Connie & John's Pizza — Local services in Calgary

The restaurant location is right on the bow river at Simmons building east village down town Calgary. There are other restaurants adjacent and across. It is a great place for family and corporate dinner and lunch. Bar is also available. The menu is not complicated. I love simple menus that focus on the classics. There is a good balance of pizza for vegetarians and non-vegetarians. I ordered the fermagio pizza and a garlic cheese breadstick. The breadstick had a nice layer of mozzarella cheese. The cheese was of very good quality. I could taste the salty flavor. The oven baked breadstick had crispy cheese layer in top with slight sprinkled garlic. We got a nice Italian dipping sauce with it. The quality of the bread of the breadstick was something between a nice fluffy naan and french bread. The similar dough was used for the pizza. The pizza crust was excellent. It was fluffy inside and soft while crispy outside crust. The pizza had three types of cheese but the mozzarella really stood out. Therr was handsome amount of cheese but the pizza remained intact and did not fall apart when you picked it up. The tomato sauce base for the pizza did not taste like the ready made ones many stores sell. But I believe they do use some good quality tomato puree to make their sauce. I been in restaurants where they make the pizza sauce using fresh tomatoes . I did not feel that level of freshness in the pizza sauce. The pizza sauce was not acidic and sour like many stores use which is when you know they use ready made pizza sauce. Now the pizza sauce lack flavor a bit. I prefer a bit of slight herb touch. The dough again used was good quality but it lacked crispy base which is something you really want to get in a NYC pizza. The cheese on the pizza was nicely cooked. You could see the grease on top shiny. You know that is good whole fat cheese when you get that amount of grease on top. The pizza 16 inch in size and I estimate three adults can comfortably eat it and get full. The amazing thing is this the pizza is large and looks very heavy but it doesn't make your tummy feel bloated and heavy. Which is result of the good fresh quality ingredients used. I am a fan of places that keep it simple fresh and focus on good basic preparation. I would recommend them to uplift the pizza sauce a bit more. It lacks character it just taste like plane tomatoes. I would like the chef to experiment with a new sauce recipe that uses fresh tomatoes and add some Italian herb seasoning. The bottom of the bread needs the same crispy as the edge of the crust. Play with with oven temperature get the bottom a bit more crispy. Now to me the amount of cheese for a thin slice pizza was a bit ok the higher side which I believe may have affected the bottom crisp affect. Reduce the mozzarella a bit because it is a heavy cheese. continue to maintain the quality of your ingredients. The dough you are using unique and definitely the best in Calgary I have eaten in the last 14 years. I have been NYC and eaten at some historic pizza places across the city. I see a few elements that can be worked at to get that original taste. It is hitting the mark but it's not a 5 yet. For Calgary rating yes it maybe a 5 but based on NYC standard it's a 4. I would want to rate this place somewhere at 4.5 max. I would definitely return to this place for me pizza. Hope you like...

Read till the end The service was just awful. We waited for 30 minutes just for a menu. When we asked the manager to bring us a menu because he was just standing next to us, he got snappy and told us to wait, even though we told him that we've been waiting for awhile now. And all we wanted is a menu. Eventually our server came and brought us some luke warm water in plastic cups and menus. After that we did not see our server for another half an hour. When he returned, he asked if we were ready to order. We told him that we are waiting for him to get our drink order still. At this point my friends were panicking that if they did not get food order in right away, he will disappear into another realm again. This place only had one beer on tap which we ordered. After 15 minutes the server came back to tell us that they don't actually have it today. So we ordered can beers. Guess how long we waited for them to bring us 3 cans of beer? You guessed right! ANOTHER HALF AN HOUR!!! When he returned, he said that the bartender was slammed, even though there were only 3 other tables besides ours. One of my friends ordered a cocktail and the drink came with a giant hair. When my friend took it to the bartender to get a replacement, the snooty manager who was too busy to pass us a menu, was sitting and eating at the bar. When we asked to remake it, they brought it back with a piece of what appeared to be blue plastic. So we send them back on their quest. For such overpriced drinks, they should be done with more care. Two of my friends got here a bit earlier and asked to get a table that is not in the sun. The server said no but said that he would check with a manager. The manager said no as well. Only when he saw that my friend was very pregnant, he let them switch to a table that was in the shade. Anyways, not sure if I was complaining too loud or they realized that they have dropped multiple balls trying to serve us but the manager came to our table when our food arrived and told us that we should drink more because we are not paying for anything today. This was very admirable. And he apologized as we were on our way out. I sincerely hope that they just had an off day because the location is beautiful and we would like to come back here. PS New York Pizza was...

During a business lunch outing with coworkers, quite a few people shot down my favourite pizza place and said this is THE place for pizza. So we ordered through DoorDash as it’s quite a drive from home just to pick up a pizza. The pizzas are huge so we ordered a half Island Pie (Hawaiian)/half cheese pizza, plus an order of garlic and cheese bread.

No complaints about going through DoorDash. You’ll pay more, which is understandable, and our pizza was still hot when it arrived. No issues there.

While I quite enjoyed the cheese bread (leftovers were great with chilli the next evening), this was the saltiest pizza I’ve ever had. I’ve had real NY style pizza from New York, and a place next to our house also does NY style pizza - overly salty isn’t a characteristic of NY style. My husband and I shared the pizza and we each had to down multiple glasses of water while eating and we were thirsty for the rest of the night even though we were still drinking water. It was almost as if the dough was over salted AND they heavily salted the whole pizza again after the toppings were put on. I did love the real pineapple (not canned) chunks on the Hawaiian, but it wasn’t enough to balance out the salt. I can’t even begin to imagine how salty the pepperoni pizza would be. The plain cheese pizza was as salty as the Island pie… so I don’t think it was the prosciutto!

Good dough texture, I love a good chewy pizza dough, but the saltiness seriously ruined it for me. I wish there were other half pie combos. And maybe an option to get less salt on the pizza, that seems to be a common complaint in the reviews.

Glad to have tried it, but not sure I would...