The Aftermath of My Visit to Pi

Following my recent review on the upscale pizza place in St. Louis - Pi - my experience that I had that one evening has caused a little bit of a ruckus within the cyberworld community.  My entry raised voices both pro and con as to my attitude I took toward the place and my review of the pizza.  It's one of the most commented on entries I've had in my years of doing Road Tips - both on this site and also on a popular restaurant forum on the St. Louis Post-Dispatch web site. 

A number of months ago, a regular reader of this blog linked a review of a St. Louis eatery to the restaurant blog Eat at Joe's, a forum where St. Louis area residents talk about restaurants and other food stuff.  The forum is moderated by Joe Bonwich, the Post-Dispatch's food and restaurant writer.  Since then, Road Tips has been linked a number of times to the forum, primarily when I write about St. Louis area restaurants that I've visited.  I've garnered somewhat of a small following from the St. Louis area thanks to the occasional links to the Eat at Joe's forum and for that I'm eternally grateful. 

However, it was rather interesting reading some of the comments that I received on my blog site as well as the comments from people on the Eat at Joe's forum.  One of the more interesting comments was from Chris Sommers, the owner of Pi.  Here's what he wrote after my review of his restaurant was linked to the forum last week:

"Wow! He WAS very kind about our product after what reads like a complete disaster by my staff.

Truly embarrassing, and certainly will be discussed at our shift meetings for a while.

We certainly appreciate his kind words about the pizza.  But no one should have to suffer through such mayhem with an order.

Sincerely,

Chris Sommers Owner, Pi"

It was pointed out to me by the gentleman who posted the link to my review on that the reply by Chris Sommers was the first ever post by the Pi owner on the Eat at Joe's forum.  The gentleman who also posted the link informed me that he then got a letter in the form of an e-mail from Chris Sommers who thought he was the one who wrote the original post on Road Tips.  He told me, "Chris Sommers left me a message at STL.today believing I was you."  Here is a portion of that letter:

"I really appreciate you taking the time to visit and write about your experience at Pi.

But I am extremely sorry and embarrassed at your experience. My staff at that location is generally most professional and service oriented, so this particularly frustrates me.

You could have been much worse on us! Thanks for understanding and looking on the brightside around the pizza.

As I mentioned in my public reply, my staff has already been informed of this, and will be discussing this for the next week in their pre-shift notes. There are lots of things to learn from this experience, and I'm very sorry it happened to you.

Would love to have you back in the restaurant some time to get a pizza delivered quickly and correctly, leaving you some time for dessert.

Thanks again for the review and for going as easy on us as you did.

Chris     Owner, Pi"

Chris Sommers also included an invitation to come back to Pi and enjoy a pizza and a few beers on him.  I was planning on going back to Pi at some point, but I'll take him up on his generous invitation probably sooner than later. 

The other interesting thing through all this were the number of comments on both the Eat at Joe's forum and after the post on Road Tips.  The majority of people thought that I was too lenient and too forgiving for the service I received at Pi.  Quite honestly, other than the bacon bits on the pizza and the room temperature sauce on top, the pizza was very good.  Yes, they did screw up my order and they didn't bring me a beer in a timely fashion, but I wasn't going to get all up in arms about it.  I may have bitched a little more about the place if they hadn't taken the pizza off my bill or didn't apologize each time the screw up occurred. 

Unless the restaurant has absolutely no clue that they screwed up or becomes confrontational with me during the process of telling them how they screwed up, I'm not so willing to give them a pass.  I think the actions of the staff and management at Pi that evening and after the ordeal shows they were sincere in trying to make a wrong a right.   

There's really no use in pitching a fit in the restaurant over poor service or poor food when you're there.  That's what a blog is for... 

Comments

[St. Louis Steve]

I wouldn't call Eat at Joe's a blog as much as a forum. But it is fun to read.