Rudino's Pizza & Grinders Cameron, NC — Restaurant in North Carolina

I was absolutely thrilled to find that there was a Rudino’s just a few minutes away from my home. I went online to place an order. Went to pick it up. The first young lady was very pleasant and courteous. She asked the second young lady to check on my order and told her my name. Second young lady comes back says just a couple of more minutes. I said, Ok sure no problem. Then she comes back and says what’s the name again? I gave her the name, again. Oh we don’t have an order under that name, and then she proceeded to walk away from me. Did not offer to make an order anything. She then comes back and says you may need to call them to make sure it is not at one of our other locations. I had pulled up the webpage by then and asked, is there another Rudino’s in Cameron? She says no, and again walks off. I am just utterly ticked by then and walk out. Then I decide no, let me go back. She is standing at the hostess counter by then and I ask ‘is this not your website?’ She says yes, and pushes a bag of food towards me and says here you go? I thought you said it was not ordered here. We thought it wasn’t but it’s here,, and again pushes the food at me and turned away like I was bothering her. So don’t know who owns this Cameron, NC location, but the rude, red headed, young lady with the shoulder length hair just lost you a family of customers because everyone in my home loves Rudino’s. If black people aren’t welcome you should put for ‘whites only’ in the window because she was polite to everyone else in the place except me. And by the time she finally gave me my food, of course...

Service - great Kitchen needs help. I've ordered a lot of meatball sandwiches. Never been served sliced meatballs...it was odd and it made it mushy and gave it a very strange texture. Also it was easy to tell they use frozen meatballs from the texture and chemical rubber taste. The sauce tasted of the metal can it was poured out of. No seasoning, no flavor, just standard tasteless red mush. The cheese wasnt melted fully so it had turned into solid rubbery mass by the time I ate the sandwich. The bread was not toasted and very floppy...sandwich was not cut. We ordered the chicken Parm pizza and I gotta be honest it reminds me of the chef boyardee pizzas pack things you used to get as a kid. The dough is flat, more of a flatbread than a pizza dough. It was undercooked, dry, and basically a single brown colored lifeless soft cracker. It's bar pizza at best. Chicken tasted off and the breading was literally mushy...kinda hard to do after coming out of an oven. My wife got a salad...she said it was fresh and tasty. Nothing wrong with that. The young lady at the front was very informative, helpful, and seemed happy to be there. We will give them the benefit of the doubt and try something else next time. But that was pretty rough if I'm...

TLDR: come for the service, not the pizza

To preface, I don’t prefer thin crust pizza, and TBH if I had know them only do thin crust, I’d have stayed home.

We ordered burger, lasagna, pizza, and drinks, and an app.

App: loaded cheese fries. Anything fancy? No. Amazing? Absolutely. Like the cheese pull. 🤤 worth it. Amazing.

The kids got lasagna and a cheese burger. The burger apparently had “a spice,” but I just chalked it up to child palette. It’s not McDs. They are large portions - both the burger and lasagna. Expect leftovers.

We ordered a pizza (the rudino’s royale) with a modification limiting some ingredients to half and it didn’t go well. Husband loved it, but he enjoys those toppings. For me, the pizza fell apart. It wasn’t stable enough to eat as a pizza - if it’s not square cut, you can’t pick it up.

Now - I want to say - my service was PHENOMENAL. The best waitress was a sweetheart, super responsive and very friendly. Amazing atmosphere. I love the crew in front of the kitchen! I’d definitely come back for something other than pizza.

Summary:

If you want tavern style thin crust pizza, have at it.

If you have a traditional pizza craving, well… this may...