La Roma Pizza — Restaurant in Garner

May 2022: Our dining experience with La Roma was not what we expected.

Let's start with the food. Due to the store's condition (more on that later), my wife and I opted for take-out.

We ordered garlic knots and received 10 rolls of freshly made delicious dough. They were great except for the key ingredient - no wonderful coating of garlic butter. La Roma had sold us Garlic Nots. Tasty, but not what we wanted.

Ok, we also ordered a Philly cheese steak calzone to split. It was filled with plenty of cheese, onions, and green peppers. A third of the calzone had about 2 layers of thinly sliced philly cheese steak. While tasty, not what we were expecting for almost $9.

We bought a second cup of marinara sauce ($0.75) when we saw they gave only a 1-oz serving with our knots. At that point, it became dinner-and-a-show as we watched one of the workers struggle with an industrial-sized can opener mounted on a table that was mounted on wobbly wheels. I didn't catch the sauce brand, but it's red and chunky and tasted like old ketchup. If you're a fan of that flavor, you can have mine.

Inside the store and near the ceiling is a black board with writing about specials. Unfortunately, you can't read them because they are blocked by a towering brick wall with windows and a door - like something built for a school play and dumped near the cash register.

For some reason, the dining area doubles as a storage area. Out of the 7 tables in the store, 3 are covered with pizza boxes, pie stands, and drinks. The counter for utensils and cups is covered with crated drinks, an unused pizza oven, and for that special ambiance - dirt. The Health rating certificate showed 98.5 on April 1st 2022. Apparently, not even the men's room had been cleaned since then by the buildup of pink mold in the sink and toilet.

With the variety of Italian restaurants in the area, I can't recommend La Roma to you. While the garlic "nots" and calzone were ok, I don't think we'll be back any time soon either.

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Sad that some of the best pizza places in town will probably be out of business because of how poorly the owner manages his business. I understand hiring people is a challange, but you can't combine that with lack of processes and not know how to treat your customers and survive. Tried to call in my order for over 30 minutes driving there, but never got anyone to answer the phone. When I mentioned that to the owner taking my order in person when I got there, he said yes we are too busy and can't get anyone who wants to work. As I waited almost forty minutes for them to make the pizza I had to listen to the owner argue with one of the only employees he had back in the kitchen for almost the entire time. Meanwhile a deliver driver (nice guy) who was there picking up some pizzas came to me three different times asking what I was waiting on and I told him same thing every time. Twenty minutes later with me being the only person left waiting in the restaurant, the employee arguing with the owner also asked me what I was waiting on. I told him. Literally, fourty seconds later that the same employee again asked me what I was waiting on. OMG, I am going to lose my marbles! When I explained to the owner how frustrating that was he chose to argue with me like he was arging with his associate. Then in the middle of our conversation he chose to answer the ringing phone for the first time since the forty minutes I had waited plus the 30 minutes trying to drive there. What a lack of disrespect, which with have me going somewhere else for my pizza going forward. Sad that you can screw up good food, with a piss poor owner who apparently just likes to argue. Don't raise your voice to yell at your customers and think you will succeed....

I just got dinner delivered and have been getting delivery from here since they opened. The food is always good but the customer service has really fallen off. I never leave reviews unless things are really good or things are really bad... This is bad. We ordered greek salads and they delivered them with no dressing. So I have to go to grocery store to spend $3 more dollars on something it Should've come with and take 20 minutes(after 50 minute delivery) to go get some. I mean who wants a dry salad? This is the 2nd time our salads have been delivered incomplete. They are In too big a hurry when taking your order to insure they get it correct and could care less about making sure it's complete before being sent out for delivery. We won't be going back. Too many other Italian places in garner with great food and service to match. Then When we call to see if they will deliver us the dressing they ask what do you want us to do about it? Then says he's looking at my order on his screen and we didn't order any dressing. Funny thing is we always get these salads and always ask for greek dressing bc we think it's crazy they have a Greek salad and no greek dressing and always just settle for Italian. So tonight when my wife ordered I specifically heard her say "greek dressing well italian if that's all you have. " so basically our fault our problem. If you want great Italian food and great service skip la roma and check out rudinos or ragazzis right up 70. You won't believe it they even have Greek dressing for your greek salad. ...