Benny Capolago's Pizza — Restaurant in Manassas

This place has the vibe of a small local joint, but is part of a growing chain of about 30 locations. I've been to several and they're all pretty similar.

These places mostly rely on the gimmick of an absolutely gigantic pizza. It's about the size of a truck tire. Kids get a kick out of it. But there's just one size, and there's a lot of tradeoffs to doing business this way.

Unless you're feeding a family of 5, you're never ordering a whole pizza. So you're getting reheated (mouth-scalding) slices, nothing fresh. Slices cover 2 paper plates are tough to hold on to, you can't really fold them in half and eat them either.

The slices are so big you're reluctant to try 2 different flavors, because it's more food than most want. I figure a lot of people would find about 1.5 slices the perfect amount, but that's not an option.

Since you're sharing a pizza with the rest of the world, you're not customizing it to your tastes. Forget chicken and pineapple or BBQ and onion. You've got about 6 topping options.

Sauce is spread thin to nonexistent. Toppings are spread thin too. You get about 1 pepperoni for every 4 bites.

It's definitely quantity over quality, with the main flavors being hard crackery crust, baked salty cheese, and more crust. For me, the sauce is important, but if you have pizza with great crust (Pupatella or Crust in NoVa for example) it makes up for almost anything. This is not great crust. It's hard and thin.

There's basically nothing for appetizers or sides. You get bottled sodas which are small enough that you feel like you need to ration them as you eat your dry, salty pizza.

I hate to bash the place, the service was very friendly at least. I didn't wait too long for the pizza, but then again, it's reheated. Just don't see the appeal except for people who want a...

We tried the pizza when they first opened. The atmosphere was upbeat and interesting. The pizza was just so-so. I marked it up to the opening of a new restaurant and didn’t really think about it.

Now, after letting things sit for a couple years, I thought I would give it another try. This was even worse. The pizza was terrible, the atmosphere didn’t exist, and the one employee, young man with a nose ring and attitude, had no idea about customer service.

After eating three or four bites, I realize something did not smell right. I thought possibly the cheese had gone off or possibly the dough. I investigated further and realized that the Parmesan cheese I had put on the pizza was bad. No question about it. When I brought this up to the young man, he insisted that it couldn’t be because he had just filled the Parmesan shakers. I told him that unless he smelled it himself, he could be filling it up with bad cheese. His response was no way I just took it out of the refrigerator.

With an atmosphere like this and an attitude like that, I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone and I surely will not be back. I expect I’m not alone given there were three other people in the restaurant the entire time I was there maybe someone will move into Manassas and provide good pizza. But it won’t...

Really disappointed in our in dining experience. Very limited seating, I ordered a mushroom garlic pizza. It's labeled as just that. I have medical condition that doesn't allow me to eat anything spicy. The slice of pizza was extremely spicy with no warnings. My husband had to order me an additional slice of just plain cheese bc I couldn't eat the spicy mushroom garlic. I explained they really need to write a warning bc some people aren't able to have certain items. He gentleman behind the counter then smirked and laughed at me. I explained I was serious, it wasn't a joke bc I physically can not eat it and now it's wasted food and we had to buy another slice bc it's not advertised properly. Had I known I wouldn't have ordered it. We will not be coming back to this establishment or ever recommend. I just wanted to have a nice dinner with my family.

After getting home my husband and oldest daughter are how violently sick. Both vomiting and severe diarrhea. Myself didn't eat due to the spicy food and our youngest barely ate due to eating earlier. This is the only food my husband ate all day. I'll be calling corporate in...