Donatello's Pizza — Restaurant in Salem

It pains me to leave a negative review for my family's favorite local pizza place. Not only has Donatello's been our weekly delivery option, it has also been a gathering place for our family and friends since 2013. Over the years they have had their ups and downs with quality. We have always stuck with them through their growing pains. Their quality took a noticable decline when they began adding the arcade. They once were on par with Paddington's but haven't made it back to the same level of quality. Don't get me wrong they have always been better than the national chains. My family still loves Donatello's pizza. If this review was on the pizza alone it would be 4/5 stars.

What I've noticed in the past two months has been a major decline in service. without going into too many details I'll sum it up.

*Items missing from orders. *Refusal for refund of missing items. The only options given to fix missing items were A) Driver would drive back to deliver item B) They will incluse item in next order. *Them forgetting item on the next weeks order (previous weeks issue was mentioned while ordering and acknowledged they were fixing it this order). *Repeat of the week before. *If you accidentally select pickup in the app instead of delivery it will take a minimum of 2 phone calls to them inquiring on the whereabouts of your delivery for them to realize you messed up(almost 2 hours since order). *Manager not available by phone. *Manager too busy to speak with you when you drive down to speak with them in person. *Items missing from order again during same visit where I expressed my disappointment with assistant manager.

The last thing I want to do is complain about a restaurant thats beloved by my family. Its heartbreaking to see other negative reviews with similar experiences with Donatello's on here. My hopes are that the owners and/or management will see these reviews and make the necessary corrections to keep their loyal customers. For now, my family and I are taking a break from this...

We walk in around 8pm on a Saturday, we actually enter to an arcade area which was pretty lively and cool full of kids and what seem to be a birthday party eating... but no staff to found anywhere....

We end walking through an arch way that leads to another room.... it’s empty, there is one girl sweeping, not a hello anything, so I ask her... are you guys closed? She looks up and then at her phone and says “No we’re open until 11” and goes right back to sweeping....

I kid you not there wasn’t one other person in the room that worked there, she didn’t call for help anything.... I looked at my wife and said “what do we do? And laughed” about 10 sec later a girl who worked at the bar walked up and then sweeping girl informed her that “these people want to order” and she took our order... we got a Med Pizza and 12 wing which with a 15% tip was roughly $34...

The pizza pizza and wings got there in a timely fashion, however upon arrival, another girl dropped the pizza and wings and just walked away.... no plates, no napkins, no offer of drinks... it was confusing, after I ate a slice I figured out they offer tiny paper plates and have water jugs and cups on the end of the bar....

Now on to the pizza.... I will say it was NOT greasy which is a big positive in my book but it was tasteless, like honestly the most tasteless pizza I’ve ever had and their wings are baked not fried, so they come out a bite soggy...

Overall this was a bad experience, but I’m giving it a 2 out of 5 because the arcade for kids is really great and the murals on the walls are amazing.... atmosphere it’s honestly 5 out of 5.... staff and customer service are terrible 0 out of 5 and the food is 2 out of 5....

I came, I saw, I...

Overall, this is a great place. The pizza is exactly like Pietro's, which is super nostalgic for anybody who grew up in the area before the 2000's. Quality is consistently good, whether you order for dine-in, take-out, or delivery. The prices are a little higher than I'd like or expect, but it's not outrageous. The salads are fresh and HUGE.

We've been to many birthday parties here over the years, and had a couple for our children here as well. I wish they had more organized party packages - you kind of just reserve a spot, and then order pizzas and buy tickets for the kids ad-hoc. It would be great if you could just give them a number of kids and preferred toppings, and they would just provide game cards, pizza and drinks based on that number, but this is a minor quibble.

The games area is great. There are enough games to keep kids entertained, and they're in good working order. I miss the days of tokens - especially with younger kids that don't have any concept of numbers outside of physical things, it tends to lead to more surprised "I thought I had $10 left!" conversations. That being said, it makes redeeming tickets WAY faster/easier.

We usually go into the restaurant to eat, but our last experience with Donatello's was with delivery. The pizza showed up before the quoted time, was hot, fresh, and very delicious. It would be nice if they had an online ordering system/app, but calling in was quick and straightforward. The pizza turned out to be a little cheaper than I was quoted on the phone, and I paid in cash, so the delivery guy got a pretty...