Pizza Republica — Restaurant in Greenwood Village

We've gone to this Pizza Republica location many times over the years and always had a good experience....meaning the food was great, the service was very good, and we had our order taken and received our food in a very fast amount of time. However, this last time (Saturday, April 20, 2024) the experience was lacking, and we just wanted to point this out so that it does not continue, so that this business will hopefully continue to thrive.

It took a while to have a waitress come by (and to check on things after food would arrive), although she was very friendly. But the real issue this visit was that it took a VERY long time to get any of our food (appetizer, salad, and main entree). It was close to 15 minutes before just getting the meatball, which we know is already made and just gets scooped into a bowl (VERY yummy, btw, every time, and it was this time too). We finally received our salad, but with our entree (pizza). To be fair and honest, the food was still very tasty and hot, so no complaints there!

Since we have been there many times, we noticed that it looked as if the entire kitchen staff had changed. Normally we would see kitchen staff moving constantly, cooking and turning out food super fast. This time, the young (yes, much younger than we've always seen, among other differences) staff moved very slowly, talking to each other often in the process, it appeared. At one point we saw our waitress behind the bar, cutting pizzas, but doing so without gloves, holding the pizza with one hand, and using the pizza cutter with the other. She had not washed hands beforehand, and she, being a waitress, touched dirty dishes, credit cards, etc. prior. It looked like they had maybe only 2 waiters/waitresses, so she was probably having to do this in order for her customers to get their foods sooner. She also boxed up our leftover pizza, but again just grabbed it off of my plate with her bare hand and put it in the to-go box.

We've used to see the same management whenever we would go to this Pizza Republica, but in the last year or so, we've seen quite a few different GM's. This last visit, again there was a manager that we did not remember seeing before, so not sure if some of these not-so-great changes are due to him or not. Certainly it appeared that not only had kitchen staff changed, but it had been slashed remarkably, unless we just happened to be there on an "off" night when some employees did not show up (?). Hopefully the new management is not cutting corners regularly in this way, because without a doubt, this will harm the business long-term. My husband was in the restaurant business for almost 15 years, so he knows the challenges, but also what needs to be done to prosper.

One suggestion I just wanted to throw in, and that is that this location could stand a little bit of a decorative update. The cheap looking fake flowers on the wall could be replaced with inexpensive artwork, for instance. Those "globe-ish" lights, that look like those expanded party favor decorations (with a light bulb in the middle) could be replaced by a little better lighting. And that hideous huge square ALL-red piece of artwork hanging to the right of the bar on the back wall could be replaced by almost anything that would be better to look at. Making the ambience a little warmer, a little more Italian-feeling, would add to the experience.

Overall still, we will recommend this place to our friends and family. The food has never failed us, and we just hope that management keeps the higher standards that we, and thousands of other customers, have enjoyed for...

This is the first time l've ever written a review in which I didn't leave 5 stars. I have to say the only redeeming quality about this place was our bartender/server, Victoria. She was a gem of a human and I'll likely be back just because of her. I was very excited to bring my friend here for lunch and sit on the patio as previously, l've only had wonderful experiences. However, this last time was not the case. I walked in at 12:45 (restaurant was busy and I could tell they were just approaching the end of the lunch rush). The absolute scowl of the man behind the host stand just stared at me. He was very surprised by my audacity to not have a reservation. I told him there were going to be two of us under my name. And he told me it wouldn't be possible for me to wait for the patio. I, someone who typically avoids confrontation, was very surprised by this and said I don't mind grabbing a drink at the bar in the meantime and he scoffed: "well it's going to be like 20-30 minutes." Which in my opinion, is not a long wait at all and I was in no rush. He then proceeded to answer the phone and gestured me to hold on. After standing there awkwardly for a number of phone calls, and then him fiddling around ignoring my presence, I said I'm going to go wait at the bar, will someone just call my name? So he told me to have a seat on the bench in the waiting area and he would get someone up there to put me on the list in a minute. So l waited for another 5-10 minutes or so while I watched him move stacks of menus around and generally avoid eye contact and brisk past me assaulting my senses in the wake of his stench in the process. And finally I spoke up and let him know I was going to go have a seat at the bar and he quickly cut me off and quipped: "yeah, I already told you that you could." He was very unnecessarily rude and seemed to just be on a power trip to the point I knew instantly he had to be the owner to be that nonchalantly dismissive towards a customer. Food was just okay. If you can make it past George, ask for...

Pizza is great at Pizza Republica but that is where the good ends. Hostess sat us at a table in the dining room with zero sun control at 7:30PM to a setting Colorado sun without a cloud in the sky. We ended up having sun blinding us the entire dinner.

What’s worse is the waiter was rushing around and couldn’t have cared less. He said “it go down soon”. No offer of let’s move you to one of the tables that were completely empty in the middle of the restaurant. The tables were so close and loud that it ranked 92 on the decibel meter on our phone. No wonder we couldn’t hear each other. So we’re blinded by the sun and deaf from the bare walls reverberating with people packed closely together. We were just a party of 4 but they sandwiched 4 tables tight together where we had to move our chairs to let the wait staff through meanwhile the restaurant was only half full on a Friday night.

We ordered the fried mushroom ravioli and it was extremely small portions for $14 (4 pieces) and was bland and tasteless. But also it wasn’t ravioli - it was fried wontons that were so hard and over cooked they crumbled to pieces and were tasteless. Anyone whose had actual fried ravioli knows they shouldn’t be like that.

We placed the appetizer order 15 min ahead of pizzas but somehow they came out all together and the guy delivering the pizza just stared at us like it was our problem and we were in his way.

Pizza was great and no complaints there, but the poor experience, terrible service, and ambiance was the prevailing factor that left us all feeling shafted by spending money at a place that simply didn’t care at all or treat...