MOD Pizza — Restaurant in Castro Valley

Changing the face of a sleepy Castro Valley...for the better. MOD is a great new addition to the Village, with big windows, a high ceiling interior, large outdoor seating patio, cool (and loud) re-imagined retro music, and good family friendly food. On our first visit, it was day two of their grand opening. Lots of people, and the line was to the door most of the evening that we were there. The setup is what (in my opinion) has become a staple for so many food establishments. You get in line, look at the giant menu board, and then proceed Chipotle-style (for lack of better explanation) down the assembly line, calling out the type of pizza, or salad, and what you want it to be like when you eat it... With the large number of diners here on this particular night, it was amazing the organization and coordination of the workers to put this volume of food out. But, don't get me wrong, it DID take a long time to get through the Disney-length line. I'm sure the frenzy will calm down in a couple weeks. The food: We ordered the seasonal salad, the Phoenix pizza, and the Calexico pizza. Salad was fresh and nicely dressed (not soggy). The pizzas both were very fresh and we enjoyed both of them. We were rather surprised at how much flavor they each had. They did not taste like your run of the mill pizza. We sat outside where we could actually hear each other talk. It was nice. It was all nice. . . and not another burger joint in this town. Will we be back...absolutely. And, check out the MOD website, where you can stream...

This is sort of like the Subway or Chipotle type of restaurant, but for pizza instead of sandwiches and burritos. It's a choose-your-own, fully-customizable pizza restaurant. They have a variety of pizzas with preselected toppings. So if you have trouble deciding on specific additions to your pizza, they have you covered!

They also cater well to vegetarians and vegans, providing a plant-based sausage topping, as well as cauliflower dough instead of flour if you need or want to avoid gluten. And if you're like me, you can always ask for extra sauce. I'd say I sometimes ask for extra cheese as well, but at times it's a little too extra. So keep in mind that it might not look like much at first, but it turns out to be more than you expected.

Whether you like pineapple on your pizza or sausage and pepperoni, this is a delicious, affordable, and fun option for satisfying your pizza cravings! The prices are unbeatable for what you get, especially when compared to other major pizza chains. Not to mention depending on what options you go with, it can be fairly healthy compared to most places. They also have salads. Oh, and I almost forgot they have a thick crust option....

We ordered 3 pizzas. 1 mini, 1 11 inch and 1 mini to go (plain pepperoni). Our first 2 pizzas arrived very quickly and tasted great (that's the only reason I gave 2 stars instead of 1). After picking up my 2nd pizza I asked the gentleman behind the counter if the to go pizza was almost ready. He stated it wasn't but it should be soon. After waiting 15 minutes and watching pizza after pizza come out I didn't see our 3rd pizza. I asked the other gentleman who was pulling pizzas out of the oven if my to go order was ready as I had already been waiting for 15 minutes. Him and the gal who had made my order searched over the pick up counter for it and eventually found it stuffed in a box sitting in the corner. I got handed the box with a "here ya go" and both workers quickly turned away to go back to work without so much as an apology. I get that at the time we went it was busy and there was a bit of a line.... but it takes two seconds to apologize for the mistake. Now I'm sitting here with a very cold 6 inch mini pizza that I can't do much with.... def not going back to...