Lou Boccardi's Restaurant — Restaurant in St. Louis

1st visit

They have a sidewalk sign for 1 LG 2 topping pizza for $10 between 4-6. I have seen this sign everyday for a month, so I finally decided to pull the trigger. Here’s my experience:

A Friday night @ 5:30pm

Order: 1 lg Hamburger & Bacon, 1 lg Sausage & Onion, 1 lg house salad.

Total: $30 excluding gratuity.

1. The initial phone greeting was very friendly. Curbside only, obviously. Upfront payment not required

2. The pizza Since it was my first visit, I was a little surprised to see the pizza is a square shape. That’s not a bad thing, just unexpected. It reminded me of the way pizza was served when I was a kid. The bacon was tiny, hard to find, pieces. I guess I’m just used to slices of bacon. The onions were also tiny, hard to find, pieces. I’m just used to seeing sliced onions.

Overall, it’s a decent pizza for $10.

3. The salad I actually called back to add the salad. When I asked about their house dressing I was told they had two to choose from. The first was an anchovy based dressing. I chose this one because I thought it might be like a house made Caesar. For some reason, they decided to toss my salad..ha! Maybe they always toss the salad if it has that dressing or maybe someone tossed it by mistake. Either way, why would anyone want a to-go salad swimming in dressing? It just starts to become a soggy mess. What if I was going to eat it the next day? The salad/lettuce part was kinda like the toppings; a bit skimpy, not outstanding in any way, and pre-tossed. The anchovy dressing was strange and not good. It was very clumpy, like someone tried to purée a cucumber and then put it on top of the salad. So when the liquid settled you were left with a clumpy, greenish pile mashing down on the lettuce. Not a pretty sight. I did not like the flavor and thought it was awful. You might like it.

So, since they put the dressing on top of my to go salad and I hated the flavor, I had no choice but to throw it away. Kind of upsetting to throw a $10 bill in the trash.

Honestly speaking, maybe it was an off night. Maybe others will say...”oh, you should go when so-and-so is working”. I don’t know if that’s the case or not. If that is the case then I guess they would only end up being busy on the designated nights the “good” pizza/salad guy works?? Otherwise there shouldn’t be a drastic difference regardless of who prepares the meal.

I can literally see this restaurant from my house and have to say, that, I likely will not order from them again. It was memorable for the wrong reasons and I won’t be putting their number...

Went to Lou Boccardi's yesterday for the 1st tIme with my girlfriend. Was a beautiful day, although a slow day in The Hill. We sat and ordered a few beers, & the Owner/General Manager, Lily came down to take care of us. First off, not only was she extremely accomodating, and sincerely welcoming, professional, and warm. She took over an hour of her time to answer our questions about the restaurants hisyory, The Hills history and many many great stories that we will cherish. Sadly, we had a prior engagement that required us to leave with a huge thank you and a promise we'd be back to eat. We kept that promise, and got a carry out of a large pizza as we didn't have much time left prior to them closing to enjoy the lovely atmosphere that would have been eating inside the restaurant. I am a pizza, GOOD family, hand made true Italian pizza-not the chain/delivery nonsense, but really good fresh St Louis pizza fanatic. I have about 5 that are my goto, and are all in this group of family owned, etc, because quite simply they are hands down the best. I am happy to say Lou Boccardi's is now a very solid part of that list, as Lily personally made the pizza for us, and it was gone before we even got home, having burned our mouths, in a good way and simply unable to stop eating it on the way home. HAHA...the entire experience, along with the amazing care and quality of their food will have us back again and again, and I cannot recommend you trying it as well enough. Thank you to Lily, and staff, and Lou himself for keeping the Hills and great quality food and atmosphere alive and well. I will be telling anyone who listens about our great...

I took my family to dinner here on a Sunday night for what I thought would be a nice good dinner, I was told would be 30 minute wait turned into almost one hour, sat at bar the whole time we waited for table, never could get a drink, finally got seated, again we couldn’t get a drink for over 25 minutes, they served my son his food before anyone else, so he had to eat alone, the chicken on the pasta was burnt, the food was cold, we had to ask for bread and butter, didn’t even bring enough so we had to share the pieces of bread. Three tables came in after us and ordered after us, all received their food before us. We left food on our plates it was so bad, usually would take leftovers home. I asked waitress to talk to the manager was told she was busy cooking, I said I’ll call her later, we just wanted to get out of there, I tried to call for hours that evening, no answer, this went on for days, finally talked to the owner “LILY”, she said I’ll have to watch the video of the service, next day she had someone call me and I was told she would refund some of my money, I said I live far away and have no desire to come back, I just called LILY now and said I never received anything from you, she said I’m sending you a gift card, so she went back ON her word, she got very rude with me and hung up. STAY AWAY FROM HERE, THE FOOD AND SERVICE ARE TERRIBLE, AND THE OWNER HAS A BAD ATTITUDE, I HAVE had better food at a fast food...