Caruso's Sandwiches and Artisan Pizza — Restaurant in Spokane Valley

Go here for good food. Quality over quantity.

One time regular. Once a week every week through all the seasons, year round.

Not anymore.

Through covid and before I raved about this establishment!

Where else can I get a good salad good pizza and a good sandwich? Quite honestly I still can't get all that all together. The most difficulty in restaurants is finding a good place to have salad that is the complete package. Good ingredients, well thought through and executed.

These are my thoughts and opinions about what happened after they got through the worst of covid business issues.

Now having survived covid low attendance dropping by to make it they felt comfortable making some changes. And as a business I think that's a great idea in principle. Unfortunately it doesn't always work in practice. Yes you need to make money and not let people take advantage of you.

They know everybody likes a beer with their Pizza sandwich. And that's a great business model that I agree with. They had a crazy unbelievable $3 a beer during happy hour. We're not talking Pabst Blue River, Coors light, or whatever massive production beer that could be sold for cheap. These were high quality production beers like Ninkasi, 10 barrel, Deschutes, and many many others. It was the glue that kept me stuck there coming in Time after Time after Time. I like a beer like many do.

I understand raising the price when you can, but to raise the happy hour $2 in a Time back then at the end of covid, five or $6 was the normal price for a tap beer of that quality. It was too much for me, I would have understood raising it a dollar to $4. $4 is a great happy hour price. This isn't a bar where people go in there specifically to drink and don't mind paying $6 happy hour price.

!!!!!!! 40% PRICE INCREASE IN HAPPY HOUR BEER!!!!!!!!!!!!! That it was too much of an increase and without that incentive or just raising the price by a dollar instead of two, I then wasn't going there as much even though they had great food and I love the people.

But then they started charging for two extra small dressing cups. 50 cents each if I remember correctly. Salad was great dressing was wonderful, but just a little too little dressing. I'm not a dressing pig. I wasn't asking for dressing to take home, or asking for it to put on my sandwich or pizza.

Well I like their food and I love the people that work for them, I'm not frequenting because of the little things. And if they had $4 happy hour then I would probably start going there again. Maybe bring my own dressing.

So it doesn't mean much scheme of a business probably. I was only about $1,100 worth of business a year. I've known at least 10 other truck drivers that have done the exact same thing, I'm thinking many many others in the community have made the same choice. But they probably didn't notice because at the end of covid a lot more business came their way. They probably saw an increase even with us be gone, not realizing that their margin sheet might have been 5 or 10% better than it was. One says to the other, look what a good job I did for you I did we had a 10% increase this year by cutting costs. Matter of fact with the beer prices being increased we sold the same amount of beer. Not considering or thinking at people were coming out again after being cooped up and we're drinking more beer.

Nickels for dollars. Worrying about one so much that you...

My wife and I worked with Jesse and Jessica from Caruso's to cater our wedding (about 160-170 people). We had an amazing experience working with them throughout the entire process and our guests loved the food. Jesse went so above in beyond leading up to the event in how flexible he was with our constantly changing headcount, his ability to recommend food quantities to perfectly match our estimated numbers, and in his ability to offer dietary options that worked for all of our guests -- whether they were gluten free, vegetarian, vegan, or something else entirely. Caruso's was also by far one of the more affordable options for wedding catering in the area, which was huge for my wife and I -- our wedding was held in a backyard, was largely DIY, and we both are in grad school, so it helped make our wedding feel personal with our favorite food (pizza) without bankrupting us.

I got so many compliments from our attendees about how great the food was, and I really appreciated how quickly Jesse and Jessica worked to allow for fast service. Despite our high guest count, we ran through everyone dishing up within a half an hour, which is incredibly impressive (and kept our guests fed and happy). After dinner, Jesse and Jessica packed up all of the food and left it in an accessible place so that our guests could continue to snack on it throughout the night. It made for a fantastic late-night bite for our group, and we've also enjoyed the leftovers for a few days after.

Lastly, I wanted to quickly speak about the quality of people that we worked with. Jesse was our main point of contact throughout the process and truly was a fantastic person to work with even beyond his expertise. He never failed to be kind, helpful, and congratulatory. On our wedding day, him and Jessica were both helpful, efficient, and went out of their way to thank us and say congratulations. It meant a lot, and I'm just so impressed with how they treated us throughout the whole ordeal. Thank you so much to the Caruso's team! My wife and I will always think of our special day whenever we eat there...

Wow! I've been having people recommend Caruso's to me for a couple of years now since I've moved to Spokane. After my meal here I am sorry I waited so long to check this place out.

This is a casual restaurant that serves mostly sandwiches and pizza with a few other things on the menu as well. I got what they call the "Plain Ol' French Dip" and my girlfriend got the "Caruso's Club." The staff was very helpful as we navigated the menu. We made our order, paid, and took a seat while we waited for the food to be brought to the table.

The sandwiches are sold as half or whole and a half sandwich is pretty big. Their prices range from 6-14 dollars. The pizzas are 12" and most of the specialty pizzas are $12 with a couple of unique offerings. I think $14 was the most expensive menu item I saw.

The room was bright and clean. One nice touch is that there are four flavored syrups (cherry, lemon, vanilla, plus one other I can't remember) that you can put in your soda so you can have your own custom made cherry or vanilla coke.

We each ordered whole sandwiches since we like leftovers. The bread they serve is spectacular. My French Dip was perfect. The beef is sliced very thin, the bread was toasted, and comes with both cheddar and provolone cheese. Best of all, you get a nice sized bowl of au jus. So often with a French dip you get a tiny bowl of au jus you can barely get your sandwich in to but today I was able for every bite to be well-soaked. My girlfriend's club was equally tasty and I'm thinking that might be my sandwich the next time we go. And there will be a next time...