Craft Pizzeria By Niche — Restaurant in Hayward

I’m writing this in the moment because the experience was so horrible there is no need to reflect on it. I arrived with my 2 children and we placed an order from a kiosk with no human intervention - there were no other customers in the establishment. Our receipt was tagged at 2:59 pm and the first part of our food order didn’t arrive at the table (garlic bread) until 3:27 pm. At that time no one had brought our 3 soda fountain drinks. I inquired and was then told the Coke was out. Drinks took another 5 minutes - the last part of the order arrived at 3:45 pm. 45 minutes for a personal pizza, tortellini, and a burger in an empty restaurant is horrible.

The he place had potential / lots of TVs (but only 2 were on as we are. The service was slow and unresponsive - no refill even as he approached the table to drop off my burger that I told him to box up!

I eat out a lot and am loath to review or post something negative but this place deserves a hard pass. Maybe I picked the wrong day but I won’t be coming...

Having grown up in New England I'm a pretty big pizza critic, hearing about a new place opening in Hayward I was eager to try it! Unfortunately this pizza did not hit the mark.

Cheese - the cheese had an almost soupy texture I'm not sure if they were not using low moisture mozzarella or what might be happening there and virtually no flavor

Sauce - was lacking to cover the whole pizza, when I did get a bite that had some it tasted like the typical generic bulk sauce you can buy at a restaurant store.

Crust - no actual crust at the ends as if you were to roll out the dough completely flat and dress the cheese and sauce all the way to the edge

Overall - with a name like craft pizzeria I hope this restaurant works on improving their craft of making pizzas. I'm still rooting for them since Hayward is lacking good pizza and I don't always have time to drive to San Leandro.

Final...

We placed a scheduled online order for pickup at Craft Pizza. When we arrived at our scheduled pickup time, the man who assisted my husband and me (I believe he was the owner) kindly let us know the food had actually been made about an hour earlier, at the time I placed the order instead of the scheduled pickup time.

He immediately apologized and offered to remake the food for us, even though it clearly wasn’t his fault just a simple mistake on the ticket. He even offered us something to drink while we waited. He was incredibly kind and accommodating, and we truly appreciated it.

The food was delicious (even when we tried some of the original order later, reheated), and the service was even better. This was our first time ordering from Craft, and thanks to the great customer service and tasty food, it definitely won’t be our last....