Beachside Pizza — Restaurant in New Smyrna Beach

Update: Not a soul patch in sight, happy to raise the rating back up at this New Smyrna staple. Thank you. (old review left for reference) Soul Patch: For years my family has made it a tradition to visit Manny’s on our first day of vacation. A tradition that has lasted for at least 2 decades. We love the restaurant, and it wouldn’t be a Florida trip without stopping by. Today’s experience has soured that. There was an employee hosting today (we call him “Soul Patch” since that is his most defining feature) who either lacks manners or is completely clueless to social cues. First of all we were sat at a table that had no room on one side, so per HIS instructions we scooted it over so our family could fit. When we moved the booth bench on the free space side, we partially blocked a walkway between sections. Soul Patch and the waitresses were walking through the space, so we assumed it was fine. While waiting for our food (our actual server was great, as most Manny’s employees are), Soul Patch approached us from the space because a gentleman with a wheelchair needed through. Us sitting on the bench tried to scoot it forward from where we were, but Soul Patch said, “That’s cute, but you’re actually going to have to get up.” I was in the middle of getting up and froze. I couldn’t believe he just said that to me. The audacity. After we got up we didn’t say a word because we were all too stunned to speak, and he moved the bench for the gentleman and said to him, “Sorry about that, they blocked you off here!” Like it wasn’t his idea for us to scoot back into the isle in the first place. At this point a few of us were fuming. He left walking his lanky, lame walk and the table next to us left so we were able to scoot our bench back out of the isle. The whole dinner, we were on edge. This place that used to bring us comfort became a hostile and anxiety causing environment. Again, our waitress couldn’t have been any nicer, she did an amazing job and was very attentive. We ended up getting our receipts, and in the past we used to bring our receipts to a register to pay so we got up looking for the register. Soul Patch at the host stand said, “7 exits in this place, can I help you find one?” We told him about how we were looking for the register and he told us how our server did that for us now, and called her over. He said “You can go back to your table, or you can stay and hang out with me, I don’t bite.” I responded, “We’d rather not,” and we went back to our table. My mother and her sister stayed to pay while the rest of us went outside, we did not want to be in his presence any longer. Never in my life have I ever been eager to leave Manny’s, this was a foreign experience for us. I hate to give this restaurant we love a one star rating, but as long as Soul Patch works there, it is a one...

**My intention to leave this review is not for a place to lose business, or even worse, for the employees to suffer financially. I am leaving this review so that hopefully one day the management and/or owners make some improvements.

I picked this place for 2 reasons. It's close to my house & the prices are great.

I ate at Manny's three times, but will probably never do so again.

1st time - I went for lunch. I had the 2 slices of pizza and a soda for like $5. The soda was fine, the pizza was pretty bad. It reminded me of old school roller rink pizza except not as good, which is pretty bad considering this place is called Manny's Pizza. The sauce was pretty bad, and kind of sweet. The crust was horrible. It was almost inedible towards the end of the slice. I knew then I would never order pizza again from here.

2nd time - I went for an early dinner and ordered the Chicken Parmesan dinner which included Pasta & sauce. The chicken was ok, except a little hard on the corners (burned). The pasta was pretty bad, undercooked (not al dente). The sauce, was horrible. I would say it was a step above Ragu, but I'm not sure it was even better than that.

3rd time - Since they have a lot of Greek dishes, I thought they must be better at Greek food then they were at Italian. So, I ordered the Gyro. It was also inedible. Towards the middle of the Gyro the "meat" was mush and I almost threw up in my mouth.

Again, I will not go there unless I hear that there were improvements made. Sorry for the bad review, but I tried three times and was grossed out all of the time. I would recommend going up the road and spending a couple more bucks at Touch of Italy Pizzeria (which I have had great...

Why not just take things off the menu that you aren't good at making? Just take it off the menu! I love Eggplant Parmesan and any cook that serves it knows that you slice the eggplant super thin because egg plant holds water. Slice it thin and fry it in a little olive oil before baking with cheese and sauce.The 3/4 of an inch thick pieces you served makes it WAY to soggy...so soggy that the breading falls off. The sauce was pretty good...I'll give you that and everything in the salad was fresh but the eggplant parm experience was VERY disappointing.

The gyro sandwiches my boyfriend and his mom ordered weren't even edible. It was like the meat had been in deep freeze for way too long then heated in the microwave. They took 2 bites and couldn't even eat it. Again, if you can't make it good then why is it on your menu? And the french fries tasted like they were frozen then baked instead of fried! How can you mess up fries?

You have a prime location...how about putting a little bit of pride and effort into your establishment? Call Gordon Ramsey, have him redo your menu and teach you how to make simple but kick ass dishes that make your customers want more instead of never wanting to ever come back. You can do better than what I experienced tonight. Anyone can do better than you did tonight. I feel robbed. Our bill was $70 and we couldn't...