Old County Inn — Restaurant in Payson

We returned recently to this quaint and always-busy pizza place because we loved it so much on our first visit. This time, we had to check our watches to see if it wasn’t April Fools Day. Why? Well, dear reader, press on to find out. We sat in the Tap Room because of the aforementioned busy-ness of the place, which we were happy to do. It’s a cool little bar with folksy and funky art taking up every square inch of wall and ceiling. The bartender had to man the place all by her lonesome, even though the eccentric hovel was packed with eaters and drinkers. We were amused by the new fashion of wait staff taking verbal meal orders without pad or pencil or electronic device. As though to say: I’ve got this. Well, even though she repeated every word of our order verbatim, she didn’t get this. We ordered two IPAs and a Simple Pizza with anchovies. The beers arrived timely. The pizza came eventually thereafter. However, as we began to partake, we realized our pie contained not a drop of red sauce. My wife and I concluded that this was one of their famed White Pizzas. I must admit it was pretty tasty, though my grumbly stomach may have been biased in its favor. Still, we agreed to soldier on upon the old gobble front nonetheless. We confirmed with our helper that this was indeed a White Pizza. When we reminded her that we ordered a Simple Pizza, her words were nonexistent but her face said, “No, you didn’t.” We shrugged our shoulders at this apparent obstinance and acquiesced to our fate. We ordered sides of red sauce for dipping. How we mightily missed the particular tang of that stuff! She brought it to our table quickly. The portions delivered were questionable; perhaps a tablespoon each in diminutive ramekins. And with 3/4 of our pie yet to be consumed! Again, we’re not gripers, knowing how it affects digestion in the negative, so we commenced to dig in without comment. Soon, came another oddity: our anchovies were not anchovies, after all. They appeared to be another small ocean critter by the name of sardine. A tasty creature, to be sure, flaky and saltless with silver bodies, but did not deliver our desired end. We had to chuckle at this. Was the chef in on the prank, too? Were we being secretly filmed? We ate the whole concoction, smiling and laughing between bites. How strange! Could it get any stranger? Yes. Not one bill but two bills arrived upon our tabletop. One showed that our well-used AMEX had been utilized to pay for the table next to us, a lovely trio whose lead component had travelled every square inch of our awesome planet and how the stories of every destination spilled forth! An understandable error, given the lack of help the bartender had. She assured us the charge would not stick (and indeed we checked and the charge was removed, thank you). Another oddity: our bill showed we were marked down for two Blonde beers. So we wondered: had we been imbibing blondies the whole time? The hoppiness had us fooled into thinking we had quaffed sincere IPAs. We paid our check and, allowing the missteps were due to the busy time of day, not to the first of April or a revival of Candid Camera, we chalked the bizarre experience up to the mass crowds and vowed to return one day to perhaps relive the glory of our inaugural experience here. That being said, if this had been our first dine, we would...

I wrote a simple review a year ago praising the customer service and the food with 5 stars. Not sure what has happened in the past year since my last visit but their customer service has really plummeted. My boyfriend and I were passing through on our way to my parents cabin in strawberry and I was EXTREMELY excited to get a pizza from here to enjoy at our cabin and introduce my boyfriend to their amazing pizza. Upon walking up to the host desk, we were completely ignored and had to speak up for the person literally standing at the desk to look up and help us. The girl informed us they were too busy to take our order and didn't want to do carryout. We asked if they weren't doing carryout at all or if it was just because they were busy at the moment because we didn't mind waiting and coming back for it. She then looked at us and said "oh so you're being persistent?" Incredibly rude, we were trying to be understanding. She reluctantly took our order and didn't even say anything to us and told us it would be ready in over an hour, which was fine for us because it's only a 7 minute drive between the restaurant and the cabin and we were more than willing to wait and come back. Fast forward an hour and a half later we got a call saying the pizza was ready so we drove down to get it. Now I understand that the pizza isn't going to be fresh out of the oven hot when we got back home but it seemed like they deliberately let the pizza sit out before calling us because the cheese was cold and hard. It ruined my boyfriend's first experience there and it ruined mine as well. When passing through pine again I will choose not to eat here. I wasn't even going to post a review because I figured this was a one off situation and all my other visits have been pleasant but some of my family members mentioned their own horrible experience recently so it's obvious they have a customer...

This place was recommended by our waitress at Macky's in Payson. It's in Pine, a small drive outside of Payson. We waited 35min. To be seated. We ordered the green chili beer cheese bread sticks. For $10, it was okay....just not for the price. The pic shows what was left. It came with 5 sticks.

We ordered the "Two To Mango" cocktail. For $12, we expected to be "wowed". The rim was not salted, as stated on the menu, and you could not taste any alcohol in it. Their liquor menu offers an Old Fashioned, except they list soda water in the ingredients. This drink is not made with soda water and it had me questioning everything about their cocktail menu. That happens to be my favorite drink, and I make them often.

We ordered Diet Pepsi and during the refill It tasted bad, as if the syrup was out. Sure enough, when sharing this with the waitress, she discovered I was right, they changed the syrup and gave me another refill.

The pizza was their meat pie. A little greasy for me, and for a woodfire oven, the crust was blackened, while the bottom was white and left the slice flimsy. No crispy bottom. We shared our issues with our really nice waitress.

Shy of soda refills to go, nothing else was done to compensate us for the less than perfect meal experience we had. For those who care about 5-star service and food quality, eat elsewhere. They were very busy, so either food critics don't live in the mountains, or on occassion they "get it right".

As a former owner of a restaurant, I know food, and definitely know pizza. When a restaurant doesn't "get it right", how they right their wrongs is a "make or break", and says volumes. These guys didn't even whisper. We won't be back, it was not worth the...