Goodfella's Pizza, Pasta & Subs — Restaurant in Fort Pierce

This is my favorite pizza place. Best pizza in the area, hands down. BUT! I ordered an "Everything Pizza" today. Now, despite the name, this pizza doesn't come with literally every topping; it only has eight toppings (four meat and four veggies). I guess that's forgivable even if it isn't entirely understandable as most places would just call this a "Supreme" pizza. Ok, so there's some false advertising. But that's not really my gripe here. I can read a menu, so I knew what I was ordering. But this is where I have a problem: I asked to replace two of the meat toppings on the pizza with two veggie toppings that didn't come on it. Now I'm not talking about those crazy gourmet toppings that cost more than a normal topping a lot of the time, like garlic-encrusted, sun-ripened, hydroponically grown squash zucchini in a red wine reduction sauce, sprinkled with the tears of angels. I just wanted to replace them with jalapenos and pineapples. No big deal, right? WRONG! Apparently I am not allowed to substitute toppings on the "Everything Pizza". As if it isn't bad enough that it isn't actually an "Everything" pizza, I'm not even allowed to customize it to replace one topping with another. And why not? Does it actually cost more to substitute these toppings? No. Is the pizza premade? No. Does it take an exorbitant amount of time to write or type, "-bacon, -ham, +pineapple, +jalapenos?" Not unless you have severe arthritis or carpal tunnel syndrome. Is it too complicated for the cook to cater to such a simple request? I highly doubt it. So why? Why can't I simply substitute ham and bacon for pineapple and jalapenos. I have a feeling that the answer I would get is some kind of hypothetical, hyperbolic scenario where every customer orders a menu item but wants to substitute one topping or sauce or condiment with another menu item of equal or lesser value and this causes so much chaos and confusion in the kitchen that no order comes out right and every single order has to be remade, costing the restaurant so much money that it goes out of business the following day. Well anyone who has ever worked in a kitchen knows that such a scenario is complete malarchy. The much more likely truth is that someone, somewhere in the chain of command at Goodfellas Pizza, is simply too lazy to be bothered with such menial tasks as common courtesy and customer service. Maybe they never noticed that the root word of customer is custom. Like customize. Which is what I want to do to my pizza, but without paying more money for it since it doesn't cost more money to do. But aside from that, great food and great place! So my rating is 3 stars. 5 stars for great food and fast service minus one star for each topping I was not allowed to substitute...

We had dined at this small spot once previously and enjoyed our food. Although there is no atmosphere and little seating, we thought the food was tasty and the prices very good for the area.

With that in mind, we took a couple who were staying with us to the restaurant on Monday evening, February 11, for dinner. Upon entering, everyone in the party was immediately taken aback by the inside temperature. The air conditioning was blasting with full force and the place had an arctic chill. There was nobody else dining in at the time.

We were going to ask an employee if the temperature could be adjusted a bit, but there was one problem -- nobody would even look at us. There was a female employee at the front on the phone when we walked in, but she finished the conversation and promptly disappeared. There were several other employees moving back and forth in the process of their duties, but nobody would even look at us. We stood there for five minutes, but it was as if we were completely invisible. We finally looked at each other, shook our heads, and walked out, driving to Lorenzo's instead.

I don't know if the staff are so unaccustomed to having walk-in customers that they have no clue what to do with patrons. It is almost as if you have to call in by telephone to communicate with them. Perhaps all this is a reason why the place was empty.

I write this for the sole purpose of notifying the owner of this establishment of what is transpiring. I assume it is a franchise that is locally owned. If so, I think it would behoove the owner to speak with his staff and to periodically send people he knows in during evening hours to see how his staff responds. And as to the inside temperature ... no retiree in the area will want to sit in those icy conditions.

Of course, the problem is that once someone has a bad experience with a restaurant, he will not return. There are probably quite a number of folks that this place has lost in the past due to issues that could and should be...

Today, august 27, 2021, at 10:45 am, I place a take out order for a pepperoni and mushroom pizza. I was told it should be 45 minutes until delivered. I waited, and I waited, and, waited some more. Thought maybe it was running late due to the rain that was falling. But, by 12:11 I still had not received my order so I called to see what had happened. The woman who answered proceeded to tell me, after I explained that I called at 10:45am to order, and was expected to have my order by 11:30, that they only open at 11....I know for a fact, that they are open at 10am, as I have been in there to eat shortly after that time many times in the past. She said "OH" when I explained I hadn't received the pizza, and told me it was on its way now. As if they forgot to send it out. The pizza shop is less than 10 minutes from where I stay, and I waited 30 more minutes to recieve a cold, soggy pizza. I thought since I had to wait 30 more minutes, they would have made a fresh one. Once it arrived, now 2 hours since I had ordered it, I refused it, because again, it was cold, and soggy, and tried to explain to the driver how upset I was, and she told me she was only the driver, nothing she could do. She said it's raining, and they were slammed with orders, and walked away.

We used to pop on there a few times a week for a slice, but have noticed over the last few weeks that the pizza hasn't been the same quality. Pizzas look like they sit in the front all day, not fresh. Crusts have been soggy, or dried out and curled...