‘Michelangelo is taking your pizza order?’: Pizza shop’s AI turtle answers the phone. Then its owner starts calling customers ‘morons’

What happens when you call a Ninja Turtles-themed pizza shop and an AI answers the phone? At Cowabunga! Pizza Pies in Chicago, the virtual assistant can take pickup orders, recommend Turtle-themed pizzas and even change the way it speaks when asked.

The restaurant recently went viral after customers complained about its AI phone system and the responses they received from the business on Google Reviews. According to Dexerto, one customer objected to speaking with “AI Michelangelo,” while other reviewers received responses that called them “morons,” “dorks” and “dumb” from reviews.

I called Cowabunga! Pizza Pies myself to find out what actually answers the phone and whether the AI really is pretending to be one of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

The AI knows its Turtles, but insists it’s not Michelangelo

The first thing the virtual assistant made clear was that it isn’t Michelangelo. When I asked whether I was speaking with the Ninja Turtle, it identified itself as “the virtual assistant for Cowabunga Pizza Pies,” and when I pressed it on whether it was specifically Michelangelo, it gave an even clearer answer: “I’m not Michelangelo himself.”

That doesn’t mean the Turtle theme disappears from the conversation. The AI knows the restaurant’s menu, which currently includes specialty pies named after Michelangelo, Leonardo, Donatello and Raphael, along with a Master Splinter pizza.

It also knows some of the broader Turtle lore. When I asked about Michelangelo, it described him as a fan favorite, a pizza lover and a “party dude,” and it knew that “Cowabunga” is a classic Ninja Turtles catchphrase. So while the AI refuses to identify itself as Michelangelo, it certainly knows how to talk about his pizza-loving world.

But this isn’t just a gimmick. It can take your order

It can also actually take an order. During my call, the AI offered to arrange a pickup order and gave me the earliest available pickup time, but it said it does not take payment information directly over the phone and instead sends customers a secure payment link by text.

The AI also knew plenty about the restaurant’s Turtle-inspired menu. It recommended the Cowabunga Special and Donatello pizza, and when I asked what I should order for Splinter, it pointed me toward the Master Splinter pie.

When I asked whether it was supposed to sound like Michelangelo, the AI again said it wasn’t pretending to be the character. It said customers know they’re talking to a virtual assistant and can ask it to connect them with a team member if they want to speak with a person.

That is worth noting because the complaints that helped send the restaurant viral were partly about customers not wanting to deal with an AI in the first place. The AI’s own response to that concern was essentially that customers can ask for a human.

Then I asked it to drop the Turtle act

The strangest part of the call came when I asked the virtual assistant to stop using its Ninja Turtle-like voice. It said sure and switched to what it called a “straightforward and professional” manner, then even acknowledged the change when I pointed it out.

That was probably when I started wondering how much of the Turtle personality was actually built into the AI. It could put on the voice, drop it completely and then switch back to talking about Ninja Turtles and pizza like nothing had happened.

I also asked whether Paramount or Nickelodeon officially licensed the restaurant’s AI. The assistant said it didn’t have information about licensing or official partnerships and told me to ask someone at the restaurant, so it couldn’t answer that question.

That made the call pretty funny in its own way. I could ask it what four Ninja Turtles should order for dinner, but I couldn’t ask it why people were mad about the AI answering the phone because it really didn’t know.

And every time I tried to get it to admit that it was Michelangelo, it refused. The AI made one thing very clear, no matter how much it leaned into the Turtle theme: it wasn’t Michelangelo.

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