Abruzzo Pizza — Restaurant in Richmond Hill

Short staffed, food wasn't fresh, and poor quality for price point. Went to the restaurant with another person on a Friday night, and there were 6 people in front of us. No problem. However we were informed by those in front of us that none of the servers paid any attention to them and have been ignoring them and they've been standing at the front for 5-10 minutes. A group of 5 walked in behind us and then were immediately given a seat. A server then snapped at those of us in line that we had to leave our names when a woman in front asked why a group that seemed to arrive later were seated first. There were a lot of empty tables but the servers seemed to be struggling handling the front, and it appeared management was helping with attending tables, so Abruzzo was definitely short staffed on a Friday night. Speaks a lot on their (lack of) management. Once we sat down it took 8 minutes for any server to come take our orders, and only after I raised my hand to get one of their attention. The server was nice and took our orders, so again it's most likely they were short-staffed. We ordered garlic bread and their special pizza. Garlic bread turns out to be two hot dog buns cut open with unevenly distributed oily substances on the inside. Couldn't tell if it was just stale vegetable oil, ultra processed butter, or bad margarine. The buns were so hard and dry on the outside it hurt the insides of our mouths trying to bite into them, and was so brittle it crumbled to bread dust/small crumbs. There was no garlic aroma or flavour, in fact there was no telling that any spices or seasoning was used at all had there not been any tiny flakes of bland herbs (assume Parsley) sprinkled on top. Literally no flavour, as other reviews also point out; not even the aroma of gluten and wheat that supermarket bread still retains. Definitely not worth the $2.50. The large pizza came piping hot and was a bit better than the garlic bread. I don't remember the toppings but the mushrooms were rubbery, the green peppers were tasteless, and the only redeeming topping was the fact that the cheese was evenly melted. The inner crust was soggy, wilted, and limp, making it hard to eat the pizza by hand, or even use a fork and knife. The outer crust along the edges had the same issue of the garlic bread, being overly dry and brittle. The pizza was poorly put together, and had the tomato sauce and cheese been bad as well, it would have been a wholly bad pizza. As well, there seemed to have been multiple flies or some flying insects of some sort all throughout our time sitting down at the table. If there are flies at the front, one can imagine how many might be in the back where customers cannot see. The good parts of this restaurant was that the single toilet washroom was clean, and the servers were nice. Had the washroom been dirty or the servers been rude, I'd have given Abruzzo only 1 star. Terrible food, I don't even think it's the cooks' fault, it's most likely...

Regular customer for +10 years, this restaurant used to be good, now it's awful. My family's last 2 delivery orders were cold and also incorrectly fulfilled.

What just pushed me to a 1 Star rating was the last order we made. The pizza came an hour after ordering - normal wait time for abruzzo, after generously tipping the driver as per usual and sitting down for a slice, we realized the pizza was cold. This wasn't warm Pizza, this was cold pizza. 4 plausible explinations to the temperature of the pizza : 1. The pizza was sitting around in the kitchen after being baked. 2. The driver drove around to all these other deliveries before arriving at our residence. 3. The delivery guy walked the pizza to our residence. 4. The delivery guy left the pizza on the hood of his car and drove to our residence. The pizza didn't even come off the box when we tried to take off a slice - that cold.

We ordered a salad as well, we opened it up and it was disgusting. The lettuce was brown and soggy, now I have ordered this salad many times in the past and let me tell you that this salad sat in a fridge overnight and was served to us the next day.

We ordered chicken wings and having spent some time in the kitchen it was evident that the chicken wings we're once fried, then refried once our order went through. The wings had wrinkles in them and they were cold.

After phoning Abruzzo Pizza and asked to speak to a manager, we were transferred and held 3 separate times to speak to 3 separate people. We were then offered $15 credit for our $70 "meal". Are you kidding me? Obviously they were because they generously bumped our potential credit to $20. After informing the receiver on the other end of the phone that we were not accepting their credit and to send a driver immediately to pick up the food and return the money, they offered to send us a replacement meal. We accepted and now await our meal, which was promised in 30 minutes, which would has already passed.

Do yourself a favor and...

Don't buy pizza at Abruzzo. I had to FIGHT to pay the delivery price I was quoted on the phone. They TRIED to get more for delivery than what they confirmed was the price. As our pizzas were getting cold (it was a cold night), the driver REFUSED to call the restaurant to straighten things out. He gave me dirty looks instead. I was left at the open door with the guy while a family member called Abruzzo. It's hard to believe but she was left having to persuade the restaurant that we live in Thornhill, even though we know we do. They lied saying Canada Post shows us as living in Maple.

I ended up writing Abruzzo after the fact, sending them PROOF from Canada Post's website that we live in Thornhill. To make things more disgusting, it wasn't our first time buying from them. We don't buy often since their pizza is just fine, nothing special, but still they should have known we're in Thornhill. If they didn't, they should have checked BEFORE confirming the price of our order including delivery.

Now if that wasn't bad enough, they ignored my e-mails until I kept resending it. Finally they wrote back insisting I call. They then defended the driver and offered NOTHING. Eventually they offered a SMALL token (our order was about $75) that I felt wasn't adequate given all the work we did, fighting to prove on the phone that we know where we live, getting proof on Canada Post and even having to speak to the manager on the phone (he insisted, despite me wanting e-mail communication). I told them to reconsider. Know what they did? They said they WEREN'T honoring the little offer they made.

If you want to buy your pizza from a restaurant that is run by dishonest people when there are many BETTER pizza places around, be forewarned. They don't deserve to stay in business. They don't know the meaning of good...