Marino's Pizza & Restaurant — Restaurant in City of Schenectady

This is a cash only establishment. The few times I ordered take-out, the person on the other end of the line kindly reminded me of that detail. Marino's is a beloved restaurant in Schenectady. Besides being cash only, they open late, 3PM at the earliest, and close even later, 1AM on Fridays and Saturdays. Every time I've been there, it's been busy. Their website states they've been in business since 1970. Half a century is no joke. History and tradition run deep here. One can sense it. There's been enough written about their pizzas and they're certainly good. The crust seemed crispier than most although the sauce and toppings aren't as extraordinary as others would have you believe, imho. There were a few things I noticed when I ate something other than pizza. I tried one of their sandwiches, boneless chicken sautéed with peppers and onions with a choice of either red or white sauce. On another occasion, I ordered a chicken parmigiana with linguini. That dish is served with bread and butter. For both orders, what I found out of the ordinary were the serving sizes. Gargantuan! The to-go bags were straining under the weight. The chicken parmigiana had 2 separate containers, one for the linguini with sauce and the other for the chicken. That order alone was easily the size of 2 to 3 meals. It's as if an Italian grandmother made sure you didn't go hungry. You can practically hear her declaring, "Mangia, mangia!" Neither meal went to waste because they were also tasty. This place fits the mold of what comes to mind when casual Italian American fare is mentioned. You get what you pay for, in this case, you get a...

Went on Mother's day. Arrived 3:45 - 4:00. The place was poppin' already ... they opened at 3:00! We were shown the main dining area which was two empty tables short of being full and they let us know that there was booth seating on the other side, in the bar. We chose the booth seating. No regrets, the booth seating was perfect! We were the only patrons in the booth area with the exception of a few friendly staff handling business and the comings and goings of a few bar patrons. It had a nice, chill, "Sunday afternoon in your own neighborhood bar" kind of feel. Our server was great! Promptly took our drink order ... Corona and Peroni. She returned to our table a nice amount of time later for our order and patiently answered the couple of menu questions we had. We decided on an 8 slice sausage, peppers and mushrooms pie. We enjoyed our ice cold beer as we waited. 20 - 25 min's or so later our pie arrived at our table, fresh from the oven, piping hot! The crust was very good with just the right amount of crispness. The sausage was very, very tasty. A nice amount of spice and cut into chunks not sliced. The peppers were perfect ... absolutely cooked through. The cheese was 100% real. It was "ooey-gooey" good! The tomato sauce was very nice ... oh and the mushrooms were very tasty as well! What more could you ask for!? If you haven't been, go! I can't wait to go again already! Very nicely done Marinos! Go Schenectady, go Marinos! Thank you again! --Oh yeah, I forgot to mention the pizza dough is hand tossed right there...

One of the best pizzas in the area. I have been enjoying Marinos for a long time. However, since we moved further outside the city we don't order there much. I ordered for pickup and the wait was 45 minutes which was typical for Friday night. However, when I arrived, I was ignored for a full 10 minutes along with 3 other customers waiting to pick up as well. The phone was ringing off the hook, one guy was doing nothing but answering the calls, a waitress was just standing at the counter doing nothing and three guys were making the pies. No one even acknowledged me. Once they finally did ask for my name, it was clear that the pie was done before I arrived so it was sitting for at least 15 minutes so it was only warm. I have never had this experience in the past so not sure if it was just extra busy or its bad manners of the staff. Either way, the pizza was still good but I would have liked it to be hot right out of the oven. Also, there is a big CASH ONLY sign on the counter so keep...