Dogtown Roadhouse — Restaurant in Floyd

This place has kind of a weird vibe going on. Went on a lazy Sunday on the way back from checking out Winterfest.

Had a margherita pizza and Bavarian pretzel. Pretzel was great, definitely consider the apple butter.

The pizza was mixed; there were some really interesting options but I generally order a margherita or cheese to see how things are with the crust and ingredients. The crust had a great char that I love, but the top was kind of a messy mix of what seemed like low-moisture mozz, fresh mozz and pesto instead of fresh basil. The pesto just kind of killed it; instead of adding a freshness to the bites it added oily garlic that overwhelmed it. I've been at places using lemon or cilantro pesto and a topping or the sauce, but they generally have acid (lemon, etc.) or spice to offset the fattiness and you don't do it to margherita. It really messed it up, either as a way to try to reinvent it or not stress about having fresh basil on hand but a wood-fired oven excels with it.

What really kind of weirded me out was just the bad vibe after talking to a few employees. They had some very cool tshirts for sale up front, but only available in size small until they run out. Apparently something happened between the owner and whatever employee designed them, so they're moving over to a new logo and design which features a stylized dog (not my thing, hard to look more generic and I don't find looking at dogs to be appetizing).

Ok I guess, and while the service was great but both employees we talked to basically gave the vibe that they were kind of afraid of the owner both saying things like "I want to be careful about what I say to protect my job" and one even did the look-around to make sure they weren't overheard. We all know those kinds of places with an undercurrent of fear, so its kind of really put me off.

If you're a pizza nerd jonesing for some char on a wood-fired crust you'll get it there, and I'd normally be curious about stopping when they have music or trying some of their specialty pizzas like the one with sausage and apple butter, but that...

Food is great but not worth the terrible service. Hostess waits until a line forms before seating anyone. Don't sit outside unless you want to pick up slack of being the wait staff and wait over an hour just to find out your order was forgotten about and never given to the kitchen. No discount or comp offered to us after waiting so long, just "it will be another 10-15 mins." Won't be back.

Edit: Yes the POS system was down when visiting more recently. However, we arrived before the dinner rush, how is it plenty of people who arrived after us were receiving food and service but us? Waitresses walked by us numerous times tending to others once the dinner rush picked up but we were invisible, no drink refills, nothing. Boyfriend had to go inside to get drink refills. Trash and dishes left at tables for 15-20 minutes before being cleaned - again, WAIT STAFF PASSED BY NUMEROUS TIMES. First time we visited was back in February, service was not much better then either. Was the POS system down then too? Service so terrible we stood at the hostess stand with many waitresses walking by and completely ignoring us, boyfriend had to ask bar tender if anyone would be seating us. Again, did not bother to seat us until a line started to form behind us. There is nothing to rectify other than...

Recently attended a company Christmas party here, and enjoyed an awesome buffet style pizza and salad line (which I think is not their norm but maybe my company asked for it?) .

The service was great. For having a party of a few dozen folks, everything that was ordered by individuals was brought out correctly and promptly.

The pizza was awesome. They had different styles, I'm not going to pretend to know what they were, but one had barbecued chicken and blue cheese, another had jalapeños and banana peppers, and another had sausage and onion and another one I think was a buffalo chicken... Along with classic pepperoni and other types. All that I had were delicious. A couple at my table ordered fried cheese curds too, and it was an impressive basket of curds they brought out. Very satisfying portion, I think. Cooked nicely too! Wings were a little overcooked, but still very good. Caesar and greens salad both were very fresh and the homemade Cesar dressing is great! Overall, we had a great time and I recommend this place for some good pizza, curds, and...