LOVE PIZZA — Restaurant in Golden Valley

Ordered the IYKYK Pizza and the MBR Meatball Hot Hero. Meatball Hot Hero was very good. The IYKYK Pizza was a little too oily due to the overbearing portion of garlic butter and the aged salami sweating it's own oils into the mix. The salami is unable to stay on the pizza when lifting a slice and can't bond to the pizza because of the lipid bilayer of oils on the pizza; it's more than less like eating buttered garlic bread along with pan fried salami. Salty, leaving the palate saturated with thirst. The 16" pizza didn't justify the $26 price. The saltiness didn't stop with the pizza for me though. Shortly, after ordering my food I had noticed a small sign on the table which I turned around to read. The sign explained how the establishment believed in paying a living wage to it's service members and therefore would automatically add a service charge of 20% on behalf of your gratuity. Now, I'm fine with tipping and I believe in doing so very well when service is rendered. The service was not fine with a salty, oily pizza. I had one glass of water initially given to me when I sat down to eat. No one offered any service to fill my glass. This is where tipping comes from, service. Today, restaurants are tacking on a service/gratuity charge and using the guise to say it's helping to pay a living wage to further line their pockets while lowering their standards of service. I spent over $50 on food for one at premium prices and nobody bothered to come by and fill my glass. The sandwich was phenomenal! Don't get me wrong. But, your insulting people charging them an additional 20% on premium priced food in the name of your employees assumed good service along with assuming all the food was exceptional and then further asking them if they would like to pay another gratuity charge on top of the service charge. Your robbing your customers; especially, when you corner them into the additional unjustified service charge and then take cards only and no cash. Your feeding off of customer's generosity when you could just include the service charge in the price of the food. Walk around with an ice cold pitcher of water and fill people's glasses. Quit robbing people! Your...

Updated review: Gave this place a second chance - it seems they fixed most of my original concerns. Prices have come down (they also reduced the online service fee to 99 cents), you can now order ahead, and on our visit we were able to get one of the penny drinks. The pizza was fresh and good (not badly burnt, either!). Only criticism was that the drinks were small (guessing the beer was ~4-6 oz), but for a penny it's hard to complain about that, plus the beer on tap was unique and tasty.

Original review (2*): The pizza was good for the most part - cheese was fresh, sauce was good but the crust was very charred, even for coal-fired. Roughly a third of our pizza had the majority of it blackened on the bottom which took away from the taste for those few slices.

The ordering process is very odd (I think this is due to them being so new) - you can't place an order over the phone right now, as they direct you to their website. But then on the website, you can only place an order when the location is actually physically open (opposed to pre-ordering) and it's then a bit of a rush as everyone else places their order at the same time when they open. And then on top of that, they add an extra arbitrary 12% online as "Service Charges" without explaining what it is.

To expand more on the cost, this place is not cheap. My wife and I split a large cheese pizza (no toppings), and with a 15% off coupon mailed to us it still came to $21.34 for take-out. While we kept it simple to try, each additional topping ranges from $3-$5 on the large, and gluten-free crust is another $4.50. This could add up very quickly, not to mention the "service charge" that inexplicably gets added to your order, even for takeout.

I was excited to try this place as I drive past it frequently and always want to support local businesses, but I'm not sure if I'll be returning with cost as the main factor. I can see the pizza being better than a typical restaurant (assuming the crust isn't burnt), but I question whether the premium...

• I'm updating my review because apparently this place is owned by an awesome business person who takes the time to listen to the feedback his customers are giving him. Marc, huge props for dropping the auto gratuity, I think that's a great move. Whatever the price is on the menu is what you should pay, and then if there's service involved (in which picking it up there is not) then people can decide to add gratuity based on how good of service they felt they received. I will repeat that the pizza we had was very delicious and I think I'm definitely coming back to try another one some time.

I'm slightly confused by the current pricing. The menu on the website says the Read the Room pizza is $36, which is eye popping (and two dollars more than when the pick up fee was a thing), but if I go to place an order on the website it says it's only $28, which is way more reasonable. Probably whichever of those is accurate would determine whether this is a 5 star place or a 4...ish. Regardless, Marc I'm still just amazed that you responded to my feedback and I wish you success.**

If you've ever wanted to know what a $40 pizza tastes like here's your chance. I have two positive things to say about this place and two negative.

First, the pizza is pretty good. I very much enjoyed it. Second, the "service" was good, and by that I mean the gal working the register was very friendly.

Two negatives. One I already mentioned. A 16" thin crust pizza is $32, which is incredibly expensive. But how does that become $40 you ask? Well completely without your knowledge they charge you a 12% take out fee. Seriously? This has got to be the biggest scam out there these days. If I sit down at a restaurant and receive actual service I'm more than happy to have a service fee on the bill. But for take out? On an already extremely expensive pizza which should be more than enough to pay your employees well? Yeah probably not going to return. Please...