California Pizza Kitchen

Wish my review was based on their food, however we never made it that far. Myself and four others in my family decided to dine here, yet left fifteen minutes into our dinner because we didn’t get service. The hostess sat us, said our server would be over and then we never saw anyone at our table. They weren’t busy, in my eyes, yet we were ignored. Just because of service we won’t be back.

How I heard of this place: I fail to recall how, or when I first heard of CPK, but this was my first time at the Northgate establishment, thanks to Veteran’s Day deals offered for a good friend and an invitation extended to us.
Type of cuisine: «hand-​tossed artisan pizzas, classic, unique pastas and salads, fresh, seasonally inspired ingredients, hand shaken cocktails, premium wines and craft beers.»
Ambiance: Sparse, dimly lit and clean, the streamlined space is perfect for a casual date, a spontaneous family dinner, and a casual go-​to for an impromptu dinner out while shopping.
What I ordered: The ending to our Veteran’s Day of eating out, I opted for a simple Asparagus and Arugula Salad ($ 5.95) tossed in housemate lemon vinaigrette with sun-​dried tomatoes, toasted almonds and shaved parmesan.
Garlic Cream Fettuccine and Chicken (free for Veteran’s), «the ultimate roasted garlic Parmesan cream sauce» for my husband, and The Original BBQ Chicken (free for Veteran’s), «legendary BBQ sauce, smoked gouda, red onions and cilantro» for our friend.
What I loved: The lemony tartness paired with the salty goodness of the Parmesan in the Asparagus +Arugula Salad.
Why I loved it: A variety of Italian-​inspired meals for everyone.
Cost: Average to high ($ 12-​$ 20 per main entrée)

The wait staff was out of sync with our table tonight. They made a mistake with our order. We had to ask a couple of times to get bread. The man from the kitchen delivering the food slammed the plates on our table. The salad was a soggy pile of wilted greens not what we are accustomed to get. I hope we don’t get sick. I am really not satisfied with the treatment we got at this location tonight.

It’s hard for me to decide how many stars to give. My most recent visit went from hugely disappointing to remarkable in the span of 10 minutes. Let me explain.
I get the Thai chicken pizza nearly every time, and nearly every time it’s great. Except once.
After placing my order and waxing effusive to my friend about how incredible the Thai chicken pizzas are, the waiter dropped off a dry, sad looking, flat, flimsy pie absent of adequate sauce or toppings. My reaction was mildly visceral. I took one bite. To be fair, it tasted marginally better than it looked. But it was not nearly as good as I remembered. A 3 out of 10 at best.
Now I hardly ever send food back. Let’s just say I’m paranoid about disgruntled kitchen crews adding foreign «toppings» to my order. But today, a CPK District Manager happened to be making the rounds, asking how everyone’s food was. When she approached our table, I told her my dish was «OK, but it used to be really good in the past.» She apologized and said: «Let me take care of that for you,» and whisked the sorry thing away.
About 10 minutes later she returned, apologizing again for the wait. And what she placed in front of me was nothing short of legendary. The crust was perfect. The sauce was perfect. The toppings were piled comically high. It looked almost too good to eat. But I ate it. And it was the one of the best pizzas I’ve ever had.
Now she didn’t say so, but I think the DM made my pizza that day. But whoever made it got it right. I only wish every CPK zaw was that amazing.

A group of 4 of us went tonight, it was my first (and last time). Food was bland, we ordered salads and entrees and the entrees came out about 3 minutes after the salad. The waitress apologized for this, so even she realized it was messed up. By the time we got to the entrees they were cold. It didn’t really matter since there was no real flavor to the entrees, although we all liked our salads. With all the great restaurants in Seattle why go here?

Have had this several times before, and it were always good ! I also tried to order to-​go, and they offered me their french bread appetizer, which was very interesting (I took the offer haha).
Also, try their tiramisu cake for desert, I had it once and now I’m craving for it everyday!

We occasionally have this delivered to the office for catered lunch… I would rather eat ANYTHING else! Need a reason not to like CPK? Check out their health inspection scores… improper cold storage, not having proper hand washing stations in place, no barriers between bare hands and ready to eat foods… YUCK

For what it is (annoying californicated mall chain store) it’s pretty good.
They make a salad my wife likes (BBQ chicken) and I find their fish tacos and chicken chimichuri tolerable. They have a rewards program that tosses us a discount now and again. There are worse things.
This particular location has an issue with one or more of their floor drains. When they go without being cleaned and sanitized for a while, they give off a particular odor, something between rotting garbage and somebody else’s feet. Please just get it done guys. A couple buckets of hot sanitizer and a brush will have it done in ten minutes.
Service is usually ok, sometimes better than ok. I usually get better service at the bar, which has the additional benefit of getting you out of range of the Chuckie Cheese refugees screaming and messing the booths in other parts of the restaurant.
The Southcenter location is notably better.

If Mc Donald can sell a pasta, the quality will be the same!
We ordered the most expensive pasta and pizza for take out. It was something really not tasty, at all!
Pizza 15 $ looked like they just thawed all stuff on it and gave to us, without taste.
Do not recomend!

Maybe I don’t go to CPK enough but we were desperate for a quick food option last night so I have it a try.
First, I was shocked at the price of a personal pizza so I decided to get the turkey sandwich instead. Big mistake! They brought out a cold sandwich on cold dry bread. (California club that says nothing about being cold in the menu). After coughing down the first half I took the rest home to see if I could improve it. Put the bread in the toaster and the turkey in the microwave for a couple of minutes. Major improvement! Nice moist sandwich that had good flavor.
The big question now is, why doesn’t CPK do this as well? Maybe the bread is usually fresher but if it were me, I would always toast the bread to be sure.

We normally dont have anything bad to say about CPK & i like going there because i KNOW what to expect and I KNOW what im getting. Tonight i was incredibly disappointed! The flatbread was gross and soggy. It was DRENCHED IN WET SPINACH. Globs of spinach inundated the flat bread.
The kungpao spaghetti was bland. ALL YOU TASTED was chili peppers & Garlic. No flavor n hardly any sauce whatsoever!
The tequila chicken pasta was okay. NOT ANYWHERE as tasty as it normally is but it was not awful.
When i called to ask if they had a new chef i was told by Carl (the shift manager) that he would talk to them, but they dont have any new food preparation staff! He didnt take the opportunity to earn my confidence back or offer to replace those items!
TO ADD INSULT TO INJURY; I TIPPED THE THE TAKE OUT PERSON 20%!!! This is what i get!!! SHAME ON YOU CPK FOR NOT TRYING TO REMEDY THIS SITUATION OR FOR TRYING TO GAIN MY BUSINESS & CONFIDENCE BACK. Regrettably I will take my business elsewhere. BUCA DI PEPPO will enjoy my business even MORE withou CPK in my rotation!

The service and food I recieved was phenomenal; worth four stars, but when I was sitting at the bar on a busy Friday afternoon, I had a chance to observe how they run the kitchen and their staff… not five stars.
There were probably 30 or so guests sitting in the dining area and only two servers and a manager-​looking type woman… who didn’t do much of anything even though she was frantically running around.
My Food:
Starter– the guacamole ($ 3.99) The portion was small for the hoard of chips that accompanied it. But it was very tasty. Up the portion and I would eat it for lunch everyday.
Entrée: half of the Asian Chicken Salad ($ 9.99) very good, I loved the crunch it had and the peanut sauce. Maybe a bit on the salty side, but I ate it all; I was hungry.
Monica was my server, but she was in a rush to assist her dining room guests so I was mostly assisted by the manager on duty.
Every time Monica asked the manager for help with an easy task, the manager would either attempt it and fail, or ignore her request all together. Even the hostess was able to dart to the kitchen and run some food!!!
At one point, the manager was ringing a to go order with the guest standing right there, and had some issue with the cash register! Wouldn’t you know it, even though she was slammed, Monica stepped in and finished the transaction.
I also noticed that the hot pizzas were sitting out, waiting to be delivered for too long. No one was to blame as the two servers were trying to tackle the near impossible.
It’s employees like Monica that really keep a restaurant in businesss. If her pace had slowed in the least, it would have resulted in angry customers and cold food. Even though she didn’t order or deliver my food (the manager did), she was still very kind and checked in with me enough for me to tip her handsomely and give her an honest compliment on her work ethic.
Contrastingly, it’s people like this manager that can drag a business down. More servers should be hired on the weekend so the employees don’t experience burnout and the guests are happily fulfilled. Also, the manager should know how to do almost every task to better support the employees… just in case it gets busy (like today). Running food, taking orders, making drinks and correctly ringing to-​go orders.
They really have great food, but the management side of things needs to shape up.

One of my favorite chain restaurants.
Food — As expected — good
Staff — Very nice and extremely friendly
So why the 2 star review? Placed an online order over 1 hour in advance for pickup — 5 minutes before pulling into the CPK parking lot got a call from them that one of the items I ordered (avocado egg rolls) was out.
This was my whole reason for choosing CPK! The replacement option was fine and so was the pizza — but I really was craving the egg rolls. And they were out of bread.

It’s a CPK. Good tasting pizza. Decent prices.
The staff was friendly and the food was really good.
Tried the dessert this time too and it was really good. Highly recommended!
JR

We went on Saturday night, were seated quickly, greated by an extremely friendly waitress. Ordered pretty quick and got our food ASAP. It was really great service. My only small little complaint was my pizza crust was a little burnt. It will still good however, warm and very very fresh. She also re-​filled our drinks religiously!
This was our second time — the first time, the manager gave us a free appetizer for being new. The first time our waiter had a little bit dry sense of humor — made some interesting comments but the manager made up for that.
We’ll be back for quick and easy pizza night.

Depressing.
As soon as yo walk in you get a slap in the face of ’”dirty bleach towel“‘ stench. Greasy, brown stinky bleach water mindlessly smeared over every surface with a similarly soiled bar towel. As if the bleach bucket was some magical potion that no mater how vile the object, it would be miraculously cleansed. Baptized at the font of sanitation. You get used to it eventually.
This is anti-​food!
It Was food. It must have been food at some point!
Just because this model of a restaurant is everywhere doesn’t mean it should be!
If you don’t have any other options in your area then it is a different story, but in Seattle, these types of «restaurants» don’t need to exist.
And it’s expensive!

Sometimes, you just need a chain restaurant on a rainy weekend when you’re stuck at a mall. CPK fits the bill for me, because I love their barbeque chicken salad and Margherita pizza. We were seated in a nice roomy booth that was very comfortable for our family of five. It took a while for our waiter to make his way over to us, but he made up for the initial delay with friendly service and attention throughout our meal.
So, what can I say… if you’ve been to CPK, then you know their food is solid. The kids enjoyed their fusilli with cream sauce, barbeque chicken pizza and pepperoni pizza (picky eater child, of course). I convinced my husband to share the chopped barbeque chicken salad and Margherita pizza — seriously, I love that thin and chewy crust! I was lucky he obliged, since he sacrificed his usual Kung Pao spaghetti to share my favorites with me.

It’s been years since I’ve gone to CPK and I think I know why… I wasn’t that impressed this time around. The host was very nice and service was excellent, but the food wasn’t too good.
The bf ordered the infamous BBQ chicken pizza but honestly, we both preferred buying and eating the frozen CPK brand versions at Safeway (for less than half the price!). The size is exactly the same as the frozen version and taste pretty much the same.
I love cajun food and perhaps CPK isn’t the place to order that but I thought I’d give the jambalaya fettuccine a try. It was decent but not nearly as delicious as the cajun jambalaya pasta from the Cheesecake Factory (Oh my, that pasta is amazing!!).
Overall, it was mediocre and a bit pricey for the amount and quality of food.

This is how my meal usually goes here:
Starter: corn guacamole and chips. Entrée: caramelized peach salad. Dessert: salted caramel pudding.
Perhaps I should try a GF pizza, since they offer my favorite kind (BBQ chicken). Or order a pasta dish for my husband (the four cheese ravioli and jambalaya fettuccine taunt me) and have a bite (or three). Or ask if they could make their carnitas tacos with corn tortillas, so I could indulge in those instead? While I am tempted, I usually stick to my regular appetizer, salad, pudding combo. It always satisfies.
You’re a charmer, CPK.

CPK never does me wrong. Every restaurant I go to has consistently delish pizzas and this visit was no different. They recently changed their pizza dough, that no longer has high fructose corn syrup (Thank you!!) and it tastes much better than it did before. The crust is more ‘fluffy’ and has more flavor. I used to not eat crusts, but this crust is delicious even without any toppings. The Garlic Chicken Pizza was amazing. I’m hoping that this will become a regular menu item.
The service was fantastic as well. Our waitress was really friendly, quick with the refills, and was overall was happy to be there. This is at the Northgate Mall, so it can be busy and parking can be a pain, but if you are famished from doing your shopping, this is a good place to go.