Alfredo's Pizza Villa — Restaurant in Chapel Hill

Dropped into Alfredo's by Silverspot again yesterday. Unfortunately, there were a couple of snafus. One which has occurred two other times at this location and one which was just simply poor planning. Let's start with the poor planning. I ordered a 12" steak and cheese straight off the menu and was told they do not have 12" sub rolls and can only sell me an 8" steak and cheese. Well, that's not too bad. It's like a forced diet. No willpower needed. The issue is that I really wanted to eat half a 12" and take the other half home. No problem right? Just order two 8" subs. You get an extra 2" for each meal and no one ever said an extra 2" is a bad thing. Evah! Well, while I will never be accused of being cheap or even slightly cost conscience when it comes to food, I do constantly run equations in my head for all purchases. Now let's take a little walk down to crazy town and enter my mind's thought process when I hear there are not any 12" sub rolls - "Wait what? I can't eat 4" of sub now and then take 4" of sub home. That is practically pointless. I am going to get two 8" subs and then use self restraint and not consume each in their entirety. (slowly looking back up at the menu board to confirm this is an excellent idea and to see if they maybe have a 16" sub) WTF, really? The 12" is 9 bucks and the 8" is only a buck less. That doesn't make sense. That 8" is a ripoff. Who the h@ll would buy an 8" sub when they can get a full third more for a buck? That's like 75 cents an inch for the foot long as opposed to a dollar an inch for the 8" sub. It should be closer to two thirds the cost or maybe a bit more. I'm not doing that. That would be stupid".

So I order the 8" sub and begin to think today is just gonna suck all day.

I understand that the per unit price will decrease when the quantity increases, which is always a good thing for gluttons like myself. Unfortunately, the model did not work in this situation because of their seemingly poor inventory management. In order to remedy the deficit presented to me, I would have had to pay for two 8" subs for a total of $16, thus extending the inflated per unit price out to 16 units. That's absurd for this type of food (lobster rolls and chocolate chip cookies maybe, but not a sub). While the food is excellent, it is not worth paying base unit pricing for larger portions when they made the mistake of falsely advertising the availability of glorious, mouth watering 12" subs on their menu board. Shame on the staff at Alfredo's for making me use sound judgement & practice better eating habits.

Now, for the reason I actually left off a star... For the third time in our last five visits, my spousal unit failed to receive her order in a reasonable amount of time (~ 15 minutes). Each time, she has ordered the same thing - two slices of Sicilian, extra cheese and extra pepperoni. Each of the three times referenced, we have had to approach the counter and inquire on the status of her order after waiting and watching many others receive their orders while ordering well behind us. To the staff's credit, each time they have been honest and said something to the effect of "oops, we didn't put that order in the oven" or "I am not sure where that ticket went. I'll cook it up for you right away". Usually, I wouldn't worry about these types of things, because my mind is too consumed being in crazy town and worrying about every math equation I have ever seen or running some type of numbers in my head, but this delay caused unnecessary stress to my dear bride and I. You see, it came to my attention while sitting in Alfredo's impeccably maintained dining room, that my garage door at the house had been opened (smart home stuff, you know), and either I had a burglar to deal with when I got home, or the best son in the world was stopping for an unplanned visit. Both scenarios had my full attention and increased my desire to get home immediately, but I had to wait on some excellent pizza to arrive before I could depart. You owe me an extra 15 Minutes with my...

Summary: Good Pizza, Bad Delivery.

The Good: I would rate the quality of pizza at Alfredo's as a 4 easily. Their crust is one of the bests I've ever had, and though their sauce could be better, the overall quality of the pizza is top notch. The people seem friendly enough.

The Bad: Delivery is terrible. Just don't even bother. Drive up and get it. It shouldn't even be said that delivery is offered. You could walk across Chapel Hill and back home in the time it takes them to drive a pizza to your residence. I ordered online at exactly 3:28PM for a late lunch. $27 all told for an 18" pie, tax, tip up front (which now I know why), and delivery charge (a reasonable $1.50). At 4:38, 70 minutes later, I called up and asked if there was an issue as I had still not received my pizza. The person on the phone said it's possible they had missed it and that it was coming out of the oven and he'd drive it over after. No apology offered. At 5:00pm on the dot the delivery guy knocked on the door, handed me my pizza, said "Enjoy" and walked off. Again, no acknowledgement that the delivery took them 90 minutes. Just "Enjoy" and a walk off. I feel like some sort of assurance that this isn't normal, or that they apologize, or that they would make it better for me in the future would not have been out of line, but I didn't get any of that.

As terrible as it sounds, I'll probably go back. Even though their delivery is unapologetically absent, their pizza is good. I'll just drive up from now on. Still, I can't help but feel a little bitter that what I thought was a great pizza place is now...

Avoid at all costs! I've been a customer for years, so this is based on a history of orders and recent experience. Generally, the pizza, appetizers, wings, pasta entrees are mediocre. Not anything you would recognize as quality or even good pizza. And generally the quality has been going down steadily over the years. The one advantage for me was proximity and typically a decent delivery time. Even then, delivery was sometimes late, with missing items, etc. Recently I ordered a delivery and the delivery driver drove on to a walkway (which had a sign saying no cars) and then backed up through a planter bed running over an electrical line and garden statutes. I still have no idea how the driver could have thought the walkway was a place where he could drive his car...coming within inches of my house and barely being able to back out. All of this recorded on security cameras in full. I called the store the next day and asked for the manager. That took ten minutes to get him on the phone, and then he acted as if he was not interested in addressing the damage. No apology, no customer service. Just said he would speak to the owner and would get back to me. Also trying to pass the blame onto a delivery agent. It's been a month, and no response, or follow up. My suggestion, if you value your property and don't want a delivery driver damaging your property- avoid at all costs. There are much better options out there for pizza. It's not worth ordering bad pizza and then need to pay for damage...