Katy Foodies Facebook group<\/a> has generated hundreds of comments as of Wednesday. It has also added another valuable case study when it comes to how restaurant operators … well, operate. Is sticking to your principles worth it when a situation escalates?<\/p>\nArticle continues below this ad<\/p>\n
Customer vs. pizzeria<\/p>\n
Olsen wrote Sunday evening that she called in a takeout order for Fuzzy’s Pizza’s 613 S. Mason Road location. She was at Mason Washateria, about a half-mile away, around 6:30 p.m. Sunday. She claimed that it was about 30 minutes before the restaurant’s online hours showed it would close (as of Wednesday the website says it closes at 9 p.m. Sunday).<\/p>\n
But when Olsen and her family visited Fuzzy’s, she wrote she saw signs advertising extended summer hours, with the pizzeria closing at 9 p.m. Since the order was not yet ready, she wrote her family asked whether they could change it from takeout to dine-in. The request, she claimed, was immediately denied. She alleged the owner of Fuzzy’s yelled and cursed at the family before telling employees to call the police.<\/p>\n
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A deep dish pizza at Fuzzy’s Pizza in Katy, Texas.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Jafar Hajjar via Fuzzy’s Pizza\/Handout<\/p>\n
Hajjar went to the comments of Olsen’s social media post to defend himself and his restaurant, writing it is the restaurant’s policy that “carry-out orders remain carry-out.” He alleged Olsen’s family indicated they would not pay for the order if they were not allowed to dine inside, so the order was canceled and they were asked to leave.<\/p>\n
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“The reason we have this policy is because on Friday and Saturday nights we have people waiting 45 minutes to over an hour and a half for our cheesy deep dish pizza,”\u00a0Hajjar told Chron in a message this week. “When somebody calls in an order ahead of time for pick up and tries to dine it in, customers waiting a while for their pizza get upset [that] another table got their food first, and it makes the staff and crew deal with an unhappy customer.”<\/p>\n
“While we regret that the interaction ended on a negative note,” Hajjar added, “our intention is always to treat customers fairly while applying our policies consistently.”<\/p>\n
Olsen told Chron her intention was to avoid unnecessary use of takeout containers and bags and to eat while waiting for their laundry.<\/p>\n
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![\"Fuzzy's]()
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Fuzzy’s Pizza in Katy hosted a campaign rally for Gov. Greg Abbott in 2022.<\/p>\n
Getty Images<\/p>\n
“To be clear, my issue is not with the restaurant’s policy. Businesses have every right to decide whether takeout orders can be changed to dine-in,” Olsen said. “My issue is with the way we were treated.”<\/p>\n
When asked by Chron whether he yelled and cursed at Olsen’s family, as she claimed, Hajjar did not respond.<\/p>\n
Do everything possible<\/p>\n
While commenters remained divided over who was at fault, Jonathan Horowitz of Convive Hospitality Consulting, a longtime restaurant industry expert, told Chron situations like this should force restaurant owners to consider whether strictly enforcing a policy is worth the potential backlash when a customer complaint gains traction online.<\/p>\n
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“There’s always another side to the story and the owner may have a good reason for handling it the way he did. We don’t know for sure,” Horowitz said. “Some people tend to overstate or dramatize a rather innocuous situation when they post complaints publicly.”<\/p>\n
At the same time, Horowitz said, restaurants should be doing everything possible\u2014within reason\u2014to provide good customer service.<\/p>\n
“There’s too much competition out there to be turning people off needlessly,” Horowitz said. “And, as shown here, it’s too easy for someone to post online and create an issue that gets blown out of proportion. Why take that chance?”<\/p>\n
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More than 300 comments have poured in since Olsen wrote that post, and it’s clear no side is walking away unscathed.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A debate is raging in the suburb of Katy, Texas, over a customer alleging they were denied the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":332088,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[1703,1704,27,29,28],"class_list":["post-332087","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-texas","tag-chronfood","tag-chronstaff","tag-texas","tag-texas-headlines","tag-texas-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/332087","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=332087"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/332087\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/332088"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=332087"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=332087"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=332087"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}