Stonefire Pizza

My wife has been treated very poorly and unfairly by the mangement of this location. My family went to visit this establishment. The time prior, the lines were so long at check and sufficient staff wasn't available at the registers so we left. The time prior to that, the service was terrible. We have found over time that the facility and quality of food offered has deterriorated. Instead of concentrating on keeping the facility up, they seem more inclined to keep adding various concessions and rides that require extra money.

This last experience is the one that really topped it off for us. My wife, myself, and our son went to check in at Stonefire. The line wasn't too long, but there was only one register open and it wasn't moving. Finally, after much time, a clerk opened a register. We were the next ones in line. The clerk ran my wife's debit card. There was a transaction error. It didn't decline, there was a problem with their cc processor. The clerk ran the transaction up again, same thing. We were frusterated after waiting about 20 minutes in line and our 4 year old son growing impatient. My wife told me to go to the buffet and she would catch up. The clerk went to consult with someone else, he came over, rang up the transaction again, and another transaction error. My wife was getting impatient, so she came over to me to get my debit card. I gave it to her and she went back to the cashier. She handed my debit card to the cashier and the cashier shook his head no and told her that they were doing a manager comp for the $16.46 balance because the the problems they were having and the long wait we had already had. (We had paid the other $30.00 in gift certificates). The clerk gave my wife a receipt for zero (and no other receipt), and she came over to me. She handed me back my debit card and I asked her how much was charged to it. She replied nothing they comped it due to the long wait and the problems they were having. She showed me the receipt for zero.

Everything seemed fine until my wife realized that SFP had processed two separate charges against her card for the $16.46 and obviously did not hold up their process of the comp. The extra charges caused multiple problems with the bank and the extra holds on her card resulted in numerous unavailable fund fees. Now, my wife taking time away from her job, went to the bank and worked out the fees. The bank could obviously see the error of stonefire pizza. It took a rep from Stonefire 4 days to return her call. She even called them from the bank while she was there.

After all of this the manager was condesending and refuses to uphold the comp that the clerk and the floor supervisor promised her. He says that the comp was for the 2nd or 3rd transacton whish is ridiculous given that my wife wouldn't have came to get my debit card to pay for the transaction two or three times. The transaction the clerk was compling was obviously the one he gave me the receipt for. A family of 3 would not have 3 separate transactions!

What I find most irritating is that my wife explained the issue to 5 people at Stonefire and only has been given a condesending offer of a $15.00 game card. My wife does not feel this is appropriate and only wants what was promised to her on our visit. We did not ask for the comp, we were offered it and it is unethical for Stonefire to go back on their word especially given the fact they issued a receipt to us for zero and authorized and charged my wife's debit card numerous times. She has not even received an apology for their inproper credit card processing.

We will take our business somewhere where they have ethics.

Posted 11/14/09 | Report Abuse

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Stonefire used to be a decent place to take your family, however, now it is just run down. There are many booths that are caked with sticky old food and even ripped open booths with the stuffing coming out that haven't even been temporaily reparied. The mangement and staff do not seem to care about the facility nor their guest's perception nor experience. The wait to get in the facility is often very long with only one register open. I have personally witnessed people leaving because of the long wait and have also left myself on one occassion. I have choosen to not bring my family back to this establishment in the future. When complaints are brought to the managements attention, they are left unresolved and they seem to have no care about their guests returning. The management seems more interested in creating a carnival atmosphere were every where you turn there is another opportuinity to spend more money (cotton candy machine, coin operated rides, etc....) instead of refining and keeping up the facility they had when they opened. I also agree with many of the other posts on here that say that the food has gone down hill. The pizza is very bland as well as the pasta. I also agree with the comment about the ice cream. I went up to the ice cream counter with a soup bowl and was told that they could not serve my ice cream in that dish. I explained that I wanted toppings and I didn't want them to run over the sides. The clerk refused anyway. I had tried it that way before and what I was left with was a big mess. So, instead, I had to have the ice cream served to me and scape it out of the miniture bowl and put it into a soup bowl so I could have some chocolate sauce. Pretty counterproductive right? Have fun washing extra dishes!

Posted 11/14/09 | Report Abuse

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This was my first and probably last experience at Stonefire, unless management is replaced. We attended a birthday party in September. When being served a slice of pizza, my 4 year-old son's armed was burned by a hot slice as the waitress dropped it on his bare arm. He is not a crier, and he was screaming, his arm was red. The response was awful, treated as "this sort of thing happens all the time"... and he was given 4 tokens as a "sorry". Unbelievable. The manager was finally called, we were brought some ice, and she took my info for an accident report. (The waitress also mentioned to me she was concerned she was being "written up", as if I gave a damn, I was blown away at the lack of concern for my son.) I was never contacted or mailed ANYTHING as a follow-up. That day playing later too, my son was pushed and was hurt in the play area, he was bleeding. (It looked like hard plastic stair he was pushed into.) I took him to the service area where I was treated with zero concern, I was just told "we don't carry any band-aids here now.". So we had to leave. Not before I talked to the manager again, I told her I believed it to be a violation to not have a well-equipped first aid kit on hand. I left angry, I still am angry. I plan to follow up with the Stonefire corporation if I don't hear anything by mail in the next couple weeks. Awful experience. And expensive on top of it. Steer clear.

Posted 10/22/09 | Report Abuse

2 out of 2 people found this review helpful.

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Today I stopped there and noticed that the prices are higher again. Mommy and Me--$3.25 for all children even 6 month olds. $5.25 for adults. There is a very limited supply to chose from at the continental breakfast. and now I see the kids only get juice and a cracker. Their pizzas taste like card board, but for $5.99 lunch price I could handle it. It has now gone up to $8.50 for lunch and $5.99 for children which is too much for the quality of food they have.

Posted 09/28/09 | Report Abuse

4 out of 4 people found this review helpful.

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Update, 09/2009

Continuing evolution. Unfortunately, in somewhat of a negative overall direction... I do realize that with the economy the way it is, Stonefire is being dragged down by an anchor. Food has become more bland. Dessert bar has been reduced further. Premium drinks area has been replaced with a hot dog machine. All of the soda cups are now child-sized (oops, apparently just MOST of them, there's a few regular-sized cups out now at 5:30PM). Our first round of plates went uncollected for 44 minutes, despite a clown wielding a cart full of blinky neon plastic gizmos passing us twice, a group of six staff holding a strategy meeting just two tables away, and a trainer showing a new hire how to clean tables all walking by. The face painting area and other toddler play areas are in better shape, with the possible exception of the construction zone, where all the blocks have been removed and replaced with coin-op kiddy rides. A clown is walking around and making balloon animals, which is an interesting change. There's an incessant beeping several times a minute from an Ecolab gizmo in the water play area (very annoying). It's Friday, and they've just changed out the pasta bar for cod, fillets, corn, and mashed potatoes with gravy - interesting. The customer service counter has been walled off and replaced with a row of automated card dispensing machines. Ballocity appears to still be in a poor state of repair, and not worth $4.50. The guest wifi is ridiculously unusable; whoever installed it clearly never did even rudimentary testing on it, because it exhibits horrible packet loss to the local gateway even with a full strength wifi signal - 5% packet loss on small packets, 76% on 1500 byte packets. Plus a duplicate IP address warning. (Need a fix? Contact me. I'll be happy to look at it for free, just to gain the convenience of not having to use cellular Internet). On the extremely positive side, the daytime buffet price Monday thru Thursday has been significantly reduced. I just hope that the reduced pricing is a sufficiently large draw. Stonefire has established a reputation as being a pricey spot for lunch and dinner, so I hope there's not too much inertia there. It was nearly empty when we got here at 3:30PM, but now it is moderately busy.

Update, 04/2009

They've removed the iconic outdoor tube. The face painting area has two crayons. Most of the railroad cars are missing. The tables on either side of me (I'm at SF right now) have been unoccupied, with dirty dishes piled high, for 45 minutes. The paper towels in the toddler area are out. They're confiscating the business lunch cards they used to hand out. The Edy's machine has been replaced with a regular ice cream machine, and it's been turned around so that a staffer must dispense ice cream, except there are no staffers to be found. They also stuck the Slushy machines back there. The ice cream toppings are mostly gone, the cookies are entirely gone, and they've replaced it with a bunch of jello. The asian and pasta portions of the buffet look overcooked and like they've been sitting there a while. The kids section has been expanded a bit. There are fewer pizzas out and they appear to have less willingness to ditch pizza that's been sitting out too long. The salad bar has been reduced to just the basics as well. Their chicken tortilla soup and some other good things are just gone. The "Stonefire Chili" they replaced it with, not so good. They do have a few pizzas we'd never seen before, one that was pretty good (Spicy Italian). Someone just bussed the tables, it's been over an hour.

Overall, very disappointing change of direction for what was once an upscale pizza buffet.

Original, 10/2008:

Stone Fire Pizza Co is an interesting new place. Fundamentally an all-you-can-eat pizza buffet, games, a climbing wall, bumper cars, and a nerf-ball shooting area are all available as well. Most of the games are pay-to-play, but an area for toddlers and young children offers a face-painting area, water play, toy trains, building blocks, and some slides and tubes as well.

The pizza at Stone Fire started out tasting like cardboard, but has generally improved over time. [...]

Posted 09/04/09 | Report Abuse

1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

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I have been to Stonefire Pizza several times. It is a great place to take children. The various play areas in the 3-8 year old dining room make for a pleasant dining experience for all. Unfortunately some changes have occurred. In the three to eight year old dining room they have added riding toys--removing block building. The rides are fine--except the children come begging for money. These young children shouldn't have to pay to ride in the dining room. The game room is the pay zone.

The food quality has gone down hill. The chicken buffalo pizza had no chicken and no buffalo sauce. The pasta dishes that claim to have chicken--have almost no chicken in them. The food is lacking in flavor. The breadsticks are now 1/2 the size. The icee machine has been moved to the dessert section. You have to ask for your dessert. The girl fills your ice cream bowl so full--that when you add the toppings they drip over the bowl. The bowl needs to be bigger/the serving a little smaller/or let the customer serve themselves and plan their own dessert.

The choices for the children have gotten fewer. They offer mac and cheese, spaghetti, and nachos. What happened to the chicken nuggets and mini-corn dogs?

The workers are very nice and helpful!!

The cost is rather expensive--especially with the food options getting poor.

Posted 08/30/09 | Report Abuse

4 out of 5 people found this review helpful.

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I'm very surprised to see such high ratings for Stonefire Pizza in New Berlin, WI. While this restaurant has many positives, it falls far short of my expectations. I do question the motives of all the other reviewers that give this place a perfect 5-rating.

Interestingly, the place does seem to be popular. So popular that I ended up having to wait 45 minutes just to get a table and then another 5 minutes every time I got in line for the buffet. In my opinion, this is unacceptable.

To start things off, the decor of the restaurant is actually very good. From the entrance, you'll see beautiful rocks and plants that give the impression of a high quality restaurant with great food. Then, you proceed through the line to a glorified cash register that strongly resembles a ticket booth where you would buy admission to enter a theme park. In short, it's my opinion that the owners of this establishment decided to focus more on the entertainment than the food and I think it's a fatal flaw.

First, take a look at their website here:

http://www.stonefirepizzaco.com/

You'll notice that they describe their buffet as a "Luxury Buffet." It's a complete overstatement and I'll explain why:

1. The salad bar lacks key ingredients that a luxury buffet would include. For example, there are no croutons or bacon bits. No tomatoes. No shredded cheese.

2. The pizza's all taste surprisingly plain and boring. They are primarily discs of dough with a little dash of toppings on them. I'd take a premium frozen pizza from the grocery store over these pizzas any day. It's not that they taste bad, it's just that they taste extremely cheap and appear to be made with low quality ingredients.

3. There are two slushie machines that dispense a total of four flavors. Unfortunately, neither machine worked for the duration of my visit.

4. The Asian food looked so bad that I didn't even want to try it.

5. The ice cream bar was staffed by two people. Instead of dispensing ice cream from a machine, they had huge plastic bags full of ice cream, cut those bags open, and then scooped some out. Because these bags of ice cream were just sitting on the counter instead of inside a chilling machine, they were melting quickly. When I was handed my dish, the ice cream was already turning into a "white soup" and was running down the side of my dish, making my hands sticky in the process.

On a positive note, they did a good job with the chicken noodle soup. Additionally, the food items for the children were tasty (chicken nuggets, corn dogs, mac & cheese, etc).

Although I didn't spend any additional money on the entertainment, I did take a quick walk through to see what was offered. The games seemed a little pricey and the variety of games was somewhat limited. From an entertainment perspective, I'd give them a grade of B-. From a food quality perspective, I'd give them a grade of D+.

UPDATE on 10/11/2009:

The manager mailed me a $20 gift card to return and give them another try. I returned with a guest on 9/22/2009. Unfortunately, the $20 gift card was not enough money to cover dinner for the two of us, as the total came to $26.25, but nevertheless it still was a nice gesture of the manager.

I noticed a few differences.

First, there was no line to get in. There was no waiting. The place seemed extremely quiet. The day I attended was a weekday and was at night (7:26pm) while school was in session, so perhaps that had something to do with it.

Second, the Icee machines were no longer available to the general public. Instead, they were behind a counter near the deserts. Somebody at the counter offered me some, but it was in an ice cream dish. I think Icee's should be near the soda machines and served as a beverage, not a desert.

Third, the salad bar was much improved compared to my first visit. They had plenty of croutons and bacon bits (with REAL bacon - not the fake soy ones). I believe it also had tomatoes and cheese too. The entire salad bar tasted much better than I remember from my first visit. It was a big improvement.

Fourth, the pizza tasted better than from what I remembered during my first visit. I especially liked the baked potato pizza. The buffalo chicken pizza was good too, but it could use more buffalo sauce.

My overall experience was improved one compared to my first visit. Therefore, I am increasing my star rating from 2 stars to 4. If you haven't tried Stonefire Pizza, I suggest you give them a try just to see how you like it. The only thing I am still not happy about are the prices. $26.25 for a two-person buffet (after sales tax) still seems on the high side compared to Country Buffet and Golden Corral. I think $9-10.75/person would be a little more reasonable.

Posted 01/05/09 | Report Abuse

2 out of 3 people found this review helpful.

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Oh my goodness, you are in for some fun. A great place to take the kids. There is buffet type food that is pretty good. There are several playrooms around the dining area including tubes like McDonalds, big lego building, painting faces and a kitchen a train room and even a water play table. On the other side are some chuck e. cheese type games, a ball room and bumper cars. Also mini bowling and a amusement park mini ride. A blast but bring your wallet!

Posted 10/23/07 | Report Abuse

2 out of 2 people found this review helpful.

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We have been going to Stonefire for since it opened. It is the best family entertainment with a wide arrange of entertainment for our children. The food, employees and the cleanliness has it all for a fun and safe environment for all your friends and families. I recommend this to everyone.

Posted 10/08/07 | Report Abuse

1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

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The price is more than Chuckie Cheese, but the service and choices available are much better. Appropriate for bigger kids and the buffet is delicious.

Posted 10/05/07 | Report Abuse

2 out of 3 people found this review helpful.

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We have enjoyed Stonefire several times. An upscale Chuckie Cheeses..more for bigger kids I'd say, although there is plenty for little tykes to do. The pizza bar, pasta bar and dessert bar are really good. My teens have a blast in the gameroom. We especially love the trivia game and air hockey.

Posted 10/01/07 | Report Abuse

2 out of 3 people found this review helpful.

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We really enjoyed ourselves when we went there. My kids had an absolute blast!! They really liked playing all the games and getting all the tickets. It sure can get expensive though. You need to go there knowing you are going to spend money. The pizza was really good & the whole night was fun. We still have tickets we need to do something with from the games they played. We will have to go back.

Posted 09/26/07 | Report Abuse

1 out of 2 people found this review helpful.

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