Renaldo's Culinary Experience — Restaurant in Charlotte

As a foodie who thoroughly enjoys oxtail and pizza, I was overly excited when I first heard of Oxtail Pizza. I was planning to visit Charlotte, as I've done numerous times before, and I thought this would be the perfect time to try out Renaldo's. I'd heard many great things previously about the cuisine.

So, let me just start out by saying it's not that easy to locate. It's in a busy plaza of other storefronts. There was a pretty consistent flow of vehicles and foot traffic in and around the plaza. I arrived at night and was thoroughly confused as to which place to enter. I sat in the car for at least 10 minutes trying to figure out where to go. I finally got out, and I almost asked someone when I spotted the sign (hindsight, I should have taken a photo of it to post in here so other people know what exactly to look for). At first, I thought it was just me, but when I was walking back to my car, two people asked me if I heard of Renaldo's and where it was exactly. This is no shame whatsoever to the restaurant. Just something to keep in mind when you arrive, especially at night.

Renaldo's is what I would consider a short order/ take out spot. It's a huge open kitchen setup. As soon as I walked in, I was greeted and complimented by who I assumed was Renaldo (I could be wrong). He then asked me for my name as I'd already called my order in ahead of time. He gave me my pizza, I paid, and he thanked me for the support. Customer service was great. I believe the pizza was around $25 (I don't remember exactly).

The pizza was absolutely beautiful 😍 I couldn't even wait to check into the hotel. I opened the box and grabbed a slice in the car. It was hot, made with fresh ingredients, and the oxtail was plentiful. You definitely get your money's worth. Unfortunately, I did not 100% care for the pizza. Let me be clear. It was not nasty at all. It just wasn't what I was expecting. At first, I couldn't figure it out, but then I realized the oxtail themselves seemed to be cooked in a sweet sauce and it seemed like maybe that same sauce was spead onto the dough making it sweet as well. This may be amazing for others, but to me, it was overly sweet. To the point where I gave the rest of the pizza away. If they could tone down the sweetness, this would be a complete knock out of the park! Now that I've had some time to process, I think there needs to be more balance between the sweet and savory aspects.

I really hated that I didn't love it, but I encourage people to try this place out for themselves. With that being said, I will absolutely still patronize this establishment going forward, and I look forward to trying other items...

Lackluster at best. My bf and I ordered takeout from here for our date night and have never been so disappointed. Saw a few raving reviews on TikTok and other platforms so we were excited to support a black-owned business in our city. Unfortunately the entire experience made us never want to come back. The person on the phone was VERY rude while we asked all of two questions about their menu items since the website is so poorly done. The prices online do not match the actual prices when ordering so they might be making up prices with each order for all we know.

Even after all this mess, we still kept an open mind since we really only cared about eating good food but it only got worse. We ordered the bang bang wings and fries and their specialty oxtail pizza. We were supposed to get 8 wings in our order but realised we only received 6 wings once we got home and actually started eating. The fries were so over fried they may as well have been called home style chips. The wings were typical, I’d argue BWW (he’ll even Dominos) have better tasting wings. The most disappointing part was the pizza. The largest size for the oxtail was a 12 inch which we were fine with because oxtail is a more expensive meat yadda yadda, but the pizza was no more than 10 inches and we got all of 2 pieces of actual oxtail on there. The rest of the pizza was just GREASE. They should reconsider calling it the grease pizza with oxtail sprinkles frankly. The crust being over cooked was just the cherry on top.

All in all, this was one of the worst dining experiences I’ve had anywhere. I can’t seem to find one redeeming factor about Renaldo’s. If you read all the way down here, please continue supporting local black-owned businesses just not this one 😭 and...

Ok I'm excited to write and let the secret out!!!! OMG. This place is OFF THE CHARTS GOOD! I went to this food plaza (there's rows of tiny unique restaurants there that do specialty take away) you just have to go. I originally went to find a taco place but it went out of business. I was so hungry and had driven miles to try the tacos. I was kinda wandering back & forth not knowing what to do. A guy stops this Renaldo person and says: hey! Renaldo? Can you make her tacos??? Renaldo goes: come with me. He takes me to his hidden gem of a culinary take-away restaurant. He asks me if I've ever had shrimp & grits? No. Not me. He asks his lovely Daughter behind the counter to get me an order. I see banana cheesecake. Grab it from the fridge. Renaldo proceeds to give it to me to "sample" on the house! Like nobody is this kind to me since I moved here. I go home open it up. OMG it's creamy on top. Lots of shrimp atop a bed of grits. I take a bite and instantly know this is a culinary experience like no other. I've never had something this special even at a 5 star restaurant!!!!! It's light but creamy goodness...a contradiction but true! It's got a hint (only a whisper of heat) it's so comforting. Every bite has a crunchy shrimp or two. A couple shallots here and there. Vavavavoom it tastes delicate and fragile. I can't describe how so unbelievably good this. There's only one way to find out: " you gotta go try it for yourself!" Tell Renaldo Theresa sent you!!!! You'll thank me later!!! Oh, and by the way 3 kinds of homemade cheesecake. The real deal. I had banana pudding cheesecake. Out...