Big O Pizza and Booze — Restaurant in Grand Rapids

First and foremost, though I don't eat here often I have never had an experience like tonight.

This was a rather large ($125) delivery order to myself and some coworkers. Other than the fact that we're only 1 turn and a 4 minute walk away the delivery person got lost and had to call for directions so by the time the food got here it was pretty cold.

Only 1 meal was acceptable, the rest, including the pizza were not up to par and definitely not what we've had in the past from here.

Meal One: Portabello Stuffed Ravioli -though it tasted alright (not amazing) as you can see in the picture it was only 5 pieces of ravioli, no bigger than any other (upscale included) Italian restaurant I've ever been to; yet they charged $15. $3 per piece of ravioli. I measured the dish so you can see it is served in a small dish and not a ton of food it was the smallest and lightest (weight) meal that came tonight, yet most expensive. Ridiculous.

Meal Two: As described on their website -Chicken Ala Parmigiana -Lightly breaded chicken breast baked & smothered in marinara sauce then topped with mozzarella and served over spaghetti. * Well, if you look at the picture clearly their definition of "smothered" and our definition are very different as there was almost no marinara sauce on this dish. Would love to say the taste was fantastic in spite of, but alas I cannot.

The garlic bread that came with these meals was very hard and partially burnt, I didn't even eat mine because biting into it was too difficult.

The pizza, oh my. Though one coworker says the crust was the way a thin crust would be in Italy I do not know and felt that it was burnt, even curled up in some spots, with not near enough cheese, which was almost see through on the one pizza and the Chicken Cesar pizza literally looked like a burnt, baked crust with a Cesar salad thrown on top of it, not exaggerating at all! Wish I had taken a photo of that one, it was kind of comical.

One coworker had the Chicken Ala Gina and said it was great, so at least one of us had a...

ALYSSA IS A SUPERSTAR! We were looking for a bite to eat after visiting the museum, and Big O Pizza was recommended. So like any overly connected nerd, I started reading reviews to validate our lunch selection. Well let me tell you, there is a review over on Trip Advisor about a lady who was charged too much for pickles, and she is HOPPIN' MAD! I read this review out to my family as we walked to Big Os and we were keen to see just how terrible Alissa could be. She sounded like a terrible, uncaring person. How could this be?!

The place wasn't busy, and is a very relaxed joint. We sat down and our waitress approached, she asked what we wanted to drink, but first, I HAD to know. "ARE YOU ALYSSA"? She confirmed and looked uncertain, but we quickly explained that there was a review that described just how awful her customer service was, and we had to see for ourselves. Of course she laughed (we all did). She of course felt badly about the review, and obviously saw things differently, but what are ya gonna do, right? Move on. So a quick review on the food...

Pizza got high ratings in the reviews I read, and although we didn't get pizza, we did order cheese breadsticks which came with marinara sauce, and I could tell that these would be the makings of a great pizza. The sauce was sweet and the bread very good. I saw others ordering pizzas so that's probably a good bet if you can get the whole family to agree on one item. I had the chicken dumpling soup, which was good (not great, but good). We also ordered a toasted sandwich with ham/turkey (awesome!), and meatball sandwich (grrrreat!). We saved room for dessert, so all split the Big O brownie sundae. Can't go wrong with that.

For the record, Alyssa did not scream at us once during the entire meal. She didn't throw forks at us, or overcharge for pickles. She actually was very polite and did an outstanding job. Big O's an easy recommendation to give, and Alyssa just makes it...

Big O's was a place I ate at when I was student at a nearby college. My friends introduced me to the place and I hadn't been back in years (8+) but always remembered their amazing calzone after all this time. Recently I was back and it tasted even better than I remember!

Their marinara sauce is out of this world (scrape to the bottom good) and the tomatoes and garlic tasted so fresh and fragrant. If you get their calzone, I highly recommend you try Italian sausage as one of the meats. It has SO MUCH FLAVOR and doesn't quite taste like any other sausage I've had before.

The calzones are really loaded, you could probably get two meals out of one. I got mine with Italian sausage, pepperoni and tomatoes. I thought the tomatoes might make it soggy (I just needed a least one veg in there) but it was not soggy at all (guessing mine was cut open at the top to prevent this?). The calzone was perfectly crisp yet soft on the outside and the cheese oozing on the inside. I'm salivating just thinking about eating this again. The garlic knots appetizer was also tasty and the garlic magic oil they put on everything is also really good.

I hadn't tried their pizza, but if their calzone is anything to go off of, I'm sure I'll be happy with either.

Last came here on a Friday and they had room for us that evening. Tables are spaced apart comfortably. Cool spot. Looking forward to...