Athens Pizza — Restaurant in Jaffrey

I typically do not post negatively about a local business, but the treatment I received today from the lady at Athens Pizza was unacceptable.

I’ll start by saying we have ordered pizza from Athens for years and have never had any issues. In the recent months, we’ve ordered once a week (Pizza Fridays). Anyways, my husband ordered pizza around 11:30. We ALWAYS get a pizza with no cheese as he has a dairy allergy.

He went to pick up the pizza, brought it home, and opened the box to find his pizza had cheese on it. He tried to call the restaurant but for some reason his calls wouldn’t go through so I decided to call for him. I explained that the small pizza should not have had cheese on it.

The lady who answered the phone was so rude and said “No, he didn’t say no cheese.” I said “Yes he did. He has a FOOD ALLERGY, and everywhere we go he ALWAYS says no cheese.” She continued to argue with me saying no he didn’t, calling a regular customer a LIAR. After all of this I asked her how can we resolve this? Pure silence. I said well, can you remake the pizza? And annoyed, she says “yep, we can remake it.”

I go to the restaurant about 15-20 minutes later. I brought the pizza per their return policy (listed on a sheet of paper up front). She says she can’t this back (understandable).

Then SLAPS the order ticket on the table in front of me and says “THIS is what he ordered!” As if what she wrote on a piece of paper is some kind of proof that he didn’t say no cheese... 🙄🤦🏼‍♀️ I said I dont believe that for one second as he has a food allergy and would never order pizza with cheese.

She probably did not hear him, hence the reason she didn’t write it down. Which is fine… this has happened before at other places. People make mistakes, and we completely understand that! But most businesses are apologetic and/or make it right! Calling your customer a liar and getting mad about YOUR MISTAKE is not okay and is TERRIBLE customer service! We will not be ordering from Athens in Jaffrey again.

To be specific this was an older woman, not the young woman we typically get at the...

I just moved to Jaffrey after 15 years in Boston. Naturally, my first order of business - not unpacking, not finding a new primary care doctor, not checking to make sure my house has working fire alarms - was to test out the local pizza joints. Athens Pizza was first up, but sadly the experiment ended there, as there will be no need to look any further.

We’re talking the Platonic Ideal of pizza joints here. For starters, I placed an order over the phone and the guy just said “Number 14, ten minutes” and then hung up. This was pure pizza confidence coming through the line. When I arrived at Athen’s ten minutes later, I saw the perfect awning - not quite orange and not quite red. That color is only found in top shelf pizza joints. What’s more, there’s a karate place next door. If a pizza joint is going to achieve transcendence, it must share a wall with a dojo. That’s in the Bible.

A single fact hit me the moment I stepped inside - there’s no way this place didn’t have a Mortal Kombat machine in the corner about 30 years ago. Another domino falls.

And the pizza? It was the best damn pizza I’ve ever had. Perfect level of grease and those sort of like, age spots on the cheese. The sauce had a little bit of attitude. And the crust, good God.

I’m not a crust guy. I give my crust to my dog. I generally think of crust as the original sin of pizza - a black mark on something that could have been perfect. But my dog went hungry that night (I fed him, don’t be dramatic). This crust is incredible. It’s light and thin but not flaky because it’s got a little moisture to it. I bet if you took a piece of this crust and blew into it a Minor 7th chord would play.

I see some people on here slinging one star reviews at this place and I’m reminded of the Romans who spat at Jesus. Good luck with your Papa John’s, heathens. Athen’s Pizza is the...

Usually very good. Some people complain about the service here & say that Steve is rude and mean. But, honestly, he just comes off that way. If you go there fairly often you'll start to see that he is actually a nice guy and just has that mean-looking demeanor. The owners, Shanta & Gomez, are wonderful people. Very nice. They always remember their customers. Great at cooking, too. Food is cooked to order. Always fresh. Always willing to take special orders, as well. One of my favorite places for a steak & cheese sub. Only time I've gotten food that I didn't enjoy from here was when it was a couple new young kids working and you could just see they didn't care about the quality of the food they were serving. The ones I encountered that day no longer work there from what I can tell. I always recommend Athen's Pizza to people when they are in the Jaffrey area. Classic pizza place. Good food...