Sal's Authentic New York Pizza - Whangarei — Restaurant in North Island

Tried Sal’s for the first time a couple of weeks ago. Whilst I was waiting for my order I couldn’t help but notice how all the staff were working as it’s a completely open kitchen.. quite unimpressed to find no one wearing gloves whilst preparing food. One lady in particular was working on a pizza - she had no gloves on and her long hair wasn’t tied back. In the middle of preparing the pizza she had to make a dash to the till to serve a customer then went back to the pizza. No hand washing inbetween preparation and cash handling. She also had a good couple of face scratches and attempted to brush her hair out of the way too. It was actually appalling to see. How is it not common practise to use gloves, have hair tied back and wash hands inbetween jobs?? The pizza we ordered was nice, nothing too special and the garlic knots - unsure why they’re called garlic knots when they literally lack the garlic flavour. Definitely not in a hurry to return to...

As a Sal's pizza fan, Sal's Whangārei consistently ticks the right boxes for taste and options across the board. There has been the odd occasion where my pie was under or over cooked but not enough times for me to stop going back. The restaurant / dining space is kept tidy and there are always enough seats available to dine in with the polite & friendly customer service. The minor point here is randomly close early when foot traffic is slow instead of working to the advertised trading hours, but i guess thats understandable for a town of this size.

A solid 3/5...

Was so excited to see that Sal's was coming to Whangarei, and it was worth the wait! Never your normal cookie cutter pizza, just like the real thing from Sal's in NY (and K'rd in Auckland) - by the slice, so hot it could take the roof of your mouth off if you don't wait, and in my opinion Pepperoni is the only way to go (now that might be fighting talk). Will be back. Big shout out to Jodie, friendly, helpful and just as excited about Sal's as I was. Even behind a mask you could see her lovely smile...