I reviewed this restaurant in the past, and we have come frequently for their salads. Because this…read morelocation is far for us, and closer locations closed, we come here when in the area for curbside take-away.
As mentioned before, curbside take-away isn't always easy, because they have nowhere decent along the curb to stop, and are now charging to park at Valley Fair mall. We just went yesterday again. Our experience: we ordered 4 meals.
1) I emphasized that we would really like the bread for the 4 meals and the seasoned olive oil for the 4 meals. They very consistently give enough bread for 2, and enough seasoned oil for 1, even though I bring up that we were shorted every past time. This time they did give us the bread & oil for each meal, plus a couple extra tiny amounts of oil in containers with no seasoning. I don't know why they did that. It is the seasoning that makes it taste so great.
2) I asked for extra BBQ sauce for the BBQ chicken salad, as 1 container does not cover the chicken. They gave our 2 BBQ chicken salads 2 Ranch containers and 1 BBQ. The color of the sauces are very different. How difficult is that?! We have frequently just received 1 of each, when asked for extra BBQ. Once they gave us ketchup!! I poured it out onto my salad. CPK seriously needs to take a look at their employees, and why they are unable to follow the order placed, and do it right.
3) One salad on this order was for a Thai Crunch Salad. It came with HUGE pieces. For instance, a green salad onion that was 3 inches long! Nobody cuts salad onions that way! There were different "wonton strips" in the salad. This time there were huge pieces of what looked like fried puffy pieces of chips. The salad looked nothing like their picture of it, nor like the many many times we have ordered it before.
4) We ordered by phone from an office nearby. I talked to a girl, who did manage to get us the right # of pieces of bread for the 1st time. When we got there, my mother said she had a deal for a free dessert that would end the next day. A guy came out to the car, without the food, and wanted the cash. We told him we just realized we could get a free dessert. Could we have a slice of the upside down cheesecake to go, as well? He told us: He doesn't have time for that. He is the only person working there (at 1:15 p.m. - around lunch-time on a weeday; even though I spoke to a woman on the phone -- a 2nd person). He said they would have to make it. Really? CPK makes the desserts fresh, as you order them? CPK does not have them already made up, so you just have to put it in the container, along with all of the other parts like bread, seasoned olive oil, napkins, utensils,..... that you often miss. Is it so hard to honor the supposed perks that CPK offers if you give them your contact info and are a regular customer? He told us he has 3 tables that he has to seat. Every time I've been to CPK, there is a hostess or 2, several waitresses, chefs. When did CPK change to this 1 guy running the whole restaurant, as he stated? He is youngish with dark hair. I am fairly certain that he is the exact same person who brought our meals out before and couldn't honor the discount we had, because he is "ALWAYS SO VERY VERY BUSY!" Just dealing with him, makes me not want to pick up at CPK any more. CPK needs to get rid of him, or do some very serious customer service training. But, since I called management after our last encounter with him, I am sure that is not going to happen, since we are receiving the same very poor service, and CPK is not honoring their supposed offers.
As I mentioned in my previous review, I used to find CPK had some of the best service of any restaurant (much of that was at the Oakridge Mall location), but it has fallen incredibly short!
Train your people to fulfill the order correctly. Train your people to not act like they are the only one running the restaurant, when I know it isn't true. Perhaps he consistently does that, thinking people will give him bigger tips. And never stop by there on a holiday. I went there on Valentines Day, after driving 45 minutes each way, and had to drive around the mall 3 times, and get completely stuck at stop lights due to the # of people crossing from Santana Row, and cars inserting themselves in the intersections while the lights had changed. It was horrendous -- a 3 hour ordeal! Traffic & parking there is terrible. The food, when they fulfill the order properly is usually very good, but combined with the service, the aggravation makes it not worth the effort.