Dave Knows: Elko

Elko doesn’t have a lot of pizza choices.  You have Dominoes, Pizza Hut, Round Table, Pizza Barn and Papa Murphy’s.  We try to eat healthy most of the time, but when we get “the craving” we usually go for Papa Murphy’s or Dominoes since they are the cheapest.  If money were no object, it  would probably be Pizza Barn or Round Table.  Odd man out?  Pizza Hut.  They have sucked multiple times since we moved to Elko.  I don’t know if it’s just poor management, or a culture of disappointment fed from the parent company down to the franchises, but the one here in Elko really stinks.  We have eaten at the “all you can eat” buffet and had to wait 15-20 minutes for them to make pizzas to put out, and they are gone in 5 minutes and you have to wait 15-20 more minutes for them to make another pizza.  Of course, this happens at Round Table too.  The service at the Elko store is no excuse, though.  The people are just plain rude.  We’ve been there for the buffet when there was no silverware available.  The girl behind the counter looked at me like I had a third ear when I asked for some forks.  One time we were waiting for a carryout order.  Some other people picked up their order, went out to their car, came back in a minute later and told the pizza hut flunky that it wasn’t their order, and they had the gall to try to hand it straight over to us.  We said NO, you’re going to make us new pizzas. Who knows what those people did to the pizza once it was out of our sight?  Some snot-nosed kid probably grabbed a piece of pepperoni off of it with his plague-riddled fingers.  I’m not taking that chance.

So we haven’t been to the Elko Pizza Hut in about 2 years.  But the wife bought a $20 pizza hut gift card for someone last year and decided to give them something else.  It’s been rotting in her purse because we really don’t want to give Pizza Hut our business, but I’m such a tightwad I decided to try getting some free pizza for lunch on Sunday while we watched football.  Sounds easy, right?  I brought up pizzahut.com and tried to start a delivery order. DENIED!  We are out of the pizza hut “delivery area”.  We’re about 3.8 miles from the store, 8 minutes by google.  Probably faster in real life. But that’s too far for pizza hut!    FINE, I’ll put in a carryout order.  Stupid Pizza Hut made me put pants on.  So the website pops up multiple “deals” that I can choose from.  Sounds great, right? But some of them contradict themselves.  Check out these three:

Hmmm…which one would I choose?  Since I’m not a moron, I chose the first one.  $10.99 for the first pizza plus $8 for the second means $18.99, right?  Not in Pizza Hut World!  I selected a large Supreme, a “specialty” pizza.  Then I added a large Meat Lover’s, another “specialty” pizza.  Total price?  $22.57!  That doesn’t make any sense.  It’s not tax, since I checked and that gets added on the checkout page.  I tried multiple combinations of different large pizzas with different crusts and toppings, and it came out to $22.57 every time.  Since PizzaHut.com doesn’t show an actual menu with prices and won’t break down the charges on the website, there is really no way to know how it is coming up with $22.57.  If I remove the “extra” pizza, the price goes down to $10.99 like it is supposed to.  Add the second “$8″ pizza and the price jumps back up to $22.57. The other “deals” listed above came in at $23.57 and $24.57 respectively.

So since I was delusionally hungry, I decided to call the store thinking they would be able to sort all this out, right?  I talked to “Kendra”, or “Candy” or “Candra” or whatever the hell her name was.  I explained my problem and her level of cluelessness ranked right up there with my cat on the whole situation.  All she could do was list the two deals she knew about, which were lame.  I asked her what would happen if I did order from the website, and she said they would call me back and tell me I couldn’t have the pizzas for that price.  I’m not an expert, but I’m pretty sure that goes against the franchise agreement.  But I wouldn’t be surprised if an Elko store pulled a stunt like that.  Goes with the territory I suppose.  She offered to let me talk to the “manager” but after sitting on hold for 5 minutes, I gave up.  I had already wasted enough of my time.  I went to McDonalds instead.

I filled out a feedback form at pizzahut.com, I’ll keep you posted on the response.

PS, I saw the following listed in the FAQ at pizzahut.com.  Even if my issue were resolved I would NEVER order from pizzahut.com as long as they are affiliated with these two companies:

I learned about Reservation Rewards when I completed my order at pizzahut.com, and I have questions about the program. How can I reach Reservation Rewards?
Please call 1-800-732-7031 and the Reservation Rewards team will be happy to assist you.

I learned about Shopper Discounts & Rewards when I completed my order at pizzahut.com, and I have questions about the program. How can I reach Shopper Discounts & Rewards?
Please call 1-800-889-8776 and the Shopper Discounts & Rewards team will be happy to assist you.

I’ll let you do your own research on those two.