Arte Pizza — Restaurant in Fernandina Beach

I’m sorry but I cannot provide a good review. My family and I have been eating at Arte’s for nearly 20 years when the original owner started in a tent with floor air conditioners. It didn’t matter because the service was authentic and original white shirt with sometime a bow tie, yes just for pizza. It was wonderful. This past Saturday 12/10/22, my wife and walk as we have for almost 20 years and look forward to a great traditional Arte’s meal. To begin with, the service started out rocky. My wife began to frown because. The restaurant was a little busy but I have seen busier there. We both noticed that the server dress code had decreased significantly, no white shirts of course but had gone to the point of wearing what ever was on the top of the dresser when they woke up along with Crocks and Socks. Gross right, for a dining experience. Well the evening declined from their. We ordered Arte’s old original bread and Italian dressing thinking it was going to be like the old days. Nope, it came out cold and un-toasted. The appetizer arrived about 10 minutes after the bread. Then we waited and waited and waited. Well, I inquired as to what was going on and the server said that one of the other servers gave our pizza to another table. Strangely, I thought, why did another table accept out Meat Lovers pizza if it wasn’t what they ordered? Don’t know. The server finally acknowledged that our pie disappeared and ours was coming out very quickly. So we waited. He brought to our table a pepperoni pizza not a meat lovers pizza and somehow expected us to gladly accept it. In hindsight, I should have hearing that the table immediately to the right of us was brought the wrong pizza as well. Obviously they were hungry. I was hungry too but by now it’s about getting it right. So another 10 minutes rolls around and no pizza. My wife says let’s go, so we did, but oh no, the server caught us and tried to get us to take it in a carry out box. Things got a little ugly at that point with my wife paying for the bill of what we owed and one of the servers giving away our meat lovers pizza to once again a table that did not order it. What a shame to such a long tradition of excellence from when Arte started this quaint little Italian Restaurant for Fernandina. Maybe you guys will give some respect to service and tradition one day forward. For now, there are other options on the island to try to fill that tradition from crossing the bridge and not slowing down until we have satisfied our...

So I ate dinner here one night and it was pretty good food. I ordered a 10" four topping pizza and a side of meatballs. The meatballs were decent, very 'meaty' and dense, not as light as most places. They weren't all that flavorful, and the marinara sauce was kind of a ketchup consistency, though tasty.

I still can't make up my mind on the pizza. It was a brick oven pizza, with a very unique style. The base was extremely well done --almost burnt like and charcoal tasting in some areas. Now, they do claim their pizza are 'well done and done right', so perhaps that's their thing. Though again, still not sure if I liked it. Aside from that, the remainder of the pie was delicious, in fact, I managed to bury the whole thing to myself.

The restaurant isn't all that inside, though a beautiful building from outside. There is plenty of seating inside and a nice patio area outside with a good amount of tables. Easy parking on the street up front and around the building, and easy to get to being out the outskirt of the main drag.

The service was pretty blah. It kind of reminded me if the pizza joint in the movie Goodfellas where all the Italian guys are just hanging around the store being gangsters. This was a similar experience in that there were 8 or 9 workers 'hanging around' yet none of them were doing any work while drinks sat empty. And, none of which were gangsters or Italian for that matter.

It may sound like a whiny complaining review, but it really isn't, just describing an experience. I did enjoy the food, and though the service wasn't fantastic, it wasn't the worst I've experienced. If in town, though, I likely...

My family decided to give this place a try since moving back up to St. Marys, GA. It was a bit of a drive but the reviews have been excellent. My wife and one of my kids have been diagnosed with celiac disease and noticed that it had excellent reviews on FIND ME GLUTEN FREE. That was a mistake. Let me start out by saying that when we showed up there was only 3 groups in the restaurant including us. We initially sat down and waited for about 10 mins for the waiter to even come up and take our drink order. Once he returned to the table we ordered our food. Mind you it was only 3 groups in the restaurant. So we ordered our food and waited an hr and still haven't received our food. Our waiter only returned once during that time to refill our drinks. We had ordered the Aloha pizza on regular crust, a Rustica on cauliflower crust and Aloha on the Gluten Free Crust. Once we finally asked about our food, they finally decided it was time to make it. Two groups that came in after us got their food about 30 mins before us. After we asked it was approximately 15 mins for the pizzas to come out. The pizza's did not come out fully cooked. The GF Crust was mush, the cauliflower crust was still gooey, and the regular crust still had more time that it needed to cook in the center. The waiter did end up comping the two GF pizzas but this was the worst experience ever at a restaurant. Both the wife and kid have been sick from eating here. If you are Gluten Free it is highly recommended that you steer clear of this place regardless of what FIND ME GLUTEN FREE...