I thought all Wetzel's Pretzels locations were located inside a mall. Evidently, this location…read moreproved me wrong lol.
I had a $5 off reward to use on my Wetzel's account, and it was going to expire in a week. I was originally planning to use it at the Lakewood or Cerritos locations, which are much closer to me. However, after catching a movie at the nearby Regal Cinemas, I spotted this standalone Wetzel's Pretzels and figured why not use my $5 reward here instead? And also to see how it would compare to the locations I've been to inside a mall.
When I came in, the first thing I noticed was how long the front counter was; it ran almost the length of the pretzel shop! In the back was where they made the pretzels, and you could see a little bit of how they roll the dough into the pretzel shapes.
Faith was the employee who rang me up, and her service was more like whatever. Like she was helpful in answering my questions, but she had more of an eh kind of attitude that I think she would much rather have been watching a movie at the aforementioned Regal instead.
As an example, I asked Faith what the three-fingered orange symbol was next to some of the menu items, and she had no clue (or maybe pretended?) as to what I was saying. I had to be more descriptive as if English were her second language, and she finally understood what I meant. Those orange symbols signified menu items that were available only at this location.
And just when I was considering getting a Jalaroni pretzel, which I've gotten several times at the Lakewood and Cerritos locations, I was sold on trying an item that I could *not* get at either of the malls.
The two Twistz, Pizza Bomb and Triple Grilled Cheese, were both exclusive to the La Habra location, and even when there was a photo of the Pizza Bomb, it was hard for me to make sense out of what exactly it was. Faith's response to my initial inquiry of the Pizza Bomb simply was to look at the photo, but I wanted her to clarify more about what it was.
Since the Pizza Bomb felt like a Triple Grilled Cheese with some marinara and pepperoni replacing some of the cheese in the Triple Grilled Cheese, I went with the Pizza Bomb.
With my $5 off, the Pizza Bomb came to about $4 plus tax, and Faith asked if I would like some dipping sauce to go. When I asked her how much it'd be, she said a couple of dollars, which would have been half of what I'd pay for the discounted Pizza Bomb. Since I didn't want 1/3 of my total cost to be a dipping sauce, I passed on a sauce, thinking that the marinara and pepperoni inside the Pizza Bomb would suffice.
Faith did mention to me that they are made to order, so it would be about a 15-minute wait. I appreciated her mentioning that to me so I wouldn't be sitting there wondering why it would be taking so long when they already have a display case of baked pretzels that are ready for the taking.
They have five small tables and chairs by the pickup counter facing the window, so I sat at one while I was waiting for my order. At the pickup counter, I noticed they had a bunch of copies of coupons for $1 off Oreo Bitz and $1 off Mozzarella Stickz. However, I noticed the fine print of the Mozzarella Stickz coupon indicating that it had expired in August of last year! Why give out expired coupons? To deceive the customer?! Even though the Oreo Bitz coupon wasn't past expiry, I didn't take one since the Oreo Bitz looked overly sweet to eat them all in one sitting.
After a 20-minute wait, Faith handed me my takeout bag while mentioning to be careful since the Pizza Bomb was still hot. I grabbed a handful of napkins from the napkin dispenser on the pickup counter to prepare for the amount of grease I was expecting from the Pizza Bomb.
I was hoping the Pizza Bomb would taste bomb, but it unfortunately bombed instead. The pretzel dough was overly thick so as to overpower the taste of the marinara and pepperoni. I would have tasted much more pizza had I gotten a Jalaroni Pretzel with some marinara dipping sauce instead! I kind of regretted not getting the Triple Grilled Cheese because I feel I would have liked that much better, even if it wouldn't exhibit a pizza-like taste.
Their loaded bitz are also exclusive to the La Habra location, but they sounded pretty rich and heavy, like enough to call it a dinner.
Overall, I'm glad I tried this standalone Wetzel's Pretzels location, but I don't think it's that much different than a mall location. I certainly didn't hate my experience here, but I definitely didn't love it either, so I think 3 stars is fair, even though I would have been pretty unhappy had I paid full price for that Pizza Bomb.
