Merlins Pizza — Restaurant in Destin

Overpriced, subpar pizza for the "local secret". If you're from out of town, expect to get shuffled to low priority even if you order ahead. Your tourist dollars are not welcome.

If you've had stellar pizza elsewhere, this rates with overcooked, heatlamp hardened DiGiorno when you're expecting Mellow Mushroom quality. The hour long wait in addition for a pick-up order did not improve expectations, especially for a $40 pizza. You're better off with even QT kitchen pizza and will have leftovers and souvenir money.

*Adding my survey response for full transparency: We tried this place on recommendations from others staying at the condo we were in for the week. We made an online order as was suggested, left to go pick it up, and stopped at a CVS to pick up an emergency rx on the way. When we arrived, 14 minutes had passed, so we waited in the lot for at least an additional 10 minutes to allot for the notated 25 minute window. When I went in to pick up our order, I was told it would be another 20-25 minutes. I presumed that meant it had not been started until I showed up at that moment, even though we paid for it ahead of time. In the span of an additional 45 minutes waiting at the pick up area, I made small talk with a number of other patrons, and we watched Numerous other folks come in, make an order at the window, and left with their order in around 10 minutes. A lady who came in off the street said she was a regular, made an order, and was gone also in that time. She also noted she gets a discount for being a regular; all fine and well, it's a nice perk for being a regular. At any rate, our total wait was a few minutes shy of an hour (57 minutes) on the property for a pre-ordered pick up purchase. When we got back to our room, I was expecting this to be a stellar pizza for the price and how much everyone talked about it, but it was just flat average. We regularly dine at our own local pizza places that do excellent Italian, handmade specialties and the such, as well as some chain-type places and the odd QT kitchen/Mellow Mushroom as was noted in the review. This ranked under those for being a purported specialty/non-commercial pizza, and the price did not fit the expected product. It was edible, but nothing special, however, the price and the long wait while watching so many others just show up and get medium to large orders while I and the other 'out of towners' witnessed this repeatedly did not help to set a positive light either. I get it was busy and I didn't detract or hold that against the pizza, but when you get told this big build-up and it doesn't deliver, plus the unreasonable wait time, the review was both honest and...

We visit Destin a few times per year, and Merlin’s is ALWAYS a favorite go-to! We don’t ever visit without making it here for lunch or supper, their pizza is top notch!!!!

When we dine here, we’ve become accustomed to having a relatively long wait time, as their dining room doesn’t seat many people. But, we are always more than willing to wait for good food, so it’s never been a problem.

However, when we dined this evening we were next in line, but we had to wait over 30 minutes for a table, when there were 2 tables empty, they just needed cleaned off. The dining room had two servers, and there was a line out the door waiting to be seated.

When I say two servers, what I really mean is one server doing all the work and the other walking around clueless, but collecting tip money from the tables, as if he had actually earned something. Our server was Ethan, and he KICKED ASS! This kid was working all of the tables, taking orders, refilling the drinks, bringing out food, cleaning up unnecessary messes from disrespectful customers, and getting around to every single table as fast as he could. All while the other fella walked around dazed and confused, making himself appear to look busy. I witnessed customers ask him for boxes, red pepper flakes - very small requests - and he couldn’t even fulfill simple tasks.

Customer service is hard work, especially in the food industry, and good help is hard to find. A quick way to lose it, is to keep around lazy staff that doesn’t pull their weight, but makes the same money as someone giving 110%.

As I stated in the beginning, we love the quality of Merlin’s pizza, and always look forward to enjoying our favorites, but very disappointed with the atmosphere. Ethan was a rockstar server, doing everything he could to serve a dining room full of hungry customers, all on his own! While we recognized his efforts in person, and left a tip, this kid deserves more recognition from his bosses and/or the owners! Give Ethan a raise, and get rid of the other dead weight! He’s hindering your business and very obviously bringing down the morale of others!

Thank you Ethan for serving not only my family, but everyone else who dined in at Merlin’s Pizza tonight. Keep your head up buddy and don’t lose...

Wonderful wonderful wonderful!

We were only here for a couple days but I've been wanting to try Merlins for myself. Better than I expected. We ordered a medium thin crust pepperoni explosion. It reminded me of a thin crust from Pizza Hut back in the 90's when it was good 😂.

We tried the 6 cheese bread and it was great. Piping hot coming from the oven. Loads of cheesy goodness and the marinara to dip it in was perfect.

We also ordered cinnamon sticks to go. The cinnamon sticks were really good but I would say it's quite similar to some other ones. They are really good and I do recommend them if you like cinnamon sticks.

Atmosphere Honestly it's not really my type of place. The front door is revolving. Like not really but it's open a lot. I feel like some people really did grow up in a barn. It's extremely busy at times and reminds me of a college town type of place. Some other customers were extremely rude to the staff. It made me uncomfortable. The seating is a little confusing as you need to sign in. There are signs that say that, but since so many people in America apparently can't read it was difficult for some.

The service Ethan was awesome. Very helpful, nice, very calm in a crazy place and was willing to go out of the way to make everyone in the whole restaurant happy. If you're in the service industry you know how hard that is. Ethan deserves more than a pat on the back. Yall show him some appreciation!

So Merlins as a whole I gotta say it. Merlins really made me think. They are doing great things and honestly I hope they franchise just to get rid of some of the other trashy pizza places that seem to remain in business for so long "cough cough papa j's ain't got nothing...