Colony Grill - St Petersburg — Restaurant in Saint Petersburg

This place was just okay. Colony Grill was very clean inside and had the space divided between the bar side and the dining side at 8:00 on a Saturday night. We were surprised that it was pretty much empty except for at the bar when all the surrounding restaurants were packed. Our server was okay, nothing special, but probably because there's not much to do since there's only one item on the menu. Menu. The one item is pizza, apparently pizza from their original restaurants in Connecticut.

The pizza itself was not great. This is the first time ever that I have had to put salt on a pizza to give it flavor. We used all of the toppings on the table to help with the flavor of the pizza. It was extremely greasy and all of the toppings were just piled on top. One of the diners at our table compared it to Red Baron pizza with fresher ingredients. They also only give you small paper plates to eat off of so the amount of grease is crazy. They could at least get real plates for the dining side and use the paper plates for the bar side. This just felt lazy.

Most of the wait staff was huddled around the front of the restaurant chatting the whole time we were there because there was only two full tables in the dining side and a couple tables out front that people were eating at. Overall, we would not be back. There are too many good pizza places within walking distance of this that have other options on their menu, real utensils and plates, and just have overall better food. I'm sure for the people that lived in CT, this is probably a great throwback pizza for them, but for the average diner this place...

A for effort I guess. Look I know there's a history to the restaurant and the theme they are going with, I respect it,it's just maybe not for me. Not knowing there was much of a history,just trying it randomly as we knew it was semi new I was pretty unimpressed. The atmosphere is great, very local pub like,service was great but the food was underwhelming to be honest. First the menu is extremely limited, no sides,no entrés, no salads,or dessert. Your pizza toppings options are semi limited also. No spinach or tomato's.. unless you get a salad pizza, which is weird to me? It's literally a mountain of greens on crust, someone must be in to that. Also no dips.. again I know there's a theme but like no ranch or blue cheese? Their only dressing is balsamic.. which again, not what I'm used to or necessarily want with pizza. Also the pizza is very bland. I have made better pizza at home and have honestly tasted more flavored frozen pizza, unfortunately. I will say the price point is great, very affordable but honestly I would have rather gotten a papa John's pizza or really any pizza elsewhere regardless of the price. Even the server seemed embarrassed when he answered no to most of our questions,as if he gets asked these basic questions often. I'm hoping they can work on their ingredients a bit and maybe offer just a few simple things to the menu.. a simple side house salad, a few dressing options for us dippers, maybe an Irish dessert to finish? I try to be positive with reviews,but this one was rough. I hope they do well long term,the concept is great they just need a tiny bit of a...

[Note: not all of my reviews are complaints. I do hold pricier places to a higher standard] First time here. Started off good. Attentive server explained things well…she even upsold me on $1.95 to add spicy oil to my pizza. Then she started training another server, and we were lost to the crowd. I got a wine refill after catching her eye, but my companion did not get a refill despite her walking by us three times. Eventually the manager saw us craning our necks and he came over and asked if we needed anything. We ordered a drink refill for my companion… And then nothing happened. The manager forgot. Then I flagged down the server and asked her to refill my companion’s drink. She said OK. Then it was the manager who eventually brought the drink and he apologized for the delay. But he had been talking to employees and customers for the last seven minutes! Keep in mind…the place was not busy. Half the tables were empty. At this price level how hard is it to refill someone’s drink? Drinks are probably the highest profit margin item on the menu really strange. Unfortunately, our server training a new server was not modeling good service…and the manager guy was pointless. The pizza was very tasty. The atmosphere was great. JUST KEEP THE DRINKS FLOWING. Duh. Update: the owner replied to this review in less than 24 hrs…and was friendly…always a sign of a great...