Cold Stone Creamery Debacle

July 2, 2005 was supposed to be a free tasting at Cold Stone Creamery.

Muh wife and I went as diligent ice cream and Cold Stone Creamery supporters. We were so excited by the premise that I even blogged about it and was happy to hear that fellow blogger Gina and her fiance wanted to join us.

To put it into perspective, I have received a lot of emails informing me of the nationwide tasting. I have seen flyers for it and commercials on television. My local newspaper even wrote an ARTICLE on it specifically naming my local Cold Stone Creamery at the Menlo Park Mall as the location for the event.

We arrived 15 minutes after the event was supposed to start expecting there to be a bit of a line and people waiting to try it out.

The lines weren't there...

Why?

It wasn't even open.

The event was to draw people in an hour early and get them to try their new flavors. We watched other people walk up... look disappointed..mumble something and leave. We weren't the only disappointed people.

A young family was sitting on the bench with us waiting... the father went up to the window and knocked until someone finally came out of the back. He asked, "What's going on with the tasting? Why aren't you open?"

The fella's response was "I don't know what you are talking about." After annoying a few more employees, they topld us that they were going to open up at 11 at their usual time. We were all offended and upset! This was not right!

I even pulled out a camera and told my new friend, a 3rd Grader at a local grade school and daughter of the brave father who was banging on the door and top notch "high fiver," to go stand by the front door and look sad. I would take her picture and write a complaint letter to the company. She was too shy to do it.

So... the place finally opens up after we took a lap around the mall catching up with Gina and Jack. We walked in with our mouths watering. They only had ONE of the new 5-6 flavors available for tasting. We were also... the only people in the store.

They had out the new fruity cereal flavor or something..it was bright blue ... so I bravely tried it. Muh wife pouted when she found out she couldn't try the oatmeal cereal and the guy contended that he couldn't give her a free taste. They give free tastes every other day of the week so why couldn't they give her one now? He eventually relented and got her a tiny spoon and put some of the ice cream on it while we all enjoyed the new flavor in a itty bitty cup.

It was just distressing and really put a bad taste in our mouths. (heh heh... I meant that...)

We have yet to decide if this is boycott worthy... we think it might be but we aren't sure.