Neo Pizza & Taphouse — Restaurant in Maryland

OK before I begin! I will have to say I’ve been to this place several dozen times. This review will be on last nights occasion for National Pizza Day! I love pizza, all kinds of pizza. I even make homemade pizza often. There is very little to complain about at Neo Pizza. I’ve eaten there several dozen times since they’re opening. Sometimes it’s a week and place to go, or hanging out in the area and sometimes go for a small pizza. I ordered a special, ocean pizza, which is similar to their Chesapeake except that it has shrimp added. The pizza tasted amazing! Love the flavors weren’t overdone. It was definitely an ocean pizza. And I love crab since I’m from Maryland I eat it often. Only one problem!!! When cooking pizza, two things are important, the crust, and the toppings. The dough is the most important thing because it carries the toppings. And if you load too much toppings, you run the risk of having a soggy dough. So the bottom must be just as cooked as the top. This was not the case. Sad to say out of all of the pizzas that had gotten there. This was a great tasting pizza that wasn’t cooked properly. I still give them five stars, mainly because well, They’re worth every bite! But, I did tell the manager and let them know that the pizza was not cooked on the bottom properly. The dough was still kind of white. It should be brown, crispy and slightly chard! Which it wasn’t! Sure, I could be hateful mean pissed off, and give them a one star rating for that. But it wasn’t worth it, the dough wasn’t very soggy. It was just not as crunchy under as it should be. But even after telling them this, they didn’t say anything like, would you like another pizza? Or here’s a coupon next time you come in it’s on us… Something like that would be great for people who at least acknowledge something and let them know. Of course I wasn’t expecting it. I just wanted to make sure that whoever was cooking the pizza would do it right for the next person that ordered it. and now… They have a buy one get one every Tuesday! Their flavors are spot on! They have unique pies. When they used to do a weekly special, I would get a pizza. And almost 2 years since they’re opening I haven’t ordered anything from their menu. I only got the specials. These are definitely great pizzas for the whole family to try. And a wide variety of Flavors to choose from. Instead of their weekly special, they now have a monthly special which I will try.

So, as far as this review goes for last night, sure the pizza could’ve been cooked a little more underneath, but it was a very good pie and I will probably go back and try it again when they cook it more to my liking.

I will also post a few extra photos from other occasions spent at Neo Pizza. If you’re ever in the Annapolis Maryland area, it’s in the town center. They do have a happy hour, and they also have their special pizzas prices. And you can also get rewards which can definitely add up, especially if you are a pizza, lover, like myself!

On a sidenote… As in any restaurant, sometimes you go, and you get something and it’s made perfectly other times you may go in that same exact item might not be cooked to your liking. Let the restaurant know, so they can make changes. We had gotten , the fried zucchini which we love. At first it was really large and really yummy. Then after we got it a few more times it seemed to be very greasy and overcooked, almost burnt. Sometimes it depends on who’s cooking, and sometimes they might be rushing… But either way let someone know so they can make changes.

Note: for some reason, I can’t load photos from my folders, so I can’t add more photos than what Google is allowing me to access. So hopefully, next time I will post more photos from my previous visits at Neo Pizza. Hope this...

First visit - It's a bit confusing when you walk in to a crowd of people. There are two menu boards in two different places which makes it difficult to figure out what's what. Add to this that the place is VERY noisy (lots of hard surfaces).

Finally got a grip on the menu and ordered our food when our turn came. Found a marginally clean table and waited for our food. And waited. Finally some of the appetizers arrived. Then we waited some more. Then some of the food came. When we asked about the missing entree (a pizza) and the AWOL appetizer, we were told that the pizza had to be redone. Halfway through three of the four entrees, the last appetizer shows up. We ask about the pizza again and were met with a blank stare. We asked to speak to the manager. Finally as everyone is done eating, the missing entree shows up. It's wrong. We again ask to speak to the manager. By the way, trying to catch a server for anything was impossible, so I went up to the cashier and asked to speak to the manager for a third time.

By the time the manager came out, the wrongly made pizza was cold. He apologized profusely and said that they were short-staffed and got slammed. He refunded 50% on each couple's bill and gave us each $15 in Neo Bucks for a second visit.

The food: Fried cheese curds were awesome as were the zucchini frittes. The one pasta dish was bland and run-of-the-mill. To be honest, hubby and I can't recall our entrees, so we'll call them mediocre since they didn't stay in memory; and quite frankly we said that if we came back we wouldn't bother ordering them again. (The wrongly-made pizza was given to friends so I have no idea how that was.)

Ambiance: This place is LOUD. Seats aren't very comfy. Large TVs are playing sports with no sound (nor CC). I think if Neo focused more on being a restaurant that trying to a bar too, it would improve greatly.

Second visit - We decided to give them a second chance. The menu boards are annoying - it would be so much nicer to have something to read in your hands. Ordering and checkout went much smoother this time. Despite the lack of a notation, apparently the cauliflower crust does not come in the 14" size.

Again, we had to find a marginally clean table to seat ourselves at. The bench seats are not much better than the hard chairs for comfort.

The food: Our meal was delivered very fast and the order was correct. The fried cheese curds were okay but nearly as good as they were on our last visit. The zucchini frittes were yummy again. We shared an order of the balls and a 10" cheese steak pizza. The meatballs are firm but have good flavor; the pizza was delish and we were surprised that our special order (onions on only half) was executed properly.

Overall: Noisy places like this just aren't our thing and the hit or miss service/food accuracy makes this establishment a no-go...

We decided to grab a quick early dinner here because it was the closest restaurant to the Tesla Supercharger station at the Town Center. We thought it was just a pizza place (and were fine with that) so were pleasantly surprised when we walked in and found they have a decent menu full of other options… burgers, salads, sandwiches.

They have two seatings options when you walk in. One is counter service… you order, get a number and go grab a table while you wait for your food to be brought out. Then they also have full service tables (marked as such) where you have a server. We opted to do counter since we didn’t want to hang out too long. This is the reason why the place is only getting four stars instead of five. Our food took awhile to come out. My husband had ordered a burger with kettle chips and I ordered a grilled chicken club with kettle chips. No special few or changes. But we easily sat there waiting for 25 minutes before our food came out. And they weren’t busy since it was an early dinner time. Maybe only 3-4 other groups in the whole restaurant. I would have expected, with counter service and all, that the food would have come out a bit faster.

That said, we were very pleased with our meals. His burger was cooked correctly and was thick (but no too thick) and juicy. And my club was superb. They use argula and spinach instead of your standard iceberg (or similar) leaf and this really gave it a great texture and flavor. I don’t even normally like red onions but I didn’t mind them in this because all the other flavors made them less noticeable.

Overall I would definitely recommend this place and we would definitely stop here again. I will just be aware next time that even though it is counter service, it is...