My friend has a place in Sunland, and the only two businesses in this residential community is the convenient store and next to it, The Phoenix Pizza Co. After a day of wine tasting my friend and I were starving, so we decided to get dinner here and support local.
The Phoenix Pizza Co. seems to be a fun spot for all the Sunlanders. They have a front patio area, in addition to the back area where most everyone sits. You order first at the counter and then grab a seat. Your food is delivered to you once it's ready.
My friend and I each ordered a rose cider and split the Sunlander Pizza, which is basically a supreme with four different meats. It's the heaviest of the different pizzas, so was perfect after hours of wine tasting! My friend can't have dairy, so we ordered it with vegan cheese, which is an additional $3 and requested it on a cauliflower crust.
The pizza takes awhile to get since everything is made to order and it's a busy place with all the residents coming here for prime dinner time. 30 minutes later we got our pizza. It looked really good. My friend took the first bite of her slice and said it was cold. She then told me to feel the pizza, and it was cold, and I could see the sprinkles of vegan cheese, not melted.
We told our server that the pizza was cold, and she said it's because the cauliflower crust cooks fast and they didn't want it to burn. She then proceeded to say that cold pizza was good. My friend and I looked at each other like, uhhh, are we supposed to accept this? Then the server asked us what we wanted to do and my friend said that we will order another Sunlander pizza with the regular crust and stick with the vegan cheese. Our server said if we did that, it will take awhile because they're backed up with orders and if she asks if ours could go in before everyone else's, it's not fair to make everyone else wait longer. How is that our problem? We're the ones who had cold pizza with unmelted vegan cheese, which we paid an additional fee for. We should be able to have hot pizza with melted cheese at a restaurant that specializes in pizza. We then said we would wait, so the server took our pizza and said she'll see what she could do.
10 minutes later she came by our table and said that the cooks took out the vegan cheese from the freezer, so it wasn't thawed, which is why the pizza was cold. She then asked us if we wanted a complimentary appetizer, so we ordered chicken wings, which came out in 15 minutes.
Chicken wings were breaded and fried, which were A-OK. But hey, they were free. At least we were able to snack on something until our pizza came. 20 minutes later the Sunlander pizza came out on a regular crust, and looked much better, with the melted vegan cheese! It was solid pizza, and was much-needed after all the wine. After two slices we were stuffed, and were able to take home two slices each for home.
It wasn't the best experience, especially when we initially confronted our server about cold pizza and she made us feel like it was our fault for ordering it on a cauliflower crust, and then telling us that cold pizza is good, and then saying that we were going to make other people wait longer for their pizza. That's unfair. However, she eventually made it right and we got the pizza that we paid $30 for. I'm all about supporting local, but I do believe that customer service should be a priority in any industry. Other than that, the vibe was chill, they had a decent menu and it provides Sunlanders a place to dine and hang out at. read more