Pomodoro Pizza & More — Restaurant in Florida

Being form northern NJ myself, I am always searching for a taste of home in Florida. My standard is East Coast Pizza in Riverview, it is a mile from home and they make great everything.

After seeing a commercial for this place on TV a few dozen times I finally gave into the lure of a true northern NJ style pizza. After catching a movie at the Brandon AMC, I ordered a large sausage pizza and a chicken parmigiana as take out from Pomodoro. As an added bonus, Sunday's special is a half priced entrée with a pizza order. These are the two items I use to determine if I will visit again. Without a doubt, I will visit Pomodoro again.

The pizza: Everything was great about this pizza. The combination of ingredients was perfect. The outer crust was cooked perfect. If I had to find some faults in the pizza, I wish the large pie was 18" instead of 16". My wife said the crust was a little too thick, but I don't agree with her.

The chicken parmigiana: It's a complete entrée. It is served with a salad and bread. The salad was fresh. We wished the bread was garlic bread, but it was just bread (however, still good). The chicken parmigiana is on bed of spaghetti and came an ample amount of sauce. My wife really liked that they were heavy on the sauce without having to ask for it. The chicken was excellent. The spaghetti may have been an little undercooked, but I am not sure anymore since my wife always overcooks hers.

The rundown: Pomodoro and East Coast Pizza are equals when it comes to pizza. They taste a little different, but both are excellent. I am torn between the two chicken parmigiana. I think Pomodoro's chicken parmigiana is better, but East Coast's spaghetti is better (and gives an option for penne instead). Pomodoro is $2 less expensive, but East Coast's portion is a little bigger. East Coast also gives garlic bread instead of plain bread.

In my case, East Coast will remain my regular pizza since it is so close to home. Pomodoro will be a special treat when I go to the movies. I am already anxious to try a personal 10" pizza, the cheese steak and...

I was really disappointed with the customer service at this place. I placed my order 45 minutes before arriving, yet when I showed up, I had to wait an additional 20 minutes. I understand they were busy, but what really upset me was seeing Carlos, the person making the pizzas, also answering the phone and taking new orders. Not only is this unsanitary, but it’s also frustrating when there’s already a significant backlog of orders—especially when people are waiting at the counter for the same reason.

Carlos was clearly overwhelmed, and it seemed like the priority was just getting more orders rather than fulfilling the existing ones. I even saw an order for three large pizzas being returned because they were supposed to be pepperoni, but they were made with plain cheese instead. Instead of remaking the pizzas, Carlos just placed cold pepperoni on top and handed them back to the customer without even reheating them. The customer was clearly shocked, and Carlos didn’t seem to care at all. On top of that, I specifically asked for my pizza to be crispy on the bottom, but as you can see from the pictures, it was far from what I had requested.

It felt like the focus here wasn’t on quality or customer service, but simply on taking more orders to make money. The whole experience left a bad taste, and it’s unlikely I’ll be...

This rating has absolutely nothing to do with the food, just the long wait time and lack of communication regarding my recent order. I ordered around 6:45 PM for one pizza, wings, a salad, one cheesesteak, and mozzarella sticks. My order was estimated to be ready between 7:32 and 7:52 PM; I got to the restaurant a little before 8 PM and was told it would be another 20-25 minutes before it'd be ready. I waited in my car for 20 minutes and came back over; I was told then it'd just be another 10 minutes. About another half hour later (so total time waiting at the restaurant was an hour) I asked again about my order and was given it. There was no explanation on why I had the long wait, nor did anyone come over to let me know the status after I was told twice the order would be ready soon.

We have ordered from here before and the food is excellent. I get that it was a busy Friday as well, but I came to the restaurant at the higher end of the estimated ready time only to wait another full hour before my food was done. I also watched quite a few other customers come and leave with their orders in a just 10-15 minutes while I was sat waiting for mine. We will most likely be back, but probably on a weekday when it's hopefully less busy and not...