Encanto Italian Grill — Restaurant in Prescott Valley

This was our first visit to the Encanto Italian Grill. This restaurant is located among a narrow industrial park just north of a residential area that is about a mile or less south of 89A, just off of Robert Road.

The place was at most about half full at 7:00 pm on a Saturday evening. I ordered their “All Meat” 8 inch pizza. It was delicious and cooked to perfection, though the dough was thicker than what I prefer, but that’s OK. It was still an enjoyable pizza. My wife ordered the 16 inch gluten-free mushroom pizza, as Kelly the server told us 16 inch was the only option available, so that’s all my wife could order. When the pizza came, it came burned, not just the edges but the bottom as well. When we showed the server how the bottom of the crust was burned, she asked if we wanted another, we told her, “Of course.” That seemed rather obvious to us. When she brought the “remake” she brought two smaller single 8 inch gluten-free pizzas. I asked her why she didn’t offer the smaller size as our first option. She said she didn’t know they were available. While they did not burn the center of the crusts of the 8 inch versions, they did burn the edges. This is because the gluten-free crusts cook differently than normal crusts and require different temperature and (careful) handling. This crust was very thin, and like most GF crusts, they are made of very starchy flours and will therefore burn easily. That means you’ll have to cover or protect the edges of this crust with aluminum foil to keep them from burning. When the first crust burned, the cook should have deduced; the second ones will too. Insanity is doing the same thing repeatedly, expecting different results. So we have two issues: knowing how to cook a GF pizza, and making sure burned pizzas don’t make it to a customer. This is a training issue for both the FOH and BOH (front of the house and back of the house. Note: I am a retired chef.)

As far as decor, it seems this place has a hard time trying to figure out what it wants to be. If you’re expecting an Italian motif as advertised on the front of the building, don’t. The Mexican music blaring from the kitchen will be your first clue. There is as much a southwestern motif as there is anything else. The decor hanging on the walls is quite an eclectic collection, ranging from southwestern to homey to retro early American, to pseudo Italian. The food and service is what’s counts. The service was marginally OK (only because she didn’t intercept the burned pizza coming out of the kitchen), and the flavor of the pizza was very good once they cooked the second pizza a second time. I recommend the owner speak to the kitchen manager about the volume of the Mexican music coming out of the kitchen, or at least play Italian music because it is an Italian restaurant, after all. Since the flavor of the pizzas was good, we’ll give them another try, or try other dishes on our next trip to...

Pros: Great food, big portions and reasonable pricing

I haven't decided if I love this place or hate this place. The pizza is excellent and the best I have had of any place in the area (Streets, Guidos, Tailgaters) All the ingredients on the pizza are fresh. The sausage is real ground sausage seasoned and made fresh, so is the bacon and canadian bacon. None of that pre cooked bagged garbage that so many places use (Tailgaters, Guidos and Pizza Franchises). They use good quality mozzarella and the crust/dough is very good.

The potato skins are fantastic. The nachos could have used more meat but you get a MASSIVE plate for 6.99 that could easily fill up two people. The wings are crispy and the sauces (that I've tried) are made from scratch and not just Frank's Hot Sauce mixed with some Tobasco. So far the only let down in their food for us was the Chicken Alfredo Pasta Bowl. It was quite small and the sauce was horribly bland and also pretty over priced (13.00) considering how small it was. Tailgaters has them beat on this item.

Cons: Very Poor service and miserable atmosphere.

The inside of the restaurant is quite frankly hideous and the atmosphere inside is dark and some what miserable. There's never been very many people there when I've gone and it's kind of uncomfortable sitting in a big empty restaurant.

Now I can deal with a gloomy atmosphere but it's the service that's The Encantos biggest downfall. It's just awful. I've been there 4 times so far (because I love the pizza and I live about 60 seconds down the street) and I have never felt satisfied with the service. The waiters are very inattentive. The food is very slow to come out of the kitchen. Last night when I went I ordered Nachos to start and it took 20 minutes for them to come out and 35 minutes for our food to come out and there was only 3 other people in the restaurant.

Every time I have gone there I have been overcharged on the tax. I had a bill come out to 22.00 and was charge 3.00 for tax. It not a huge deal, but when I questioned the boy about it (looked like he was about 14) he couldn't grasp the fact that his math was wrong.

TL;DR The pizza and wings are excellent, the prices and portions are great but the service is dreadful. A good option if you live close buy and want to order and pick up the pizza. Not recommended...

I'm not the kind of person who typically goes to the internet to post poor reviews of local businesses, however, I'm hoping a manager or owner will see these remarks and make some changes for the next guest.

We went to Encanto Grill for my birthday. We have driven past it for years but never tried it out. Several things really put us off. Right when we walked in we noticed a strong smell of some kind of cleaning solution like Pinesol. That's fine for a bathroom but it's not pleasant in an eating area.

Secondly, there are signs all over the place stating you will pay a 4% fee for using a credit card. This is ridiculous. I realize it is probably a new policy due to inflation (thanks JB) but it's a real put-off to your customers to have to pay the credit card processing fee. I haven't seen that anywhere else in Prescott Valley. Additionally, if you ARE going to implement such a policy, it would be nice to have some advance notice, like on your website. Then we could have come with cash. Kind of ridiculous to spring it on your customers right when they walk in the door.

Third, before we went to the restaurant, I went to their website to view the menu, etc. There were some coupons right there on their website so I took one with us to offset the cost a little bit. Turn off #3 was when our server informed us that no coupons were valid. What?! It came off your OWN website!! If they're not valid, then REMOVE them!! Good grief.

The food was fine and service was average but I really don't think we will patronize this business again for the...