Airport Varasano’s Pizzeria — Restaurant in College Park

I've known of Jeff Varasano's excellent pizza-making recipe and personal web site for a while, so I was excited when a Varasano's restaurant outpost was added to the ATL Concourse A food court, complete with a full-service piano bar and power outlets for laptops. As a Delta frequent flier, I find myself making connections at ATL airport several times per month -- and I LOVE "One Flew South" in Concourse E, but it can be out of the way, as most of my connections are in A or B.

Mr. Varasano's philosophy on pizza is to mostly stay true to the Neapolitan way, which means a slowly-fermented dough made with wheat flour and no additives/oxidants, a wood-fueled oven with temperatures of 750 degrees F, usage of fresh buffalo mozzarella cheese, and red sauce made with San Marzano tomatoes. This results in a super light pie with leopard-spots on the crust and white patches of cheese on top of a bright red sauce.

I've ordered both the "Nana's" style pizza topped with thinly-sliced pancetta as well as the Margherita di Bufala pie with Hot Sopressata. Texture and the taste of the crust is good, the meats and cheeses are tasty, and the pizza has the look of a Neapolitan pizza.

Barstaff are helpful to others in explaining menu items, are skillful and creative, are sensitive to flight departure times, and are good at quickly getting me through my meals so that I can make it to my departure gate in time. The restaurant is not enclosed, but rather entirely open in the food court, pulling double-duty as the food court's only bar. There is a piano player close by who enhances a hectic atmosphere that is not helped by the presence of Chick-Fil-A and other fast food joints that surround Varasano's.

When flying through ATL, I now find myself struggling to decide between two great ATL airport restaurants: Varasano's and One Flew South. This is a great...

They straight-up stole thirty dollars from me. Absolutely disgusted at how they treat customers. My debit card was 46¢ short for my order. I apologized, stepped aside, quickly transferred money over, and handed them the card back to charge the remaining forty-six cents. Instead they charged me an additional THIRTY DOLLARS and 46 cents. I emailed the restaurant manager, no response. I emailed the owner Jeff Varasano, no response. I finally disputed the OBVIOUS double charge since they charged my card TWICE in one day and they responded to my bank that the charge was legitimate.

As if it isn't offensive enough to pay thirty dollars for a 12 inch over-cooked pizza with minimal toppings (that I had to ask to have the arugula they charged me $4 extra for put on because they "forgot" it), they literally stole thirty additional dollars from me and refuse to reverse it.

I invite you to check my review history. It takes an ENORMOUS amount for me to leave a negative review, I get excited about properly cooked french fries.

Stealing from customers is a guaranteed way to get me to do it though.

Thirty dollars is actually a lot to me. This trip was a big deal that I saved up for for months. I hope the employee who stole the hour and a half's worth of wages from me at least needed it more than I do.

Check your receipts, and never ever believe them if they say they need to run your card a second time.

And the pizza is wildly overrated. Dry, burnt across one side but magically somehow entirely raw in the middle, mingy amounts of toppings.

Avoid...

Airport food is normally "airport food"...bland, fast-food, that "fills a hole" and costs way too much. We (wife and I) had a 2 hour lay-over at the Atlanta International Airport, around dinner time. Wife was caving pizza so we tried Varasano's. I forget the name of the pizza we got, but it was originally with arugula, capacola, olives, garlic, and just olive oil. I'm a pepperoni freak and and the wife let me swap out the capacola for pepperoni. It was truly amazing! One of the best pizzas I've ever had. I can't speak for the other styles of pizza they have there but this one is truly a winner.

I do have one thing for us all to think about though. When I went back up to the counter for soda refills I asked the person behind the counter why the pizza cutters were cabled to the counter (there were two cutters and they were tied to the counter with 1/4" aircraft cable). She said it was TSA regulations. I guess to stop would-be terrorists from slicing up patrons??? Anyway, while I was getting my refill one of the workers accidentally dropped a pizza cutter to the floor. How do they wash the cutter? Did they wash the cutter? I'm just asking. Even with this questionable hygiene issue I'd still eat...