World Pies in Issaquah off to Rocky Start (with me)
World Pies, a new pizza joint, recently opened up in my Issaquah Highlands neighborhood
I’ll preface this with saying that I’ve been looking forward to having a decent pizza place in town. Flying Pie Pizzaria has been my main place lately, but it is pretty expensive and they stop delivering pretty early in the evening. Papa Johns in Sammamish stopped delivering to Issaquah a while back (and are almost finished with their new Issaquah location), and so I’ve kinda been in pizza limbo lately.
The restaurant is also a coffee stand which opened earlier this month, and when I stopped by, they said they would be opening this week.
So tonight I stopped by to give it a shot. When I walked in, the place was fairly busy, and was greeted by a hostess. I informed the hostess that I’d like to place a To-Go order and was told that “We’re not doing To-Go orders until next week.” Huh?
I took a look around and noticed several tables with “To-Go” boxes (presumably with leftovers) sitting on them, which confused me further. I understand that they are probably doing a soft-opening, but I can’t help but think that turning away a new customer is a prudent thing for a budding restaurant. After all, 58% of all restaurants close within the first three years.
At some point I might head back to try the food, but so far I’m impressed with the service.
If I do head back I’ll let you know if they were able to change my first impression or not.
Tags: Food, issaquah., pizza, review, world pies
February 27th, 2008 at 12:54 pm
Dude….there’s a huge difference between getting a “to-go” order and getting your leftover pizza boxed up to go after you’ve already eaten.
The fact of the matter is that they didn’t want to overwhelm their kitchen staff, and they only have a finite amount of dough (they roll it all and let it rise and for 24 hours in advance) and didn’t want to run out early(we asked) with so many people wanting to try the place out.
I also don’t see your issues with their “service” - sounds to me like you were simply told right away when you asked that you couldn’t place a to go order in the first week. Sounds to me like they have plans to do it in the future which theoretically should fit your needs at that time. I can see where this might have been a “service issue” if they had taken your order and then you were told only after the fact that they couldn’t accommodate your order, but that doesn’t seem to be the case here.
Give it another chance, based on my experience you will be happy that you will.
April 18th, 2008 at 12:19 pm
Sorry. They missed their chance, and I haven’t been back.
I could understand if someone called in and asked if they could get an order to-go, and declining to take the order, and given an explanation. But with a walk-in it just isn’t acceptable: I just as easily could have ordered the pizza, eaten one slice and packed up the rest to-go (which is what the rest of the folks there seemed to be doing, as every table had a to-go box). Plus I was given no explanation as to why my order was rejected.
Again if this was a delivery request, it would have been acceptable, as not all restaurants (or even pizza places) deliver. But every restaurant offers to-go service (probably less than 1 in a hundred would refuse), so it is unreasonable to be turned away.
Frankly new restaurants can’t risk turning off new customers–it is just bad business.
Furthermore, hundreds of people have read this blog entry now, which is ranked #5 on “World Pies Issaquah” on Google, so it was really an unwise move.