Russo's New York Pizzeria & Italian Kitchen | Midtown — Restaurant in Houston

Russo's New York Pizzeria has been a staple of mine for almost 10 years. I've gone through phases. In college we ordered from the one on Holcombe. The White Pizza was a favorite. Its since been removed from the menu and my diet! While working in the area they were on the lunch rotation. Both the Holcombe location and the Chimney Rock location have a great lunch menu. Particularity the slice and salad. Yum! Not to mention the Heart Healthy pizza, hold the onions, we would order for dinner.

So you can see, I am a fan. I am sad to say the location nearest me currently is on Gray. I am not in the delivery area, so we have to battle crazy midtown parking to get our to-go orders and after today we will not bother. We hosted some friends over for the Texans game and order a couple of pizzas, 2 orders of wings, and they threw in some garlic knots. (In the past we've been disappointed by the wings but kept trying because we've enjoyed them at other locations.)

First off, we had to wait 15 mins for our order. Which should have been ready by the time we got there.

2nd the pizza was cold even before we got it to the car! Not to mention it was either the wrong order or they got our instructions wrong. That is not to say it wasn't tasty once we put in the oven to reheat. It was, but I had to pick out the onions from my piece and another friend had to pick out un-ordered sausage.

3rd. The wings. We asked for hot, which is typical of buffalo wings. Well they have the taste of wing sauce it lacked the heat. They were hot though, so that is a plus.

4th. No such thing as a free lunch. The garlic knots were doughy and not completely baked. Can't really complain about them as we did not pay for them. I love a good garlic knot so this made me sad.

All in all, thank goodness the Texans one or this Sunday "lunch" would have been...

Customer service deserves less than 1 star at this location. I used to be a customer and will not be going back.

Not only the order came out wrong twice but the cashier Nubia, was unapologetic, rude and had the worst attitude I've encountered at a restaurant.

First incident I told the cashier that one of the 3 ingredients was missing (after waiting for 15 mins) she rolled her eyes and didn't' say anything. Then took the pizza and told the cook to add the missing ingredient and went back to txting. I've worked in restaurants before and I don't expect people to be happy and smiling at all times but I do expect at least politeness. That time I let it go, didn't say anything and waited another 10mins for them to fix it.

Second time, I ordered the same pizza (3 ingredients) and this time it literally had 2 small pieces of chicken THROWN there and onions all bunched up at center. I told the cashier -Nubia- and the response was "I can see a piece here and there, what else do you want?" I requested a refund because I was too annoyed and had already waited 15+ mins. She didn't offer an apology or to add the missing items. Instead, she gave me back the money, sarcastically smiled and said I could go somewhere else if I wanted to.

Next day I came to talk to a manager and was told by one of the employees that the cashier was the manager and that "they didn't know if there will be anyone else to talk to" that day or the next.

I would recommend anyone to stay away from this place and save themselves the bother. Too many other options around the area with better options and...

Our experience there was pretty terrible. While the food turned out good, the service was absolutely terrible.

First, the waitress brought out my friend's pasta dish at least 20 min before the rest of us got our food. Her excuse was that she wanted to make sure it was still hot and that the rest of our food would be out in a few. She also never gave him silverware to eat with until another 10 min when we had to get another guy to tell her to bring some.

Then, a waiter brought us food that wasn't ours. And we couldn't explain our order because he didn't really speak English. After about 20 min after the pasta was brought out, we received our Italian Works pizza. But, my friend who ordered just a slice of cheese pizza did not get her pizza. The guy was short with us when we said she still needed her slice and said rudely that it's coming. Ten minutes later she still hasn't received her pizza and the waitress came out and asked if she had gotten her pizza. So after waiting for another 15 min after she came out, the slice of cheese pizza (the most basic slice you can order) finally came out... At least 35-40 min after the pasta and 15-20 after our whole 12 in pizza came out.

The waitress did give us a small discount off our check, but then to top it off she gave us $5 change with the wrong check, didn't give me my check with my credit card, and gave my friend the wrong amount of change.

The whole experience was just a mess. But at least the pizza was good. Just not worth all...