Pizza Works — Restaurant in Old Saybrook

The restaurant is literally next to the train station. So when the trains come in you can feel the vibrations. We were part of a large group and had been told that they don't do reservations. The restaurant feels small, in part because of a narrow entrance way. There is a hostess stand to the right and set of stairs to the left leading up. Directly across is something that looks like a cafeteria set up. I didn't get a good look at it as the hostess was quickly leading us down some steps to behind their stand, through a small interior dining area and out a side door to the patio area.

The patio area was easily twice the size of the indoor eating area. There were several round tables with iron outdoor chairs and several wooden picnic tables lined against the side of the building. A large privacy fence helped to make the area feel enclosed, which was nice since it faced the parking lot.

They had set aside the last two picnic tables for our group. The waitress was prompt and asked up front about how the bill would be divided. As we ordered the waitress was very helpful with answering questions and helping us to figure out what we wanted. The menu is huge with several options you don't normally find like seafood and broccoli.

She wrote down everyone's order as they ordered but then waited until the majority of the group was there to put all the orders in. This way most of the food came out together. Quite brilliant on her part, so that she wasn't doing all the orders at once. It also allowed her to spend some time refilling drinks and people didn't feel pressured to order because they were "next".

The pizza was ok. I know that some people rave about it but it just wasn't for me. We ordered two of the preset pizzas. I can't remember what they were called. The crust is obviously hand tossed as it's bulky on the edges but has no structure in the middle. I was forced to eat them with fork because the center of the pizza was to weak to hold the toppings. There wasn't a lot of cheese but it seemed greasy.

We were there in the evening and as the sun set it got cold. Despite being September it can cold after dark. I didn't realize we would be outside so I only had a t-Shirt on, no jacket. We ended up leaving the group early, in part because be it was getting late, but more because it was...

Ok, so I order from this restaurant quite frequently and have for the last 7 years. Recently, due to the pandemic, I’ve been ordering through the SLICE online ordering system.

I have never had an issue to this scale before. I ordered a large chicken and chopped pasta salad with dressing on the side with extra dressing on the side. As I do every single time I order.

For whatever reason, this time when I ordered, my salad came tossed with the dressing.

When I called the restaurant asking if they could fix my order, I was first met with an arrogance that was unnecessary. The woman claimed it was the ordering systems fault that my order was wrong and not theirs. This went on for a bit until I asked the woman if they were willing to fix my order, she said she would make a small salad.

Which wasn’t appreciated because I paid for a large so I would have to take a loss, twice.

I called SLICE and was able to get my refund for the salad but I will NOT be spending my money here any longer. Let us remember during this time that businesses need consumers, it is not the other way around.

We should be more willing to service the customers, the very people who keep you in business. And since you weren’t, I’ll take my business elsewhere.

It’s such a shame because I’ve loved this restaurant...

We have been here several times with our Jeep group and have always had excellent service…….until yesterday. I called the night before and said we were coming with 15-20 people. We always sit upstairs so we can watch the trains coming and going. We arrived with 19 people and they would not seat us upstairs even after I asked because “that’s reserved for kids who like to see the trains”. Okay, we love watching trains AND we had 2 little kids with us excited about seeing the trains, but they wouldn’t seat us up there. We were put in a spot with plenty of room for all of us, but we were not all at the same table, which is what I want as we are a group and want to all converse together during lunch. Normally we have a male waiter(forget his name) who has always been awesome, but yesterday we had a girl who was very rude with no personality at all. Everyone in the group noticed how she was acting and we were not pleased with how she acted. She’s lucky she added the 20% tip on everyone’s bill herself because she definitely did not deserve that much based on her attitude and probably would have gotten less from all of us if we added tip ourselves. I’m sad to say we wont be back with our group in the future due to the service we had yesterday, which is a shame because the food was...