Spitony's Pizza — Restaurant in Gainesville

My son and I visited Spitony’s in November 2020. This review may show as “new” because I recently edited it to tighten it up a bit.

The day we ate there, I contacted Spitony’s via Facebook Messenger, as follows:

"Good evening. My son and I had a pleasant lunch with you today. However, I want to ask you about something that was served to me. I ordered the chicken salad plate. The receipt showed a slightly higher charge for a garden salad with chicken, but since either one sounded fine, I wasn’t concerned. Chicken salad was what arrived. The first bite I took left my lips covered with something oily. I tried two more tiny bites and could not continue to eat it. It appeared to have been made of nearly puréed chicken mixed with something very oily. I was not able to detect any mayonnaise--maybe it was made with mayonnaise from which the oil had separated. Whatever the case, there was a visible sheen of oil all over and throughout the chicken salad. It wasn't good. Can you please check on this and find out what happened? We'd like to have meals with you again, but I would also like to have a better experience next time."

Local businesses are having a hard enough time. I wish to support them whenever possible.

I talked with the Spitony's folks on the way out. "Was my chicken salad made with oil?" "I don't know." Nice lady turns to pizza-maker. "Did you make the chicken salad with oil?" "Nah." Whatever it was, I will not put that substance in my body ever again. I don't feel good about the roughly 1-1/2 teaspoons that I did ingest. If the staff had at least expressed concern, I would have welcomed that. No refund offered (nor requested--I wanted my son to have a good experience, and he would have blamed himself if he'd realized that they served me something awful), and I tipped generously.

I received no response, either to the initial message or to a followup inquiry two days later. Both showed as having been read. I don't see why Spitony’s couldn't at least have said, "We're looking into it." The experience was, shall we say, memorable.

As for my son, he ordered a lunch special of two slices of pizza with a soda. His slices were not even up to frozen-pizza quality or size. They looked NOTHING like the gorgeous pizza photos on Spitony’s Facebook page.

I understand that it takes a while to learn what to order from any given restaurant. While my son was eating lousy skimpy pizza with only a zig-zag of cheese across it, we were watching the same guy who made my cat-food chicken salad as he tossed a pizza crust with astonishing expertise.

I also think it's worth a lot to support local businesses. That's a little tricky when they make it outright difficult. If somebody had told me what I told Spitony's about food that was served to a patron, I would have been horrified, to say the least. I really did not get any feeling or concern from them when I talked with them in person, and I have had no response to the private message...

We happened on this quaint little restaurant on our way to the 7-11 right next door. We were getting change and saw this restaurant. We had something to do 1st and thought, it's late, we'll come back and get something to eat from here. We did and man we were glad. The pizza tasted like authentic Italian pizza. My 3 yr old grandson loved it! I requested that they get the baby's pizza 1st and get it done ASAP so he could eat ... little one's have no concept of time and they want to eat now. The guys behind the counter were awesome ... they got right on it and by the time we ordered the rest of our food, and got ourselves situated in the booth ... the individual pizza for my grandson was ready! Our pizza, fries and subs were minutes behind that ... very impressed with the food, quantity, quality and service! We will definitely be comin back and telling our friends. It's a little out of our way, since we live in Manassas, but it's well worth the trip! Thank you Spitony family for ending our day with a pleasant experience and wonderfully tasty food. ...

Let me start off this review by saying I grew up in walking distance to the New York State line in northeastern Pennsylvania. Pizza is way of life in the tri-state area. Since moving to Virginia in 2009, I have never found a real, true, New York style pizza place that truly understood how to make real honest to God New York style pizza.

I tried Spitony’s for the first time today, and can honestly say this is the closest if not spot on New York style pizza I have had in Virginia. The crust is perfectly thin and crisp, the sauce has none of that weird Virginia sugar taste that other places seem to have, the pizza flops and folds perfectly the way you would expect, and the flavor is just amazing. If you want real true, authentic, New York style pizza in Virginia this is the place to get it. My only regret is that I didn’t try this place sooner, because I’ve been Ive been missing out on the best pizza in Virginia for the...