The Brick Oven — Restaurant in Foley

I have been to this business probably a few dozen or more times since they opened. While they do have some excellent food including a variety of specialty Pizza, Wings, salads, different breads a couple of dips, I do have some serious concerns that makes me question if I wish to return. I've included here some of those things I've witnessed. I hadn't realized that 2 people I thought were just employees that were fighting frequently with each other are actually the owner and general manager. And this would happen in full view of dining guests. Nor did I realize that the children I see on occasion running riot while in there were their children until I observed them screaming at them. The lack of gloves, and/or hairnets baffle me especially during this pandemic. Especially behind the line preparing food. For example the middle aged man with unruly blonde hair who usually has a baseball cap on. Which if it was used to secure his hair back wouldn't be a big issue. Fully bearded guy making pizza also no hair covering. And 3/4 of the time no gloves. There have been times that I felt there was more time spent playing, joking around, eating (near the oven) and even throwing little bits of food at each other then taking care of orders. This could explain the 1 to 2 hour delay time in getting food out to guests. Cashier isn't very friendly and looks most of the time like she rolled out of bed to come stand there. Lack of attention to waiting guests at counter is never a good thing. Personal appearance/hygiene is noticed by all those that enter. Busboy clears a few tables, never sanitizes them and goes to join the 'party' near the oven. Leaving the lone server to not only wait on guests, bring their meals, answer phone calls, assist cashier with pick up orders, cash out guests but to clear tables for other guests to dine in. Stephanie is always pleasant. She has a sparkling personality and no matter what is going on behind the counter, she makes us feel important. She will go out of her way to make things right if a order comes out missing something. She is what we call in the business world a great asset to her employers. Pray you never lose her dedication to her job because she is a wonderful employee. I don't understand why the owner and general manager don't run a more cohesive and sanitary business to not only please their customers and make them comfortable but to turn a good profit. I had to star your business to put a review. The star is for food choices. 5 plus stars...

We came for dine-in during dinner last week. Less than half the tables had customers, but from the time we ordered to the time we received our food was well over 45 minutes. While the server was apologetic when our food did arrive, they never communicated at any point during the wait how much longer it would be, nor made us feel like we were not forgotten about. Deliveries/take out seems to take priority...we watched our pizza sit on the counter for about 10 minutes while they were dealing with a backlog of phone orders/takeout customers.

The three of us each ordered personal 10" pizzas so we could share with each other. I will say for the most part the pizza is pretty good, notably the crust on all the pizza is incredibly tasty. The Pompeian was by far the favorite. The Margherita and Meatza was pretty aligned with expectations. The one complaint about pizza I do have is the toppings were very minimal and there was too much crust. For $15 for a personal pizza, I would have expected more toppings. There was a probably 1.5" of crust on all three pizzas, which on a 10" pie, really reduces how many toppings there really are in total. Looking at other photos here, this does not seem to be the usual case, so maybe we just came on a bad night.

There's potential here. I believe this restaurant switched owners a couple years ago, so a lot of the older positive reviews were inherited. We never visited previously, so this is a first impression. It appears to be family owned and the pizza is actually pretty good tasting. I hope our experience was just a...

Update: the owner reached out and has taken steps to ensure this won't happen again. Tried the meatballs again and they were much better.

I'll begin by saying we ordered takeout again to give the pizza another try (the crust on our pizza about 2 months ago was so badly burned we had to scrape off the toppings and just eat that.)

The pizza this time (3 days ago) was okay. Only a slight char on the bottom which is how brick oven pizza should be.

The meatballs however were so very...tough isn't even the appropriate word...HARD. Nearly ROCK HARD! I took a video of myself trying to stab them with a fork. Wish I could post it here. Quite comical. After literally sawing through one with a steak knife, the interior was nearly bone dry. Tried to chew the inside and the taste was good, but was full of gristle. It was inedible. Shame because the marinara was tasty. Really would like to give them another try since they are gluten free. Seems there should be some quality control. They were black, very evident that they were WELL overdone. I suppose as in your response to another negative review, that I could check the items before leaving, but while that works for ensuring you're getting the correct order, not so sure it's feasible to taste the food before bringing it home. Nor should it be necessary. And also as stated in another negative review, it's too far away to have brought it back. Sorry for the negative review! I know how tough it is to run a restaurant in these times. I usually like to give very...