California Pizza Kitchen050

This restaurant chain serves gourmet pizzas, pasta, and salads to families all over the country.

Children are handed boxes of crayons and menus with puzzles and games on them as they walk in the door, and it is an easy, comfortable place for a fairly quick, fairly inexpensive, and pretty good meal.

You'll find a wide variety of pizzas and pastas, some under the influence of other ethnic cuisine: Hawaiian pizza, Southwestern Chicken pizza, Thai chicken pizza, etc., and it's the same with the pastas. The traditional Italian choices are available as well, of course.

Dessert recommendations include a key lime pie of which the restaurant is justifiably quite proud.

The children's meal (for kids 10 and under) includes a choice of pizzas, pastas, and salads; plus a drink, and a hot-fudge sundae or a brownie with whipped cream on top. Children under 10 can also sign up for the CPKids Club and receive a free meal during their birthday month.

The service is fast, friendly, and accommodating; booths are available at most locations, and plenty of boosters and high chairs stand at the ready. And the bathrooms are clean.

California Pizza Kitchen also offers a service called party packaging, where it will help you plan a menu, and figure out the right amount of food to order; then prepare it and package it with utensils and napkins. The restaurants do not deliver. Call the manager at your location to ask for details.