This is the worst Pat's Pizza in the state, and I'm a huge Pat's fan. My family did some…read moreadvertising for Pat himself and worked on helping the family with some things they needed when getting their franchises started, so trust me. I'm an honest to God fan. Pat would be SO disappointed in my experience today. It was shameful.
After about 5 minutes we ordered drinks. Our server spilled my drink in front of me where I would rest my arms while speaking to my husband. I spilled a bit more when I squeezed the lime into my drink and pushed it down in the glass. I asked the server for a napkin twice, waited...watched the server for a bit and realized she was serving the entire restaurant. She was the ONLY SERVER. So I then felt like a jerk, and asked the bus person for a napkin. Our server saw me coming back to the table with napkins, and she went and got napkins and threw them in beside me. My husband said, "that was passive aggressive." I blew it off. I mean, this is Pat's Pizza and she's crazy busy. When I was serving tables, I probably would have said to a customer that got their own napkins, "thank you for doing that. As you can see it's crazy busy in here and I'm working alone" rather than get passive aggressive, but this woman isn't wired that way, for sure.
More than 50 minutes in, our pizzas come and they were VERY overcooked. Mine even has pieces of what looks like charcoal on top of it (sun-dried tomatoes, come to find out) and it's dark brown. The cheese is dry and has no stretch. You know how Pat's Pizza is NEVER like that? At least, I've never had it like that. The cheese is melted, but not brown and dry and hard to chew.
The server comes back and I'm struggling to eat. I have a couple minor dental issues that can handle a normal Pat's Pizza with melty cheese and that awesome Pat's crust, but not this overcooked one. She inquires as to how things are, and my husband is able to eat his pizza, even though it is over cooked. It tasted good, so he gave the thumbs up. She looked at me and I have food in my mouth I'm trying to chew and I sort of half nod inadvertently, thinking I can explain the issue I'm having after I swallow it. She declares, "it's good, great" and she's off like a shot before I can explain or we can ask for more drinks because there's so much ice in our glasses I doubt we had 8 oz of soda each.
The bill comes, and we are fully being charged for a super dry, overcooked Margherita pizza, and I think to myself that the server is so busy, she clearly didn't see that I didn't eat the pizza, I'll ask for a manager. I wasn't going to complain about the server, unlike what I'm doing here after thinking about how poorly we were treated, but I was going to mention that she needs help and is unable to give top notch service if she's the only waitress in the place. Guess what? My SERVER was the MANAGER. So I take her over to my pizza and show her I haven't eaten so much as one full piece, could I get a break at all on the price? Her response was shocking and she looked mad. I was starting to see that this person is not professional. My husband was definitely right about everything he'd noticed. She says loud enough for people to turn and look at us, "I can take half off this one time, but when I asked, you said it was good." I was close to saying, "no. YOU said it was good. You were gone before I could swallow what was in my mouth and explain" but I thought better of it and said, "actually keep it on. I'll just never come back." She said in a loud, sugary voice, "okay!" and went off to run our card.
This is the worst restaurant experience I've ever had. Pat would be rolling in his grave, I swear. THIS was unacceptable. She saved the restaurant about $17, but she lost any hope of a tip or follow up customer. My husband gets to-go here from time to time but he's never returning either. Plus, he says this is the second time he's gotten an overcooked pizza on a consecutive Saturday, so we'll be sticking with the one in Scarborough. Quality control there is top tier! (Also, I'm not from CA. I'm from Paris, Maine and won't share my location with apps like this.)