PaPPo’s Pizzeria & Pub — Restaurant in Huntsville

We love to play trivia, so when we heard Pappo's was going to start having trivia on Monday nights, we made the trip over to give them a try.

Situated on south parkway in the former Blue Plate Cafe location (next to Rosie's), we found Pappo's to be an unusually large restaurant -- tons of tables! It looked mostly empty except for the bar when walking in, but the hostess guided us back to a second dining area for trivia and that area was busier. There are enormous TVs all over the restaurant walls with numerous different programs, mostly sports, airing on them. Definitely a sports bar feel to the place.

We were given our choice of booth or high top. Everything looked very clean and orderly. Our waitress was prompt and friendly. She got our orders in quickly without rushing us, and delivered them in an appropriate time with a smile. I think her name was Kayla, but I can't remember for sure. Regardless, she was professional and effective and very patient when splitting our tickets appropriately.

Trivia was fun and I'm glad we went. Their trivia is through Trivia Masters -- 4 rounds of 6 questions each, iirc. The host was fun and moved through the questions at a fairly brisk pace, which I personally appreciate -- I hate when trivia drags on all night. One thing I really liked was they were able to project the questions on one of the big TVs on the wall, which was helpful if you misheard or needed a refresher.

The food was decent! My mom is from St. Louis and she was very excited to get her hands on some toasted ravioli. For those who may not know, Pappo's is a small chain originating in Missouri, and toasted ravioli are a big deal there -- small ravioli, usually beef or cheese, breaded and fried till crispy. These were beef and a solid representation of the dish. Would definitely get these again.

My parents split a Canadian bacon and mushroom pizza. Husband had a personal sized supreme pizza. My friend and I both got calzones. I thought the breading on my calzone was really good, but I was somewhat disappointed to cut into it and find marinara sauce already inside. It's my fault for not reading the menu more closely; I just assumed the sauce would only be on the side as everywhere I've ever ordered a calzone that's been the case. Personally, I don't like much marinara sauce inside my calzone and could've done without it. If/when we return, I'll try something else or ask for the sauce to only be on the side.

Husband and pal seemed to enjoy their food well enough. My mom liked the pizza more than my dad; she said the thin and crispy crust reminded her of St. Louis style pizza, which tracks with Pappo's origins. They did say next time they'll probably try with different toppings -- the CB was on the dry side and the mushrooms were tiny. That being said, they enjoyed the light sauce to cheese ratio. We all agreed the food was good enough we'd probably return to play trivia again.

I debated between a 3 and 4 star rating, but I ultimately decided on 4 because overall we had a good time, service was good, and establishment was clean. See you next...

"Normalizing Mediocrity" TLDR; Food was ok to good, service was friendly but slow, wait times are horrible. But the workers weren't rude, and they did give a refund when asked to.

We went a couple months ago for dine-in and have a very "meh" experience. The food was good, but the service was SLOW. They didn't seem grossly understaffed or anything, but no one seemed particularly on top of anything or motivated. We ordered a salad and pizza and were there an hour an a half.

Today we put in an online order with a pick up time 55 minutes later. Certainly not bad or unusual. I got there about 5 minutes before the pickup time. There were 4 girls huddled around the hostess stand, two of them facing me. They continued to laugh and chat for a full minute before one of them greeted me. She kindly redirected me to the counter around the corner to pickup my order. I waited there for 5 minutes before the girl working the carry-out counter checked in with me. After some fumbling around, she found my order and let me know they were running a few minutes behind and my order would be out in just a little bit. After almost 25 mins of no one saying anything, offering anything, or acknowledging I'm still standing there waiting for my food that was ordered over an hour prior, I asked how much longer it would be. I was informed that there were only 3 guys in the back and they're doing the best they could but it'd probably only be about 5 more minutes. About 5 minutes later my pizza was ready with a message of "I'm sorry that took a little bit, waiting is no fun". While it was a Saturday night, Pappos had MAYBE half their tables sat, and appeared to be appropriately staffed. The people working certainly didn't seem to think any of this was out of the norm.

10 mins later I got home to find out my pizza wasn't fully cooked. I called back to let someone know and they answered the phone and just set it on the counter (or something). I could hear people talking and cutting up in the background. They left it there for a full minute before I hung up and called back. I asked to speak to a manager, the woman that answered the phone (Camilla) informed me that she was the manager. I explained what happened and asked for a refund. She agreed and processed it.

Out of all of this, the only apology or acknowledgement of this whole thing was "I'm sorry that took a little bit, waiting is no fun". I typically am pretty understanding, but we're 0 for 2 at Pappos, and that seems to be...

Here is my opinion of PaPPo's Disappointments Room. Still a Disappointment.

-Menu has enough options on it that makes me think a majority of what is on offer starts off frozen instead of fresh. -Service leaves a lot to be desired. Our server didn't introduce herself, took a while longer than desired to deliver drinks and left us alone for a long time because she thought she had already taken our order even with the menus still in front of us. -Did not repeat back our order and so brought out a steak salad instead of a small steakhouse pizza. When this was pointed out, the server had an immediate dispassionate response of 'Oh I didn't hear that', that I have heard multiple times over my fifteen years as a waitress that's like nails on a chalkboard for customer service. Again, that's why you repeat the order back to your customer to ensure you wrote it down correctly. -Because of this, one of our number didn't get to eat her food as we were all done by the time her pizza arrived. -Food was a B- altogether for middling quality but higher price point than expected for its fare. -Service was an F for lack of attentiveness, order-taking procedure, and quickness of any kind. No attempt at reparation was made. It's not like we asked for a free dinner, but a genuine apology for making someone sit there and watch while their family eats dinner would have been nice. -Most likely, I'm sticking with Grimaldi's or The Boot since there you get what you pay for.

Edit: Have been reached out to via Jamie from PaPPo's asking me to email them for the issue to be resolved. Sent 7:19 PM Saturday night, still waiting to hear back from such a 'prompt' attempt at a defense response.

Servers name had to be found on the receipt, Christina B.

Will update if I hear back from PaPPo's or if this is just more customer service gaslighting.

Update: We were offered a credit for our next visit from Jamie and apparently no one has a way to apply it, had written it down or was just too incompetent to be able to figure it out.

They literally had to TAKE MY PHONE with the email from Jamie open to get anything done. This took about a half hour after we had been ready to leave and were given our check.

Service is still horrible, food is middling, and the entire atmosphere leaves a lot...