Sydney J.
Yelp
I had a giftcard I wanted to use at Plank and since I'd found out via email that Plank had some Oakland Restaurant Week specials, I decided it'd be a good opportunity to order some food. There is no way to order takeout over the phone or online, however; the only way to order takeout is via DoorDash, which doesn't work if you're trying to use a gift card, so I had to come in person to order. I came in on a Friday evening, which is a busy time.
When I entered Plank, I found it confusing and overwhelming to figure out where I could go to order the food. With the music playing, people talking, and sounds of the arcade games and bowling, I personally found it overstimulating. There were some signs pointing to different attractions within Plank, such as one that said "Eats," but it wasn't really helpful for figuring out where to order. At first I went outside to the beer garden area, where there is a lot of outdoor seating, but after waiting a while, I realized the bar was probably not the best place to order food, so went back inside and ordered from a bar inside. The worker I spoke to said I need to be 21+ to order even if I'm not ordering alcohol, but then they didn't even really look at my driver's license when I pulled it out. At first they tried to get one of their coworkers to take my order instead but the coworker was on their break.
They also seemed confused when I said I'd won a giveaway and didn't have a physical giftcard, but was able to find someone else (presumably a manager) who searched and was able to find the envelope where my giftcard had been stored. They estimated 15-20 minutes for the food to be ready. I ordered the goat and truffle pizza, BBQ chicken pizza, and the mango and peach pocket pie.
Goat and truffle pizza: I liked the truffles, they are juicy and savory. The arugula was alright. It didn't have enough goat cheese, couldn't really taste cheese at all. Overall I thought it was pretty good given I don't really like mushrooms. The pizza is thin.
BBQ chicken pizza: I like the sweetness of the BBQ sauce. I am not sure why they put cilantro on it. I also felt like it was rather lacking in cheese.
Mango and peach pocket pie: This is a temporary item from the Oakland Restaurant Week menu, and costs $10. I really could only taste the peach but not the mango as much. It seemed like they probably used preserved or canned fruit. It was also decent, and came with vanilla ice cream.
Overall I thought the food itself was fine, but the experience of trying to navigate the physical location and to order the food was chaotic and overwhelming. I've been to Plank once before in the past for a work party, but that was quite different since it was a weekday afternoon so there weren't really other people there, which meant service was faster and I didn't really have to figure out my way around the venue.