Tony Lena's Sandwich Shop — Restaurant in Swampscott

I really wanted to like this place. It's (literally) 50 feet from my front door. 50 feet! Pizza heaven!

Alas, as hard as I tried, I couldn't like them. In fact, I wish I could get my money back. We walked in to place a takeout order, and it was DEAD. Not a good sign for a pizza place on a Thursday night. Only two people working in the whole place, and neither looked busy. Despite this, the gal at the counter asked us to wait a minute. "Sure," we said. A few minutes later, the phone rings and she takes a phone order. It takes forever. We look at each other. We debate calling on our cell phone. She gets the hint, gets off the phone, and takes our order -- just a sausage and mushroom pizza and a small order of mozzarella sticks. $17, 20 minutes. Ok, cheap and fast enough. We leave to get beer, come back, pick it up, head home.

The mozzarella sticks: well, not bad, exactly. It's deep-fried cheese... kind of hard to screw up. But EXTREMELY generic -- ho-hum crust, slightly-chewier-than-usual cheese, okay marinara for dipping. Edible.

Pizza: barely edible. Seriously. Almost no sausage... and a LOT of really, really bad mushrooms. Clearly they were canned mushrooms, which was bad enough, with their slimy texture and metallic aftertaste, but these were canned mushrooms gone bad. They tasted like they had been opened and stored in a container that had previously been filled with bleach and detergent and not washed out correctly. Yuck. The cheese was weird -- maybe a cheddar blend? Not bad, but odd. The sauce was mediocre and unoffensive. The crust, I will actually applaud. The crust was good. Thin but crispy enough to hold up, good flavor, good texture. The crust was good enough that, if they sold it on its own, I would go buy it and make my own darned pizza!

Overall: the crust got them two stars, but otherwise it would have been only one. The North Shore isn't exactly known for their pizza, but this was a new low. Too bad -- I like to support local businesses, but short of a 6-foot snowstorm and blizzard conditions for a week, this one is definitely getting marked...

Very Very upset. This was my favorite sub shop in all of the world until today. They closed their Salem location a few weeks ago I guess. I ordered the bomb from the Swampscott location the other night. I had plenty of free time so picked it up no problem. While there I asked about delivery to my apartment in Salem right on Lafayette St by the college, the folks working said delivery wouldn't be a problem. I ate at the Salem location twice a week sometimes even more and always always tipped the delivery driver well. Today I am working from home and have no time to run out to Swampscott to pick up a sub (which by the way is rather pricey...12 dollars for a large bomb. Well worth it though). The folks on the phone said delivery to about 5 addresses down Lafayette closer to the restaurant was fine but I had a 20 dollar minimum for my order..... Thanks a lot Tony Lena's. You lost a super valuable customer. Oh and put the phone on hold while your boss is venting about the delivery drive I could hear everything, unimpressed and sad :/ oh well.....guess Fran and Diannes...

This is the 3rd time I’ve had Tony Lenas and I’ve been in lynn 7 years and hands down the best service and fresh subs I’ve had since I’ve been here! Too bad I waited so long to find it! Today I ordered a Blt and I am a bit picky when it comes to my bacon I don’t eat it often and when I do I like it very crispy. When I request these things most places don’t take your preferences into consideration. Tony lenas made it amazing exactly how I wanted it not one string of fatty bacon! It had extra like I asked and I was more then happy with my money spent ! Thank you for making me happy your customer service is very much appreciated! 😀😀 salads are great too and...