I've been to Coal Fire Pizza once or twice before but was in the mood for some pizza & was in the Waugh Chapel area and decided to stop in.
We were quickly seated at a table in the center of the restaurant, but we asked the busboy if we could be seated at a booth, and he was kind of enough to clean off a dirty table to accommodate us, and we really appreciated that gesture, as we have a one year old and booths tend to make it easier to control him. Lol.
Unfortunately, that was the highlight of our visit. Our server - Camy - was extremely short with us, and we commented that it was odd but we weren't really bothered by it - just an observation.
Our onion rings came out at a decent time and they were good. Roman(our Son) & I personally enjoyed the dipping sauce. There was a horseradish base that surprisingly wasn't too harsh or strong for him. My Wife didn't like them at all, but she's also not the biggest onion ring fan, so don't look too much into that - they weren't the best but they were far from the worst.
From there, we waited. And, waited. Aaaaaaaaand waited. No food. My Wife was extremely hungry & asked if we should pay for the onion rings & leave but we decided to be patient and wait it out.
What was strange was that Camy never visited our table once. Not to check on us. Not to acknowledge the wait. Not to see how our onion rings were - Nothing. My Wife just reminded me that she did stop by once, & refilled my Wife & daughters drink, so I do want to be fair, but afterwards, she disappeared again. In all that time. It was at least 45 mins til we got our meals & there was literally no service in between.
What was really confusing was there weren't a lot of people in the restaurant so the wait didn't really make sense to us.
I saw Camy servicing another table & noticed the way she was carrying her drink tray & having been in the restaurant industry commented to my Wife: "Ohhhhh, she's newer to serving. I can tell the way she's carrying the tray. She's overwhelmed. I feel better knowing we weren't just being neglected."
I promise I had settled in my mind that I would give them 3 stars out of empathy alone. I'm not a mean guy & don't use these reviews to bash anyone's livelihood.
My Pizza - Prosciutto Cipolla - was good. I added bacon to it and it paired really well with the prosciutto & sweetness of the sauce. My Wife was underwhelmed with her Chicken Parmesan. She thought it was dry and even attempted to put more tomato sauce on it, but she just didn't like it. The kiddos enjoyed their Chicken tenders.
After an ok experience, I was still going to give 3 stars, until we paid the bill and left out. Camy was still really short with us, and seemed in a hurry. Upon leaving, and seeing the other side of the tiny restaurant, I noticed why. Camy and two other servers were seated on bar chairs laughing, talking and watching the big screen.
I'm not going to lie, this was offensive to me because the service here was so poor. I tried to make excuses for her, and never, not even once, gave her a hard time or a dirty stare. But to see that we were neglected, and treated as if we weren't worthy of an attentive server grinds my gears because we're good people and deserve to be treated better when we're spending our hard earned money.
We still didn't say anything to Camy or management bc we try to be as unproblematic as possible but I was sure I was going to give them 1 star on my Yelp review until I got up this morning and thought it through.
I wish I got that busboys name but who knew he'd be the highlight of our experience. For as bad as Camy was and as much as we were underwhelmed with our experience at Coal Fire, that young man does not deserve 1 star.
I wish his counterparts cared about pleasing their customers as much as he did. read more