Lights Out at Candelaris

I hate when a place's food is outstanding, but the service is so bad that it threatens my loyalties. And I am loyal. Particularly to food places.

Usually I eat at the Candelari's on Bissonnet as carry out. It's a small storefront with about three tables. With the proximity to my house (just a few blocks), I can run over, pick up the pizza, and grab some beer at the quick mart on the way back. It's an ideal situation made for harried girls like me. The entire process from phone in to food in is about 30 minutes.

And the pizza is outstanding. It's not grasy at all, which is the first thing that I appreciate. There's cheese, sure, but somehow it's missing that swimming pool of liquid heart clogger in the center. They also have an amazing 5-grain crust that's not dry like many competitors' pizza. It stands up to to the flavors of the pizza and offers a distinct flavor and texture that's not all bland and wheaty. And their sausage is... well... really, really good. I can't think of a better way to explain it. The variety is unique and the flavors are incredible: sun-dried tomator chicken sausage, turkey japapeno, pepper beef... just to tantalize you with a few. And again with the not grasy thing. You'd think with that meat, you'd be elbow deep in fat... no. Not true.

But seriously, make sure you get your order read clearly back to you. The employees at Candelaris are among the worst you'll find and threaten to keep me and others loyal to the joint. I'm pretty good about getting the order read back, but when I don't, I pay for it. Case in point, last Friday night.

I went with several friends to the Candelari's on Washington, which is the location with the full restaurant. It's a bigger operation than that one I am used to and was impressed with how cute it was. It's a total heights kind of place: quirky, unique, fun. We all ordered seperately and sat down.

My pizza seemed to cause a lot of problems. A manager came out twice to ask me what I had on the pizza. He offered a dinner salad while I waited, but I said I would be fine. Which I thought was really nice. When I got my pizza, however, it was wrong, even though I ordered it three times. Not just one thing was wrong, but two. I was missing the 5-grain crust and they put on sun dried tomatoes instead of a sausage. It was totally edible and I didn't leverage a complaint, until after I ate a fair portion of the pie.

When my friends Amy and Kyle got their pizza, same thing. Theirs was smothered in sun dried tomatoes instead of sausage. It's easy enough to understand the mistake, we all wanted the sun dried tomato sausage. And I take partial responsibilty for not asking for the order to be read back. But at the same time, the manager came back to discuss the persistent problems and didn't seem too concerned. He offered to change it, but it seemed a bit grudging as though he were really saying, "You're not really going to ask us to remake the pizza, are you?" And Amy and Kyle understandably gave in. They said no, go ahead and add the sausage to the top and we'll eat what we've got.

I guess I feel like a consistent problem like that shouldn't be happening. The people taking orders need to listen better. And making a customer's order correct should never an option for the customer. It should be done without even asking if they want it fixed. Apparently, this problem is always a concern. Amy and Kyle dine there just about every Friday, and every week, without fail, the order is wrong in one way or another. Amy made a great point when she said, "At first it was funny, but now it's just irritating." If I had to guess, she's too frustrated to go back. An who can blame her, if the employees aren't going to start listening to their customers after six weeks, they're never going to.

And I would be angry too. But with only two wrong orders (I had a wrong carry out once as well), I am not ready to say lights out... or candles out... but I don't blame others for giving up. After all, it's just pizza.