Anthony's Coal Fired Pizza & Wings — Restaurant in Monroeville

First off, I am bad with names, so if I get names wrong, I apologize to the people involved:

Steve: He was the manager. We had a short, pleasant conversation. More about that in a bit.

Craig: He waited on us.

Daniel (I think): held the door for us on the way out.

I did not get the name of the hostess. She was very nice, as well.

My wife does not enjoy pizza in general, so the fact that she recommended this place says a lot. To say I wasn't disappointed is an understatement; I was pleasantly surprised. Before my current career (which has lasted 20 years so far), my life was pizza, so while I will settle for pizza that is just above edible, I am critical of everyone's.

Anthony's Coal-fired Pizza is definitely the top three I've tasted, and you can't buy the other two, because they no longer exist. It's been 20 years, after all. I was just in Manhattan, and I tried pizza from four different establishments; Anthony's is better than all of those places.

The cheese blend is superb, the crust is crispy on the outside and bread-y in the middles, and the sauce goes right along with them. I'm not a huge fan of the edges; it tasted coal-fired, but hey, you can skip that part pretty easily and just use it to hold your slice. You will be pleased with the rest, for sure.

Now, we're on to the service. Every employee who met our eye had a friendly greeting for us. I've managed pizza places, and I can tell that the management inspires the attitude of the staff. Steve must be a really good manager. He brought us a couple of wings to try, and after I we received our food, I told him how good the pizza was. After our conversation, he told us he was happy to meet us. He definitely deserves his management role--he's professional and friendly.

Craig, our server, was attentive, friendly, smiling, and generally did a great job. I hope people are generous with them as they should be. He earns those tips. I felt like we were being treated like guests, not just another table for him to wait on and get it over with.

Daniel (I hope I remembered his name) was the last person we spoke with our or way out, and he held the door for us. I told him that I bet his manager was good--you can tell by the attitude of the staff, and he agreed.

The place is clean, the atmosphere is like a sports bar, and the food was excellent. My wife's calzone was good. You can share a calzone there; they're huge.

You'll pay a bit more for pizza that you will other places at Anthony's, but it's not unreasonable, by any means, and for the service you'll get, it's worth the experience. We will be back,...

During COVID19 --- In my original review, 4 months ago, I gave this place 5 🌟. Today I'm editing and changing it to 2. Today was the straw that broke the camel's back, as the saying goes. I was disappointed the last 2 times, but still came back today, because we wanted a good, fresh salad. Unfortunately, a few things went wrong enough today, that this restaurant is now off the list. During Covid 19, we obviously needed to order and pickup curbside. So problem #1-- The server came out with the order NOT WEARING A MASK, AND IMMEDIATELY SAYS, "SORRY IM NOT WEARING A MASK. I'M SOOOO OVER IT!!" So, that's great, right? Problem #2 - I ordered 2 SMALL traditional salads and a small cheese pizza. When I was signing the receipt, I was shooked the total was nearly $39.00! Driving away, I looked at the receipt and saw we were charged (and got) LARGE salads. Ok, fine. Great salads, but --- not today. Very underwhelming. Problem #3 - I specifically asked for utencils for the salads, because we were taking our dinner to a park to eat. "No problem!" I was told. We sat down to eat, and no utencils. Another restaurant (Rey Azteca) was kind enough to give us utencils! THANK YOU Rey Azteca! (We ate there 2 days before, and it was awesome!) Anyway, the fact that the employee didn't feel it was necessary, or was too much of a BOTHER, for her to be responsible and care enough for the people keeping them in business, was enough for me to mark them off my...

I didn't have a good experience yesterday. I went online and ordered a gluten-free pizza with extra sauce, mozzarella cheese, pepperoni, and thick cut pepperoni. I also said no Romano cheese and put in a special request for lots of sauce on my pizza. They handed me the pizza and I went outside to my car and noticed that the pizza had extra sauce, pepperoni, thick cut pepperoni, and ABSOLUTELY NO CHEESE. I went back inside and had them remake the pizza and it was wrong again. The second pizza had extra mozzarella cheese, which I did not ask for, pepperoni, thick cut pepperoni, and NO EXTRA SAUCE. I was tempted to go back inside and have them make the pizza a third time but at that point, I just gave up and left. This may be a stupid question but, what is the point of having a "customize" option on the website if the person making the food is not going to pay attention to it? This is also the second time that I've come to this location and order the same Pizza and it was not made correctly. The last time it happened, I didn't check with the pizza until I got home before I realized it had no extra sauce. Maybe one day, I'll be able to go to this restaurant and order food and it will actually be right. With two trips and three messed up pizzas, I really don't have much confidence in this restaurant...