Pizza Bella Italian Bistro — Restaurant in San Diego

Located in Old Town, Pizza Bella has been around for years but it’s been some time since I dined here. I was a bit taken aback to walk in and be told by a clearly flustered waiter that it would be about 10 minutes before he could take my table even though there were ample empty tables in the restaurant. Fortunately there was a female server who was able to seat me and wait on me after a couple of minutes. Even if flustered I would not recommend that being the welcome provided to customers entering the restaurant. I let the non-welcoming initial impression pass because I have always loved their bruschetta and had a taste for it.

I ordered the above mentioned bruschetta and a personal size pepperoni pizza with extra pizza sauce. As I’ve mentioned the Bruschetta is probably the favorite bruschetta I’ve had anywhere. It might not be the most authentic Italian bruschetta but it is just SO good. Everyone I have ever introduced to it has loved it. Today was no exception. The bread was perfectly toasted and the perfect amount of ingredients were used with a wonderful balsamic glaze spread beautifully across the plate. You can look at the picture to see what it looks like.

The pepperoni pizza with extra sauce was good. I wouldn’t say great. The pizza here has never been what I would call great and today was no different. It’s good. There’s plenty of cheese and ingredients. There just isn’t a ton of flavor in my opinion. It’s not something I would crave like I would some other pizza establishments.

The other thing I would say is that their prices are a little high for what you get. An appetizer of bruschetta shouldn’t cost the same as a pizza, no matter how good it is. And the personal 8” pizza started at $15.95 for only cheese with each additional ingredient bumping it up further.

My waitress was pleasant and friendly and did a great job getting the food out while hot and ensuring the meal was good. I didn’t catch her name.

Pizza Bella has parking available in the rear of the building and they offer both indoor and patio dining. The building has shared restrooms with the other businesses.

I took off a star based on the initial non-welcome, the somewhat elevated pricing and the fact that the pizza is...

THIS PLACE DISCRIMINATES AGAINST SERVICE ANIMALS.

My family and I had an absolutely disgusting interaction with the owner/manager (not sure who he was, and I was too upset to catch his name.) Whoever he was, he tried to seat my family and I outside once he found out I have a service animal (cardiac alert and response dog, alerts to syncope episodes). We kindly tried to tell him that she was a service dog to which he responded saying that there were no dogs allowed inside. Then he switched up his excuse saying that we couldn't be seated inside because there were already other large parties inside (spoiler alert: there wasn't). So, we agreed to be seated outside (I didn't want to make a scene in front of my family. Normally I have no problem fighting for my rights). Once seated, one of my family members once again asked if there was any way we could be seated inside, to which he again responded saying he couldn't let us in because of the dog. I then stated that my service dog is my medical equipment and has a right to be with me wherever I go. Then he all of a sudden had room to seat us inside. His tone was short and he seemed very annoyed. I was made to feel uncomfortable, upset, embarrassed, and discriminated against. And this all happened the day after Christmas no less! So if you have a service dog (or any other medical equipment really, the place is small and not easy to maneuver) avoid this place like the plague!!

Note: ADA federal law states that a business does not have the right to sit us away from people/outside simply because of a service animal. If my dog were behaving poorly it would be a different story, but this dog has had thousands of hours of training since she was 8 weeks old. She was...

We had an absolutely bitter and sub-par experience here today on account of the following reasons:

Our server was possibly racist. Please note I am not offended easily and I do not take these allegations lightly. Here is what happened... After we got seated and ordered our food, we were never asked if we needed water or anything to drink. After a while, I asked the server if we could get water. Even then, he took his sweet time before serving water to us. In between, I saw him serve the table behind us twice. Also later I saw a white family come and sit in front of us. This same server promptly asked if he could serve them water as soon as they were seated. Not just this, when I asked him a simple question, his tone was condescending and rude. He never came to check with us if the food was ok or if we needed anthing else. Also when he did give us the bill, he didn't even had the courtesy to ask if we needed a box for our left over food. What struck us was that he seemed nice and warm to other families except us. I have never had such an awful experience ever before!

Food was pathetic. We ordered simple cheese pizza and the cheese was so "rubbery", I just couldn't believe this place had won America's best pizza. The Mediterranean salad had so much balsamic dressing in it that it tasted very sour. When we pointed this out, the server unapologetically did offer to make the salad all over again. But by that time, we were so put off by everything that had happened that we...