When my wife and I order pizza, it’s a pretty simple order.
Pepperoni on the whole thing, with very little cheese on one half of the pizza.
Depending on our mood, we might order from one of three places in town. And we often get the wrong pizza. Given that our order is so simple, I have to think that pizza places have a fairly high rate of wrong orders.
Can any current or former pizzaristas confirm this?
I’ve yet to have a pizza be so badly screwed up that I thought “This has to be someone else’s order!”
Plenty of “How hard is it to understand ‘no peppers’?” and “If this is with extra cheese, I’d hate to see regular cheese!” but no colossal blunders yet.
I’m gonna jinx myself, but I’ve never gotten a wrong order. I have gotten extra ingredients, but never a completely wrong pie.
I always order just plain extra cheese and I can’t think of a single instance in which it was wrong. Even when I get it half/half with my roommate, it’s always just the way we ask for it.
All pizza orders that include pineapple are WRONG 
I don’t have any trouble with the pizza place in my town that I go to. I always try to check that it is the right pizza before I leave the restaurant, though (our favorite pizza place doesn’t deliver). But, then again, I’m not getting different stuff on different halves- maybe that’s confusing them.
I have gotten a pizza that was not what I’d intended to order-- a semi-local place with interesting names for pizzas gave me a Veggie instead of a Chicken Vegy Medley. We ate it and enjoyed it. On another occassion, I had to wait while someone brought back our pizza–they’d been handed the wrong one out the drive-up window. But that’s only a couple times out of a number of separate visits.
I’ve only had one wrong pizza order in memory. I asked for a thin-crust and got a stuffed crust.
I wouldn’t think half and half orders would be that uncommon.
So far our record was three wrong pizzas. Keep in mind it was the same order as above. Pizza Hut finally managed to get it right on the fourth try. By then, we’d ordered pizza from somewhere else. We just wanted to see how long it would take them to get it right.
I’ve run some pizza places before. Pizzas don’t get wrong very much, even if it seems that it happens to you a lot.
Usually when pizzas get wrong, they’re switched. One wrong pizza usually means two.
Usually, there’s only one phone call. It’s always one phone call when you expect the second.
Our rate was about 50/50 at two different places. For about 15 years we always ordered pizza on Friday night, first five years from the same pizza place in New York, next 10 years in St. Louis. One small veggie with sausage and no cheese (kiddie with allergies), one large veggie with sausage and cheese. We were known customers after a while with both places, just said our names and they knew our order (pizza without cheese is not that common 
). All the same at least 50% of the time the no cheese pizza came with cheese. Same result every time with both places, free cheesy small pizza and another non-cheesy small pizza delivered later.
We used to joke that we should just order the non-cheesy pizza as a large and we’ld only have to pay for one pizza a week. Both places were great about replacing the cheesy non-cheese pizza free and in a very timely manner, but it still happened all the time. The only down-side was we always ended up tipping the delivery guy twice. Oh and allergy kid had to wait 20 more minutes for her pizza.
We figured it was just a combo of high turn-over in pizza makers who didn’t believe anyone really wanted a pizza with no cheese, and busy Friday nights.
I used to manage a pizza place, and I would say probably about 1 percent of orders were wrong and did not get noticed before they were sent out to the customers’ home. More often than not if you are ordering on a busy night they just don’t notice when the screen says cheese/ez cheese or whatever code they use to designate light cheese on one half. They move the pies through there pretty quickly. Also it might help to really stress on the phone, “one half should only have a little cheese. Very light cheese. This is really important and is often delivered to us incorrectly. Please make sure that you only put a little cheese on one side.” Or whatever your special order is.
It’s extremely rare that I get a wrong order when I place an order for delivery. I’d say maybe 1 out of every 20 times… and never completely wrong. I usually order extra pizza sauce and every so often they forget to do that…but other than that, they really don’t mess up.
I’ll find out soon…just ordered.
peace, and happy eatin’
tsfr
Former pizza slinger here.
Some nights we’d be so busy it’s hard to imagine. Usually the guy cutting them notices that they’re wrong and they are remade before being sent out, and the messed up one is either used if there is an exact order at the same time, or it goes in the back for us to eat. Drivers made most of the mistakes - grabbing the wrong pizzas or forgetting stuff. But we also had EXTREMELY low turnover so everyone really knew what they were doing and were fast. Big chain places seem to have higher turnover and more incompetent employees. I worked at the busiest Imo’s in my area and we hired mainly from the inside. My brother got me my job, I got my friends jobs and so on.
And we had some customers that we so regular we didn’t even have to ask what they wanted. One guy ordered a large thick crust cheese a few times a week - he had his own coupon in the computer to make the order with tax $11 even. And the no cheese thing was uncommon but not surprising because we did get it pretty regularly.
I can’t recall ever getting a completely wrong pizza, but many times they’ll forget the salad I ordered or the free 2 liter of pop that my coupon said I’d get. Sometimes they insist on returning with the other item, most times I just let it go. I never let it effect their tip, though. People make mistakes.
Now, this is funny timing, because the pizza order I had delivered this evening was screwed up. I ordered a medium half cheese/half olive and a medium pepperoni. What came was a medium plain cheese and a medium olive. I pointed out the mistake to the delivery guy, but took the pizzas anyway and didn’t complain much because my kids got what they wanted (the pepperoni was for me). A few minutes later, the manager of the pizza joint called to apologize and offered us a free pizza next time we order from them. Now, that’s how a business keeps its customers!
I managed a Domino’s for a few years. In an average of 150 orders per night, with 1-2 pizzas an order, we would screw up, I’d say, five pizzas per week. That, of course, is a guess. But I’d call it an educated one.
…Double post ahoy!
Of course, that is only taking into account the people who called us back and actually told us that their pizza was wrong.
I’ve been buying pizza about once every 10 days for ~30 years. I don’t think I’ve ever gotten a wrong order. Takeout, delivery, or eat in: always correct.
I don’t order complicated half-caffe double latte pizza, just 2 or 3 or 4 toppings on the whole thing.
The secrets: 1) NEVER buy from one of those national chain places. If they have an ad on TV, or website ordering or an 800 number they’re too big. Their pizza will necessarily be crap even if they do deliver just what you ordered.
We started ordering from a new pizza place that shoved a flyer through the door. They’re surprisingly good, in fact they’re about the best pizza place around here. We don’t exactly order from them regularly but probably every other weekend…but so far they’ve been spot on with the orders and sometimes even throw in extras like cheesy garlic bread (which we order occasionally but not often).
They’re so used to us now, we don’t even have to give them our address, and the pizza usually arrives in less than half the time they quote. I think I’ve found pizza heaven!