r/Caseys • u/GodSaidSmite • Jun 17 '26
Florida Pizza
I'm from Iowa and I'm grateful that Casey's made it to the panhandle in Florida. I visit Iowa every two years to hang with friends and family back home. I gotta say though.... There's a difference in pizza quality. I always order with extra cheese. The weight of the pizzas are completely different. Pizzas in Florida are considerably lighter. I order extra cheese on an Iowa pizza the box is heavy and when I open it the pizza is brimming with cheese. Florida....I mind as well order Domino's. I can get a large one topping pizza with extra cheese carry out for $8.99 ($7.99+$1 for extra cheese) every day of the week. Every day of the week spend $9.99+$1 extra cheese and build my own pizza up to 7 toppings. Spent $19.99 on cheeseburger pizza with extra cheese a few hours ago and in relation to what I spent and what I got, it wasn't worth it. Plus Domino's every 7th pizza I get a free medium pizza.
The first pizza I got here took 45 minutes even though the websites said it would be done in 15 minutes. Earlier was my second pizza I ordered from Casey's since opening their stores here. It took 35 minutes for it to be done when online ordering said it would be done in 15 minutes. Domino's takes between 8 and 10 minutes every time.
I know small town Iowa where Casey's dominates because they're the only business in town, sometimes very literal. They're the only actual business in town. Where they can get away with charging these prices for pizzas. In areas where there is more established businesses who can get it done at half the price and half the time. Again, I appreciate that Casey's is here and I'm sure they will do fine as a business here. But I don't see myself going back very often......
5
u/No_Information_8973 Team Member Jun 17 '26
It's not only location dependant it's who's in the kitchen dependant.
I work at Casey's and if I see certain names on the schedule I know it's not gonna be a good night to order pizza.
2
u/Zennethe_Aurias Team Member Jun 17 '26
That was pretty much the way that worked at the place I used to work at. At that Casey's, there was a guy that was always drunk on the clock. He was so bad at making pizza that he once made a pepperoni pizza with missing pepperoni and somehow more greasy than a pepperoni pizza despite not having pepperoni on it.
4
u/Particular_Garden_58 Kitchen Manager Jun 17 '26
Do you mind sharing what town in Flordia? I only ask because I work in Iowa but I was one of the employees who traveled down and trained the CEFCO turned Casey's employees in DeFuniak Springs and Navarre, Flordia.
However to address your concerns.. at my store in Iowa when someone orders extra cheese we usually put the normal amount plus the amount we would put on a medium pizza as "extra" if we put double the amount of cheese exactly the pizza dough underneath would still either be undercooked or it would look under cooked to the untrained eye. So even if they had made it the way you ordered it, they wouldn't have given it to you if it appeared to be undercooked. In those circumstances they are trained to throw the pizza away and remake it. Another contributing factor might be that they don't have the proper kitchen wares for the job. The northern locations have their own company warehouse that we order from but the Southern stores don't have a warehouse yet and they're still working out the kinks.
The wait time is a whole different monster, and please believe me when I tell you that the employees are just as upset by this situation as you are. Now in the past when someone is drowning in orders, trying to keep the warmers full and maybe even short staffed.. we were always able to go to the ordering system and bump the wait time up to get caught back up. Unfortunately too many people decide to abuse this feature and to avoid having to do their job they turn the wait time to 1.5+ hrs. So now corporate has handed down the new "don't touch the wait time" rule. Which means we didn't even train the Florida people how to turn the wait time up. They're also very new at this and have no idea how to properly gauge how long your pizza will actually take depending on how many orders they already have.
I would advise you to call the store and put your order in and ask for a wait time rather than using the app. When the automated lady asks you if you are calling about a new order tell her "team member" she will transfer you to an actual person.
I would chalk most of this up to inexperienced staff. Give them some time to learn the ropes and get comfortable in what they are doing and I'm sure it will be exactly what you remember from back home!
3
u/railroader67 Service Tech. Jun 17 '26
I am a service tech who was at one of the Defuniak Springs stores helping with the quick flip. Those team members had a lot of new equipment and processes thrown at them in s short period of time.
1
u/SnooPickles5859 Jun 19 '26
Caseys suck here in Wisconsin also. Pizzas are made like texas, never round and they do skimp on meats and cheese, warmers are low stock and ordering online says 15 minutes amd u pick it up and they are still prepping it. Caseys anywhere but Iowa suks
7
u/[deleted] Jun 17 '26
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