Lido Restaurant — Restaurant in Hackensack

Lido Restaurant! Known as just “Lido’s” to the locals!

This time-tested dimly lit establishment well known for their bar pies has been open since 1956.  Once an old-school bar, now a booth centric eatery lost in time.  Don’t expect great customer service here but do believe you will get the best pizza pie and steak sandwich in all of NJ.

Go ahead and amble down Main Street in Hackensack to this small pink painted building with mysterious black front door.  Enter into their shadowy waiting area and be sure to peak your head out and wave someone down.  If you don’t you won’t be seated as their quite often spur-of-the-moment host/server doesn’t frequent the area with any regularity.

Once seated try to ignore the 60+ years of dust and grime on every ledge, nook and cranny.  Careful sitting down as the sticky black duct-taped patched booths bounce as if you’ve just landed on the moon.

But… you’re not here for a clean atmosphere and steady seating, you’re here for the pizza!

Please disregard the unfriendly faces of those who work here.  Speaking to customers rudely, having a curmudgeon attitude and rolling your eyes with panache are pre-requisites if you want a job here.  There are a couple servers who are outstanding but you’ll never be seated in their section I assure you.

But… you’re not here for a standard customer service experience with a smile, you’re here for the pizza!

Be sure to order your pies lightly baked or they will come with a burnt crust, not a huge issue but you should know.  If your order more than one pie be sure to tell your server to “stagger” the pies or they’ll bring everything at once which makes navigating the table quite the unforeseen obstacle course.

Also, order all of your drinks when the server is there because they will not be back to check in after the food hits the table.  Really, you’ll have to flag them down for the check and they’ll make you feel as if it’s the biggest inconvenience of their night.

Most likely your server will be hanging at the aforementioned old-school bar that now serves as a dilapidated prep area trash-talking you to everyone else that works there.  (This actually happened to me on one occasion and I did provoke the situation by loudly yelling “I can hear you talking about us”.  What can I say, it can be a visceral experience going to Lido’s.

But… you’re not here to make life-long friends with the staff, you’re here for the pizza.

So, the thin-crust bar pie.  Let me assure you now, it’s mind numbingly glorious in its simplicity and taste.  Floppy, so be sure to fold that piece of flawlessness.  Flaky, that crust cracks like thunder overhead. Flavorsome, you never tasted pizza pie perfection like this.  At just a few millimeters in height, you’ll marvel at the magic it takes to produce something this thin.

Eventually, you’ll end up comparing every other slice eaten elsewhere to it as well.  Then you’ll say to yourself “the place wasn’t that bad” and ultimately you’ll come to the conclusion that you need that mouthwatering thin-crust pizza pie from...

I’ve only tried the pizza so I cannot speak for the restaurant as a whole, but their pizza is well regarded so I expected it to be good. I got pickup and was excited to try this pizza and when I was handed the box, I instantly just thought… uh… was their a mistake because this box feels way to light to have a pizza in here. No kidding, I had to open it to make sure it wasn’t accidentally someone else’s order of only a few slices. But no, it was the full $17 dollar pizza. Don’t get me wrong, I’m a fan of thin crust pizza but this was barely even classifiable as crusted at all! It’s like the UFC lightweight category of pizzas. It was so thin, it was like a roll of toilet paper that someone pulled the plies apart to make it thinner and save money (like in that episode of the office where dwight does that to save money lol, iykyk). Anywho, I was just pretty disappointed because it was really not worth the money and my family of four is always perfectly satisfied with one pie but this pizza left us hungry. The edge of the crust was more like a cracker than actual bread! And it tasted undercooked to, almost like eating a pizza on a tortilla. Now, Idk if this is how it always is or maybe there was a different cook or something that day, to give them the benefit of the doubt. But it was overall just pretty disappointing and like I said, this review pertains only to the pizza I don’t want to badmouth this restaurant as a whole. And, also, I will say though, that the cheese and sauce was actually flavorful and tasty, so it was so disappointing for it to be ruined by the crust because that obviously is like one of the most important parts of a pizza. So I hope they can improve their crust in the future because with the other aspects, it could be not bad. Just wanted to share my experience, so if your planning to come here for pizza, I would say it’s advisable to have eat a snack before hand because you surely wont be full...

Lido Restaurant 701 Main St. Hackensack, NJ 07601

Open Sliced Steak Sandwich Thin Crust Pizza Chicken Parmesan

Located on the intersection of Main Street and Temple Avenue is a locally owned bar and restaurant.

I decided to explore three of the most popular items on the menu in particular the open steak sandwich and the bar pie.

Open Sliced Steak Sandwich: The thinly sliced, tender meat was cooked medium rare and topped with melted butter.

Hidden beneath all this meat is soft, doughy bread.

It also came with a side of vegetables.

I can easily see why this plate is a winner.

Thin Crust Pizza: Dave Portnoy previously visited this location. While he rated the bar pie in the 8 range, I would have scored it a point or so higher.

Each slice has a perfect ratio of sauce and cheese. The thin crust gives the pie a perfect crunchy texture.

Chicken Parmesan: Although it’s not inscribed on the menu, this entrée is still a hit among most of the customers.

Unlike the two previous entrees, this parm was not acknowledged on the front of the menu. However, it is still a hit among the customers.

The two cutlets were served over spaghetti. The edges of each cutlet were crispy and the mozzarella cheese has a perfect, golden char.

It was a flawless plate that I cleared down to the last bite.

Aside being impressed by the nostalgic atmosphere with a full size bar, a few vintage decorations caught my eye including the pay phone, animal crackers lamp, and the juke box where you can pick and play classic tunes.

It was perfect dining experience and I see why the three items I explored are highly popular.

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