Roman Villa Pizza – Restaurant Review

I’ve been trying to visit this place for a few weeks, but it is deceptively difficult. Its closed for lunch. It’s also closed on Mondays. Finally, I brought my family here on a Thursday night, right after work. We tried to beat the dinner rush, but the place was packed. We were lucky, and were sat at one of the last tables. I had come here once before, a long time ago (approximately 18 years), and I remembered it being a nice quite, good dining experience. Either my memory is faulty (hey, I’m getting old), or it has changed significantly.

There were no kids options on the menu, so I asked the waitress if they had anything for children. They do. You can get a kids sized cheese pizza for cheap ($3.00), and add toppings for only fifty cents. They will also do a child portion of pasta. There is nothing written down about this, you have to ask for it.

The service was bad. It several minutes for us to be acknowledged after we were sat, and longer for drinks, and longer still for our order to be taken. Every time our waitress came to our table, she apologized profusely about the level of service, but that of course does nothing to change it.

My son went for the kids pepperoni pizza, my daughter and I decided to share a 12″ pizza, and my wife ordered the Roman Villa Chicken, which sounded great on the menu.

From the time we arrived, to the time we received our food, nearly an hour had elapsed.

The pizza looked good, and honestly I didn’t have a lot of complaints about its quality. It was good pizza. It took us a few seconds to find our pepperonis (they were under the cheese), but they were there in abundance. I had mushrooms on my half, and they were plentiful and fresh. The pizza was good, but honestly, I didn’t think it was better than Il Vicino. It was a pretty big step up from Dominos or Pizza Hut though, and seemed like a good value ($12.00).

My wife’s Roman Villa Chicken was another matter. It sounded great – cheese, artichoke hearts, and a chicken breast baked in some kind of yummy sauce. In practice, the chicken was a bit dry, and tasted a touch like fish. She was not impressed, and by the couple bites I stole from her, neither was I. The cheese and artichokes were good at least.

While we were eating, my son noticed a spider hanging from the ceiling by a strand of web, about 8 inches from his head. He pointed it out, and my wife and daughter freaked out. My son and I thought it was kind of funny, but the arachnophobes in my family sure didn’t. We ended up crushing it in a napkin and setting it aside.

Overall, I can’t give this experience more than an average rating. Stay away from the house dishes, and stick with the pizza. If you are going to take your family out to Pizza Hut anyway, this is a good alternative. It is not a small romantic Italian eatery that you would want to take a date to. It is crowded, slow, and loud and they really only do pizza well. And there are spiders.

I’m a believer in second chances, but when I told my family that we should come back some other time and see if it was a fluke, I was met with a resounding “NO!”