednesday and were seated promptly. As far as I could tell we were the only party inside, however all the outside (temporary outside seating, aka street) tables were full.

We ordered a few of the Poutine appetizers, which was perfectly cromulent. Kinda soggy fries with some shredded cheese on top. Wasn't particularly impressed but then we come to the Pies...

Right out the gate, they don't have the All Meat Chicken Pie (the standard chicken one). At 6 o'clock... on a Wednesday. How that happens at a place literally named Chicken Pie Shop, I don't know.

Although that upset a few in my party, they were able to make other selections that intrigued them. Altogether we got the Lamb, Beef Short Rib, Chicken Curry Lentil, Guinness Beef, and Pork Salsa Verde pies. All but 1 were ordered with Veggies + Mashed Potatoes (the last was just Veggies).

The pastry of the pies was great. Tasty, flaky, not burnt (only one was slightly blackened). Well that's where my complements end. The gravy that was under all the pies (including the no potatoes order) and absolutely covering the potatoes was THE. ABSOLUTE. WORST. GRAVY. that I've ever tasted. No flavor (except basically raw flour), horrible texture, and for most of us, an extremely unappetizing brownish-grey color to top it all off. Upon tasting the gravy for the Short Rib pie, my father (not at ALL a picky eater) said he nearly vomited. None of the others were much better, although they were MORE edible than mine...

The pie fillings themselves were nothing to write home about. None of them had any real flavor profile, the consensus around the table was "bland", and that's being generous. My Short Rib pie was nigh on inedible if you considered the pie being soaked in that mess of a gravy.

Now the veggies... can't mess up those right? Wrong. These were the SALTIEST veggies I've ever eaten in my entire life. it was almost like they had taken all the salt/seasonings that you should put into an entire pie and mound of mashed potatoes and gravy, doubled it, and then added it to properly seasoned veggies.

On one kind note, the staff was great. Very personable and moderately attentive. She even asked if it was a special occasion (it was my sister's birthday) and told us at the start that they would arrange something for her on the house. She brought a slice of Tiramisu (thankfully my sister likes mocha flavored things) and it was fairly enjoyable, but I'm not sure if it was just in comparison to the disaster I had just attempted to eat, so take that with a grain of salt. This is in fact the only reason that I'm giving 2 stars instead of 1.

All in all, an awful experience, and this was the first time in my life that I've ever left a restaurant hungry, while there was still food...

Would’ve been great to love this place as the service initially was fast and I live nearby. As soon as I got home I opened my food containing what was supposed to be “truffle fries” to find only what appeared and tasted like regular fries with some parsley tossed on top. Doesn’t help they were room temperature. This review isn’t about the food though, yes it was mediocre but not terrible, this review is about what happened next. I called to very politely state that I thought there was a mix up because these appeared to be regular fries. They did offer to replace the order which I will give them due credit for but I was already home so I just asked that I be refunded the $2 up charge and we could all go on our merry way - they obliged. To this moment, I wasn’t going to write a review at all as there wasn’t anything outstandingly excellent or remarkably horrible to note to future guests. Then the phone rang - the manager, owner, whatever called back to say, “I talked to the chef and he showed me the bowl he mixed them in” to which I replied ‘ok’ and then he asked, “can you see parsley on them?” To which is replied “yes” and he replied, “well, those are truffle fries” . Last I checked typically truffle fries aren’t defined by the amount of parsley on them, not to mention despite the lack of truffle flavor from the snake oil they claimed to batter them in there wasn’t a single, NOT A SINGLE, speck of Parmesan cheese in the whole container which was also listed. And sure, maybe the parmesan melted with the truffle oil but then you’d have to convince me that the fries were so piping hot when then went in everything melted and in the 3 minutes it took me to get home they somehow got to room temperature. How we wrapped the conversation gets even, almost delightfully, more strange as before I hung up they had the audacity to ask if it was my first time ordering. I said ‘yes’ and they said ‘ok, thanks for the feedback we’ll look into it’. I think I audibly laughed as I hung up the phone as I just couldn’t and still can’t wrap my head around why on earth you’d ask me if it was my first time to then offer zero reconciliation for the experience. Still makes me laugh now, especially since it’s over $2. On a $27 dollar order. That I tipped $4. FOR TAKEOUT. Best $2 dollars I ever spent because now I have one less restaurant to consider food from...

Love this place, but... I have a HUGE suggestion for the owners/managers of this place. Please, please, please figure out a way to quietly clean up and do dishes at the end of the night when you have performers on stage. I went to the comedy show on the last Saturday of the night for 3 months in a row, and every time your staff makes soooooo much noise with glasses, plates, silverware, etc! As an audience member it's distracting and sometimes so loud I can't hear the performers. One of the performers even called your staff out on it, but they continued being carelessly loud. Throwing silverware around. Banging dishes, pots and pans. Please show some courtesy to the performers and the audience. Your food is great. Staff is pleasant. Atmosphere is great. But end of night etiquette is terrible! Even if there were no performers, I'd hate to have to listen to all that noise. And I'm not being overly sensitive here. Your staff is throwing and banging things around, moving too quickly. They even broken several glassware while we were there. Fix this end of night etiquette and I'll give you 5 stars. You may need doors leading to the kitchen to muffle the sound, but even the staff at the bar was being way too loud. I'll be there next month for the comedy night again. And maybe a time or two in between because I really enjoy your place. But, we'll see how it goes with the end of night...