The Purple Indian — Restaurant in Gilead Township

I want to start off by saying my wife and I try to go to a new city and try a locally owned pizza shop at least once a month. We try to support local businesses first always and we understand how crucial these ratings are for small businesses so please read the review before making your mind up after seeing the rating.

First of all with the good, the pizza came out and it was amazing. They put the cheese on heavy its difficult to pick up the pieces because of how thick the cheese is. The crust was the best part, it was thick pizza but the crust was fairly thin on the ends and a bit burnt it tasted great. Both my wife and I enjoyed our pizzas. Taste is a 9/10. Also prices are very reasonable! Theyre competitive with the major pizza chains.

Now with the not so great, being our first time at purple indian we didnt even know what to do when we walked in. They have the register in front of the open area where the pizzas are made right in front of you and seating off to the side, it was busy and all the locals were walking in going straight up to order carry out and we were left just standing there in the mix of all these people waiting to be seated. Eventually my wife went up and asked if we could take a seat and we were told we have to order then we can go take a seat so we had to wait on quite a few people who came in behind us to order then go sit.

That really wasnt too big of a deal, its a mom n pop shop and things like this arent that abnormal, just wanted to make it known for the first time visitors.

The real issue was this, and what knocked this rating down to 3 stars, maybe deservingly less, is that as i can see all the employees preparing the pizza and making them in the open area i watched as an employee with bare hands put his hands in a dirty trash can where i could clearly see food splattered all over the sides of the trash bag and who knows what else, he put his bare hands down in there and pushed the trash down then IMMEDIATELY grabbed a new container of cheese right next to him dumped it onto the table and begin grabbing the cheese with his bare hands that he just had in that dirty trash can...i then looked around the room and every employee preparing the food NONE had gloves on. But to stick your dirty trash can hands in my cheese that i know is going on my pizza?

Sadly we probably will not go back, its really too bad because it was...

This was our first visit to the Purple Indian. Neither of us live in Mt Gilead so it’s a new experience for us. Very friendly service by all I interacted with. We went with the cauliflower crust bacon chicken Alfredo pizza and it was delicious! It doesn’t have a really noticeable cauli flavor and I wondered for a moment if we got a regular crust but after a few bites I could taste the cauli a bit. The crust had a delightful chewiness but was crisp too. Held the toppings without any flop. This comes with mushrooms and normally I do not care for them at all but they too were delicious! The sauce was not overpoweringly rich but velvety and smooth! They use a good amount of cheese that is full of flavor too! So the pizza for me was a 5!

Restaurant has the option to eat on site but the place is an open kitchen so if you’re wanting a nice restaurant ambiance it’s not gonna happen. It’s loud yes but that’s what I expect from the design. No qualms for me. We got our order to go so we sat and waited at a table. Restroom was clean and for me that’s a plus!

If there was anything we were disappointed in it was that our order was set on top of the oven and kinda forgotten. It was busy so they had 2 prepping crusts and 3 making the pies. When the time we were told it should be ready was up we stood near the register thinking it wouldn’t take long to get our food. Not sure how long it was but eventually we were asked for the name and our pizza was found.

That being said we understand things happen…it was the first game for high school football (our reason for being there) so we figured that may have contributed to it being as busy as it was. We would definitely go back again if...

Breaks my heart to write this. I grew up on PI pizza and it was by far our favorite pizza anywhere. For at least the past year we have had issues with the pizza. Sometimes sauce was watery and not very flavorful. Another time the crust was thick on one side and thin on the other. We just haven't been able to get a good PI pizza like we remembered. Tonight unfortunatly was by the far the worse yet. Our pizza was super thin and had very little sauce on it which made the entire pizza dry and lacking any flavor.. Also, we had a completed card punch for $10 off (Which is a rewards loyality system they have always had) new owner gave us the $10 off but seemed annoyed to do so. Don't keep handing out the cards if you don't want people to redeem them. Have heard so many people complain how the pizza here has changed and I really thought things would get better as the new owner was given more time. Don't believe that is her intentions or she is incapable of doing so. Sadly seems to be an end of an era of Purple...