The Pacific Coast Pizza Dilemma…

Pacific Coast Pizza…….oh where do I begin?

When this place first opened up, my circle of friends was pretty excited. We tried the place out and liked the food they had. Of course at that time, the customer service was pretty good too. We would find ourselves going up there for an occasional group dinner or a weekend afternoon sitting on the patio, hanging out over a few drinks.

They have a variety of pizza creations, some decent, some really good. Their wings are pretty large and filling. I prefer the teri-hot wings. Actually one of my friends swears they have the best wings in town.

Now the dilemma. Do you continue going to a place where their customer service is just horrible despite the food?

I’ve been there probably a couple dozen times now and lately I’d compare their customer service level to that of a…… wait, I have nothing to compare it to because they don’t have any to compare. Am I exaggerating? Slightly, but when I say their customer service is bad, I totally mean it. A handful of friends are also to the point where they are just fed up with it. Each time we have gone in, we’re like “OK, if the customer service sucks this time, we’re not coming back.”

About 3-4 weeks ago, we went in on a Sunday afternoon for lunch, drinks and watch a little football. About an hour into the day, their keg exploded (this happens literally every other time we go in), our server forgot who’s order was who’s, I had to wait at the bar forever, our server brought us our tickets when we weren’t even ready to leave (and note, our server wasn’t cut or anything) and the whole experience just, for the lack of a better word, sucked. With no manager on duty that day, I decided it was best to just send an e-mail to the owner/manager/whomever. Give them a couple weeks to respond if they planned on doing so. Here is the e-mail:

To whom this may concern,
We’ve been regular patrons to Pacific Coast Pizza for a while. Your establishment is convenient, the food is pretty good and we love going outside to play Bocce Ball over a few cold beers and pizzas. Plus it’s an occasional mainstay for our lunch crew at work.


Unfortunately your customer service has dropped dramatically the past handful of times we’ve been there. From absolutely horrible service to consistently “exploding” kegs to long wait times, we are near the point to where we are ready to mark this off our list of regular stops.


Examples:
We were in the other day and standing at the bar waiting to be served. This employee was standing at the end of the bar just writing on her dry erase board. She looked over at us and continued to write on her dry erase board. About a few minutes go by and she puts down her marker and reads what she wrote, grabs the marker and continues writing. Knowing she was the only person at the bar, we would hope she would come serve us. Instead we waited until she was ready. She walks over, grabs a glass for another order, walks by, then she notices us again and finally asks us if we’re ready to order.


Another night, a group of 8 of us are in for dinner. We ordered four pizzas, a couple appetizers, drinks around for our group. Once we received our food, we literally had to go ask our server for refills and additional drinks on three different occasions. Then on the final time, we were waiting to receive our tab and she was just hanging out at the bar. To make matters worse, you guys were not that busy.


The same employee from the first example we’ve had many times. By far the worst server at your establishment. She would bring us out our orders one by one. If we were ordering wings, she would lay them on the table. We would have to ask her, whose order it was. She didn’t even know what type of wings they were. So she would let them get cold while she went to go and try to figure out whose order it was.


I’ve been meaning to put this on my site but would love to hear back from the owner or manager of your place. We honestly would like to see your place succeed as we are all actually fans of your food. But the customer service has just gotten out of hand that we had to say something and it’s almost the last straw.


Thank you for your time.


E.B.

A couple weeks go by and no response. A friend, knowing I sent the e-mail, actually went in and talked to the owner one day and said, “Do you ever check your e-mail?” The owner didn’t respond. The owner did mention to my friend he has been aware of the customer service issues. Another friend actually called up Pacific Coast to inform them of the e-mail. No response. I even wrote a quick note on their Facebook page which was promptly deleted.

If I gathered my friends together, we could easily come up with a larger list of their customer service woes but if I typed it all out, my fingers might start to hurt. I’d easily put their customer service level in my Worst 3 in Wichita.

So the dilemma begins, if you like their food but hate going in, do you continue eating there? Order just take-out? Or just never go to the place again?

I’d love to read your thoughts gang.