Alfredo’s Pizza — Restaurant in Scranton

Review: Alfredo’s Pizza Cafe Scranton PA

YES!! This is the same Alfredo's Pizza Cafe featured in the TV show The Office! I have driven through Scranton hundreds of times driving back and forth between NYC and Upstate NY, and have only stopped in once to check out the Steamtown Railway Museum. On this occasion, I found myself in a hotel near Scranton, and it gave me the perfect opportunity to experience and review a Pizza from Alfredo’s Pizza Cafe! NOT Pizza by Alfredo!

I ordered their award winning “Pan Pizza” (with extra cheese) which is similar to a Sicillian pie. As I opened the box, when I saw the ocean of cheese, I wanted to jump in and swim around for a while!  This pizza was done right from start to finish! The perfect amount of sauce! The mozzarella is fresh, and very tasty; and the crust held everything up with a crusty dignity! It’s the kind of pizza that you need to hang out with for a while. The intricate tastes between cheese, sauce, and crust need your full attention.

Alfredo’s Pizza Cafe is old school, and has been around for over 40 years! They definitely have a wisdom, love, and passion for pizza making. I also found their prices to be quite reasonable.

The Pizza Guys 0-10 scale of Pizza excellence:

Cheese: I give the cheese a 10! It is flavorful, moist, done with perfection, and strings out nicely. Not salty, not bland. It really strikes a nice balance in a cheesy world!

Sauce: I give the sauce a 10! The sauce tastes like homemade. Not sugary, and not acidic. It holds the pizza together well. Not watery, and they put on the perfect amount! The sauce complements the cheese and crust wonderfully.

Crust: I give the crust a 10! The crust has a nice light crusty bite. It’s not overdone, and you can tell that it has been fermented properly. No taste of yeast. Not spongy and not chewy. It breaks properly on the bite, and supports the sauce and cheese without falling apart, or getting soggy.

The next day: Cold out of the fridge is my favorite way to go when hungry. Who could resist?? Some food matures in flavor a day later; this pizza is no disappointment. The flavor of the cheese and sauce became more intense; and the crust held it’s integrity.

Total Pizza Guy Review Score: I have never given a perfect 10, but this pie deserves it! I have had great pizza all over the globe; this stands tall among some of the best that I have had. Now you have two reasons to stop into Scranton PA! Pizza and Trains! Be sure to catch the episode of the Office where Michael kidnaps the delivery driver from Pizza by Alfredo because he wouldn’t honor Michael’s coupon; but the staff was more upset because Michael ordered from the wrong Pizza Parlor “Pizza by Alfredo.” Then they finally ordered from Alfredo’s Pizza Cafe, and...

My family and I are Office fans, so, when we happened to be driving through Scranton, we thought it might be fun to stop at the home of the "good pizza" from the show. By the end of our meal, we were shocked that anyone would choose it over any other pizza in town.

We were seated in what was essentially a hallway, in a booth on the way to other seating. This put us right next to the kitchen and provided us with a weird blend of lighting: the fluorescents in the kitchen, the dim lighting of the restaurant itself, and the glaring light of a flatscreen overhead. More importantly, it put us in direct view of the servers going in and out of the kitchen.

In the hour and a half or so that we were there, we were largely ignored by our server. She would pass our table to go to the rest of her section, paying no attention to empty glasses or attempts to wave her down. We ordered from her, then were immediately forgotten.

It probably took a full half hour to receive our food, the double-crust cheese that they pride themselves in and a half-pan of pepperoni pizza. The double crust pizza (basically a huge calzone) is the only thing that brought the food rating to two stars. The crust was delicious, and their cheese blend complimented the seasoning well. However, the amount of cheese made it a pain to eat. As soon as you pull a piece from the flat cutting board they serve it on, the cheese floods the board in a lake, sogs up the bottom crust, and threatens to spill onto the table. A great advertisement video cheese pull, but at what cost? We preferred how it tasted once half the cheese had run out anyway. The pizza was much worse; it was cold, and the cheese was the texture of pudding. It did not brown and get that nice pizza chewiness in the oven like you might expect, only melting into a soft layer that left the pizza free of texture. The mushrooms were undercooked and squeaky, but the pepperoni itself was pretty good.

While my family sat and waited on the only refill we got in, again, an hour and a half, we joked that the Alfredo's bit from the Office might have been a crew joke about how hit-or-miss this place was. The home of the "good pizza" was not here, and I recommend that, if you come here, you buy only the somewhat-overpriced merchandise and eat better pizza faster...

I originally came here because I’d found it from The Office tour recommendations from the show but it definitely had a lot to offer and glad that brought me in. I sat at the bar and the bartenders were super nice and friendly and knew most of the other patrons in the bar area by name and their preferences well. Talking to one local customer who comes there 3x a week and others who also go multiple times a week so you know it’s got something good to offer. They had various food and drink specials including $2.50 Corona special on Friday when I went. They also do happy hour martini special from 5-8 pm which I think as sad to miss as they have a huge martini menu of I think almost 80 different martinis! I did have an espresso martini and it was very good. The Vday special spritzer was good too but a little sweet for my tastes. I got their signature square pizza and the “half cut” which is 6 slices seemed definitely like a full pizza and was plenty for one person (after apps I only made it through about half of it and saved the rest for later which was good as leftovers too) and super reasonably priced for what you get at $8 when I went. I also got a house salad which was pretty standard but did have a unique and very flavorful dressing choice I took with raspberry walnut vinegar eye which I’d recommend but they also had your standard dressing options. My highlight of the meal was their vday special of ravioli which came in an appetizer portion (2 pieces which is what I got) or full meal portion. The ravioli was good but highlight was the sauce which is garlic cream + white wine + a bit of tomato which all comes together beautifully. My only complaint was it was hard to get all the sauce off the plate and it was a bit thin so ran off the ravioli a bit - a better serving idea may be a bowl or something to get even more of it more easily but a minor thing really. All in all the service was great, drinks and food were good, and everyone there was as welcoming. It did get super busy by time I left so if you’re coming between like 5-7 pm I’d recommend a reservation as it seemed they were stacked...