New Bethel Ordinary — Restaurant in Indianapolis

Our family hadn't been here since the 1980s and decided to stop by for pizza and a beer. Let's just say, we were heavily disappointed. From what I've since learned, they've went through 2 or 3 owners since opening in 1984.

The bar and dining area are cute and the place was clean as a whistle.

We sat in the bar and the server, instead of presenting me a beer list, told me to go into the kitchen area and just pick a beer from the fridge. They do not have any beer on tap. Suffice to say, that was pretty silly, given that I was in every employee's way and had no clue what I was looking for...I haven't lived in the area in a decade and only knew Sun King. I asked for advice and the server told me most of the beers were IPAs and I said I don't like IPAs. I settled on a Terre Haute Brewing Company cream ale which was ok.

The server was grumpy. I think she was overwhelmed or perhaps just having a bad day. She gave us menus and got us waters and proceeded to take other customer's orders despite us being ready for about 5-6 minutes and waiting (an eternity in restaurants) and being the first people in her area. Eventually, we flagged her down and got our order in - fried ravioli and a small cheese pizza.

The fried ravioli were brought out by a very nice young staff member. However, the ravioli were clearly pre-frozen, probably from the food distribution service the Ordinary sources from. They were fine, with cold (?) tomato sauce on the side that tasted like it was from a can.

For me, a classic cheese and tomato sauce pizza is the true test of a pizzeria's quality. This was disgusting. The pizza did not taste like any love was put into it.

I was born and raised in Indiana and I know Hoosiers love their cheese. We should have ordered a tomato sauce pie with light cheese. It came out with tons of cheese smothered all over it, a tiny bit of sauce, and on the worst pre-made, frozen pizza crust.

The crust was clearly pre-made/frozen/not made in house: you could see the little dots that line the bottom of frozen/pre-made pizza crust on the bottom and it tasted like cardboard. I thought I was eating the cheapest pizza in the frozen food department.

No servers ever checked on us to make sure we were OK. We had to flag down a third server, not even working our section, to ring us up.

We left and never will go back unless something changes...

We wanted to love it. We drove almost 30 minutes to try New Bethel Ordinary. We ordered bone-in mild buffalo wings and nachos with pulled pork as appetizers. The wings were good sized, perfectly cooked, and the sauce was good. The nachos had plenty of toppings, but the chips reminded me of concession stand tortilla chips because of how thick and slightly stale they tasted. We also ordered two 12” pizzas, one with all the veggies and a Deluxe pizza. The pizzas looked so good when they arrived, but turned out to be so disappointing. The crust is AWFUL. Bland and hard on the bottom, yet also soggy on top. It was a weird texture. It was difficult to cut through with a knife and fork, and also difficult to bite through. The toppings were generous and there was a good amount of cheese, but that crust is terrible. The crust has no flavor and tastes like premade frozen crust. It’s screaming for flavor. The sauce is just as bland as the crust, thin and watery, and you can barely see it on the pizza. The sauce needs to be thicker, so that it helps keep the crust less soggy on top, and it would add some much needed acidity and flavor to the bland pizza. The pizza tastes like pizza made by people who have never had decent pizza before. We brought the rest home. It actually tasted better the next day, which I didn’t expect. I think the crust soaked up some of the flavor from the toppings, and the hard bottom had softened.

The service was decent. The server didn’t check in for a long time, but she was busy with a lot of tables. Overall, the server was polite and friendly. The atmosphere was kind of tired, dark, and dingy. It’s not somewhere that I would choose to eat at a second time. Had the pizza been good, we would consider ordering carry out and skip dining in, but not after this experience. It was disappointing because we really looked forward to eating here after seeing all the positive reviews and...

Okay. I need to apologize. First of all, two years ago I had what I would have called a “not so great” experience with an order from NBO. I left a review detailing it - long story short, we had a pizza that perhaps had a tad too much BBQ sauce (like enough for four large pizzas on one) on it and another issue. I’m all about second chances. About a year and a half ago, I tried NBO again. Stellar. Absolutely phenomenal. Since then, I’ve probably eaten NBO…let’s just say…a lot. Had them again today for lunch. In the last 18 months or so, even if I were to dig deep and be nitpicky, I couldn’t stretch to come up with a complaint. Every order: hot and fresh and polite & friendly service, to boot. However, my negative review stayed up this entire time. For that, NBO, I am truly sorry. I live on the south side and work in Wanamaker. I’d have zero issue driving 25+ minutes one way for an NBO pizza if I’m at home. To anyone reading this trying to gauge their own interest on if they want to try NBO for the first time: Yes. Yes you do. You can’t go wrong with anything they have to offer. To NBO, I do have one question for you: WHO GAVE YOU PERMISSION TO OFFER UP THEE BEST ONION RINGS I HAVE EVER EATEN?! I mean, seriously. Finally got around to ordering some today. My coworker ate one first. The only thing he could say was, Wow!” In my mind, I was like, “Dude…they’re just onion rings…” And then I ate one. I’ll never look at another onion ring the same way. NBO sets a pretty high bar for pizza, but, today, they rewrote the definition for onion rings. Pizza, wings, beer, onion rings, burger…if you want it, they’ve got it. See ya next...