Santino's Pizza & Grinders — Restaurant in Florida

Santino's seems to appeal to about half of its first-timer customers.  My friends that like it, really like the food.  My friends that don't...don't.  I'm kind of on the fence.

I incessantly  kvetch about the prices of today's fast food joints.  You can't say that I'm wrong.  When a sub at Firehouse and a drink breaks the $10 threshold, we're in the territory of an actual restaurant.  Whataburger's burgers should arrive with gratis dollar bills.  About the only place that has reliably mediocre and predictable cheap food is McDoodles.  And they are struggling, trying to make a profit.

At various outlets of this chain, I've had the pizza and the baked pasta.  Today, at this store, I had the Primo Italian sandwich (see picture).  It was okay.  It wasn't knock-your-socks-off.  There was nothing exemplary about it, it was just a $7 sandwich that I had to order at a counter.  The fact that they deliver your food to your table is scant recompense, relative to being seated in a real eatery.

Bottles of beer are $2.25, which are cheaper than the 32-oz. soft drinks.  If you only drink one large Coke, of course.  There are no refills on beer.  With the parabolic increase in the prices of Cokes, I'm about to embark on a water-only crusade.

The store was clean, the people were nice, the food fed me.  It was okay.  I wouldn't tag it with five stars, ever.  And I'd never append multiple exclamation marks to any remark about the place....

Ordered a buffalo chicken grinder. On the menu, it says it has chicken breast, buffalo sauce, ranch dressing, tomatoes, lettuce, onion, and cheese. There was no ranch dressing and it had bacon on it. I went to the counter and asked if I could have a small cup of ranch bc my grinder didn't have any on it. He asked my name and looked it up on the computer and told me it would be 38 cents. I said the ranch wasn't on my sandwich. He then came around the counter and I had to point to the grinder I ordered. Another female worker very rudely said the ranch is mixed in. After I was done eating I took the rest of my sandwich to the counter and asked if I could have a togo box and proceeded to show the girl there was no ranch. A different guy chimed in and said the chicken is cooked in the ranch. All they had to do was squirt some ranch on my sandwich but instead the workers wanted to argue with me and make me pay for something that was clearly not on my sandwich. If the ranch is cooked with the chicken then don't advertise that it comes with ranch dressing. Also, my grinder was very dry. Will not return...

There was a younger lady at the register that seemed to be a little new. I ordered my meal and a beer. She was obviously too young to sell the beverage so she went to the older lady to let her know. The lady came over handled the beer ..I guess since the young girl didn't know... she came back next to the older lady I guess to finish the transaction... The older lady in front of us scolded the young girl with a rude tone " umm your gonna have to move, you can't sell this ! "And rolled her eyes... the young girl walked away quickly seemingly to be embarrassed. As the older lady rang us up gave us the total ..as he was getting money out of the wallet my husband dropped a 20 dollar bill... The lady started clapping her hands together as if she was rushing us. It just seemed like she was in a rush and got upset it was taking too long to get the money together . Didn't seem like she enjoyed her job and I really felt bad for the young girl after the lady...