Razzo Pizzeria — Restaurant in Huntsville

A coworker and I went out for lunch on a slow Friday. We were going to visit a place we'd both been before, but I felt adventurous and wanted to try a new place -- Razzo had good reviews so we altered course and headed to check it out.

When we arrived, the front was empty and a sign out front said that due to callouts, which happens, no biggie. While we waited for someone to come out, we parused the chalkboard menu (apparently which pizza are available changes each day). The menu was a little confusing at first, with 'red' and 'white' menus, but that turned out to be sauce type.

The lunch special was 'One slice red cheese + any slice + drink + oreo calzone'. The employee who came out informed us that due to staffing shortages, we could get the lunch special but there was no Oreo Calzone available. When asked if we could sub with a garlic knot or a breadstick or something, we were told no - they didn't do that. Price was still the same. The menu was written on a chalk board - why not just erase the Oreo Calzone instead of just having to explain it every time? Weird, but we didn't want to be needy when they were short staffed, so we both ordered a lunch combo. We were prompted for a 35% / 30% / 25% tip (people talk about tip culture outta control - they ain't wrong lol). Order at a counter and pick up your food from a window and tip 35% ehhhh?

Gonna be honest - 20 minutes is the longest I've ever waited for a reheated slice of pizza. I could clearly see the bakers rack of pre-made pizzas through the counter window where you walked to pick up your pizza, so I was a little confused as to why it took so long for two slices of cheese, a slice of peperoni and a one of the few pizzas they were actually making that day took so long to come out. Every other slice pizza place just tosses the slice in the oven around the pizzas that are cooking and calls it a day.

Oh well - as long as their pizza was good and worth the wait, it'd be fine. It wasn't. 3/4 of the order was done after 20 minutes so me and my buddy both tried a slice of cheese which looked decent. Without a word, my buddy stood up and walked to the counter. I knew what he was going to ask for without exchanging a word and asked him to get me one also: sauce. The pizza was extremely dry and undersauced. Apologetically, he asked if he could get some marinara and was told "Sorry, we don't have any marinara to spare." Not "Sorry, we don't have serving cups would you like some ranch" or some other reason, just that they didn't have any to spare. Maybe this shortage of pizza sauce explains why the pizzas were missing the sauce and so dry, I don't know. The GOAT pizza was even worse because whatever crumbly cheese the added on top was very dry and sucked the rest of the moisture off the pizza. The rest of my order came out a few minutes later.

The pictures I took all look really good, but that's mostly just due to the prevalence of natural light from the skylight above. I also snapped a candid picture of one customer who died waiting for his pizza at the bar.

Long story short, paid $32 for pizza that wasn't good and waited 20 minutes to get it. Maybe it was just an off day, but it'll be a long time before I come back and give them...

Love this concept for downtown Huntsville! Doesn't get much more convenient than a slice of pizza for lunch.

Razzo is located on Holmes Avenue. There's street parking and several parking garages within a block or two -- I used the one off Jefferson St by The Moon, but there's also one on the corner of Holmes and Greene Street. It's not a bad walk at all so don't let parking scare you! The one on Jefferson is free for 2 hours and the one off Greene is cheap and free on the weekends.

Anyway, now that I'm off my parking pedestal...

Razzo fills a great niche for good pizza downtown. Perhaps better than that for me, it fills the niche of "place that is actually open and serving food from 2-4 PM downtown." I'm salty because of my frustration over finding adequate late lunch spots, but sincerely, I was so happy to be able to walk in and get a bite before an appointment a few weeks ago!

They have specialty pizzas that you can order in whole pies, as well as a semi-rotating selection of specialty single slices. You can always get a pepperoni or cheese slice though, which is usually what I prefer anyway. They have a really nice weekday lunch special for two slices, a soda, and a small oreo calzone for dessert. They do have some craft beers on tap, and a few other dessert and appetizer-y options. The whole pies are a little pricy, but that's because...

The quality is awesome! Chewy but not doughy sourdough crust, gooey, look-at-the-pull mozzarella, a healthy drizzle of olive oil, a gorgeous subtle tomato sauce, and nicely smoky pepperoni: that's how I'd describe the slice I got when I visited. It was so good! I'd say this place is definitely among my picks for best pizza in town.

Service was nice and my slice came out quickly. The inside is approachable and comfy and has a few diversions for the kids if they come along. I also think they deliver over to The Dirty Olive just up the street, so if you'd like a pizza with your craft cocktail, well...you know who to call!

Two small things I would change, if I could: the prompted tip on the tablet at the end of each transaction is really high for counter service (like, I wanna say starts at 25% high). I'm not personally too pressed about it as it's easy to change the percent and at any rate I believe the workers deserve a healthy tip anyway, but I can see how it could be off-putting. Second, more importantly for me, I wish there was real silverware for use during dine in. The individual slices are quite large and appropriately semi-floppy and very cheesy. In these types of situations, I much prefer to cut my pizza into smaller pieces and eat with a knife and fork. Plastic ones were provided but they really didn't get the job done with how chewy the sourdough crust was.

Ultimately, these nitpicks are pretty small for me. I definitely look forward to stopping by in the future for a quick, simple, and delicious...

Although I fear being chastised for not being nice like poor Ron was, I want to come on here with an honest review of our experience. We went in and even though we were the only people there, it took five minutes before anyone greeted us and probably a good 30 mins for two slices of pizza.

The slices were pretty small especially for the $6 price point, and buying a whole pizza is not an option even though we were hungry and went in for a meal. The owner said she doesn’t know how to sell a whole one and has never done it before.

If you were going for a meal and not just a before dinner snack, let’s say you want 3 or 4 slices of pizza, you’re spending somewhere between $12 and $24 per person. Or you can do what we did, go in for one slice each and then leave and go find another restaurant to eat dinner at.

The cup and char pepperoni pizza was more than charred, it was blackened and burnt on bottom and very bitter. Perhaps that was how it was supposed to be and is just not my taste, but I’d wager it was possibly overdone as the flavor was not one I would ever seek out.

I’d guess things will smooth out as it’s a newly opened business (although not the owner’s first business). That’s why I didn’t mention earlier that they were out of everything except cheese, pepperoni and goat cheese.

If you’re consistently waiting a minimum of 30 minutes for one small slice of pizza, you’re probably going to find a more lucrative way to spend your time and money in the future. I left hungry with a literal bad taste in my mouth from the bitter, burnt...