Slice House Thousand Oaks — Restaurant in Thousand Oaks

WOW! All I can say is the wait was so worth it! This concept is genius! 5 different styles of pizza all in one place, with the choice of ordering an entire pizza or by the slice. I had been waiting on this place to open for months, and so as a pizza snob, I decided to try all the styles to take home with a few of my buddies. Each style, knocked my socks off! Tony G was also in the house. Was cool meeting a foodie celeb. Apparently The Slice House is a new franchise based solely on Tony G's (I can't spell it), recipes. Owners are a local family who I found out has purchased 5 locations. Simi Valley to open in January with other local cities to eventually follow.

Pizza: 5 STARS! Incredible. I love how they do this magical step of putting the pizza in a browning oven to create that crunchy cheesy crust right when you order. The artisan pizza space is an entire other level of pizza enjoyment. This is not like your normal Toppers or other chains. Where can you go to get Detroit, Sicilian, NY, Grandma, and Naples style pies? All done with the recipes of from a 13-time world pizza champion! I found out all these cool facts about Tony while waiting in the grand opening line. He's the only American pizza ambassador representing his Margherita pizza in Naples, Italy. Now that's impressive! We ordered the Wise-Guy, The Genoa, The Detroit Meat Head, the NY pepperoni and the Grandma. OMG the slices are HUGE. I still have some left over which really heat well in my air fryer!

Salads: We ordered the Arugula and bacon salad! So good! Love the addition of the walnuts. Just a perfect balance.

Meatballs: I got the 3 piece meatball and they are melt in your mouth with the yummy tangy red sauce.

We all ordered scoops of spumoni ice cream! Great ending!

I want to try so many other things like their fresh pastas and wings, but next time!

Pricing: Amazing that the price was not overboard. I think the plain jane, Toppers is expensive for what you get so I was thinking this artisan pizza place was going to be crazy. But actually I found it less expensive than anticipated! And there large pizza is HUMUNGOUS! A whopping 20". The box is so big you can hardly fit out the door! LOL.

Staff & Seating: Very attentive jolly staff. They had a line greeter, who is one of the owners. He was explaining the concept and gave some cool background to the place. Felt like walking into a local neighborhood joint run by your nextdoor neighbors. The entire family was hands-on. Very cool to watch. The kitchen was bustling with what looked like at least 15 back kitchen people making pizza and pasta as fast as possible. The inside dining and outside dining was packed the entire time. Great open-air dining inside and out. Huge TV's inside and on the patio for those game days. Only the inside TV was working on opening day, but they said the patio tv would be working within a few days. Was hot as you know what on their opening day, but the weather didn't seem to keep the customers coming in. The line went rather fast actually. The wait on an entire pizza rather than slices was only about 30 min. Pretty good time! Ordering slices went fast! The cleanliness of the space was perfect. They were attentive in clearing tables efficiently and with smiles!

They told me the Simi Valley location opening in January is double the size of this location. That will be awesome!

Finally a truly authentic pizza representing so many regions. Genius concept! I will be back thanks for the great new addition to...

Lost in Translation. This is "fake pizza," and I won't be back.

Here's why:

I hope the namesake Tony Gemignani reads this...

I have no doubt that Tony G won an award for one of his pizzas at a competition. The problem though is that I'm sure on that day, at that specific competition, his dough probably consisted of water, salt and flour only... 3 ingredients. There was probably a day or two of fermentation going on to get that nice sourdough structure and flavor.

I'd also presume that the ingredients on that day of that competition were far more Superior than what was replicated at this Slice House location.

FYI, For commercial restaurant pizza reproduction, there are a lot of substitutes, and cutting corners. And I feel like trying to replicate or mimic that Exact award-winning pizza at the competition fell flat at this specific location.

Here's the problem. The dough here at Slice House does not have structure. It's very crumbly, and I can tell by experience that there are a lot of additives, stabilizers and chemical conditioners which were incorporated into the dough here to try to give it structure, an airy rise and crispness.

Also, the toppings here are definitely subpar. The cupping salami is definitely over-processed garbage, the spec was more like cheap scrapple from the mid west. What that means is that all that oil and grease penetrates into the dough while it's baking in the first couple minutes, and turns it into crisco. It's like deep frying your dough in a deep fat fryer. Tooooo oily and greasy.

The most disappointing thing of all those was when I found out that they use an electric oven to bake the pizza. Seriously?!

If you're going to charge me a premium price for an "award-winning pizza," I would expect a better dough with 3 to 4 ingredients, and at least have an open flame or a wood fired oven.

When the pizza bakes in the oven, it should come together in one homogeneous unit. The sauce should meld with the cheese, and the toppings should become part of the entire pie. You just don't get that with an electric oven. Everything on the 3 pizzas I tried were seperate.

What I also noticed was that the dough itself didn't have enough salt. There's no flavor in the dough, so you're relying on the toppings to penetrate down through the crust... And sadly, they don't.

Everything is "good," or "the best you've had," until you've had better. Honestly, if you're a 16 year old kid who wants to spend $7 on a slice of pizza, this might be the place for you. But for touting yourself as an "award winner," Slice House was a disappointment.

Don't believe me? Go to a place down the street like Freda's or Made in Italy half a mile away, and see, taste and feel the difference in the dough. See for yourself how an open flame or wood fired dough tastes and comes together with the sauce, cheese and toppings.

Tony G., heart to heart, seriously, change your dough at Slice House to the way it was at the competition. Because I'm definitely not paying $$$$ for crisco, oily, greasy, tasteless pizza at Slice House again.

Your staff is great though definitely keep them. The service was exceptional. I just didn't...

Slice house has high quality, great tasting pizza. I had the Cal Italia and the Rosa. The flavor combinations in the Cal Italia are fantastic. The main issue I had is that the pizza was ready 15 minutes before the scheduled time, so the pizza was luke warm when I picked it up. The cheese was no longer melted, and the crust seemed a bit tough, which I attribute to the fact that it was sitting around for a while before I got it. While the flavor was good, I'm not sure the low quantity and decent quality justify the price. There are many high-quality pizza places in the area that give you a lot more for the same price. Update: tried it a second time. Once again, the pizza was ready 15 minutes ahead of the scheduled time, so it wasn't at an ideal temperature by the time I picked it up. I arrived exactly at the scheduled time. I tried the Detroit BBQ chicken and new york pepperoni. I think the Detroit would be better with different toppings. Their BBQ style pizza isn't very good. It has a very strong BBQ sauce, so no other flavors really get beyond the sauce, making it very 1-dimensional. The new york pepperoni is probably my favorite pizza there. Large slices, good sauce, crispy thin pepperoni, decent crust. I will try again with a different Detroit pizza, hoping to find a winner. However, it still seems overpriced compared to other local options, so if my next try isn't exceptional, it will probably be my last visit. Also, slight annoyance... they charged me for a side of ranch dressing and then forgot to include it in the bag. What makes that worse is that most pizza places give you a side of ranch for free. I tried it out again. I got a pepperoni Detroit pizza, it is really delicious. The crust is thick with a soft chewy inside and a crisp outside. I really enjoy the flavor of the baked cheese on the edges. The thin cut pepperoni could have been more crispy. I upgrade to the San marzano sauce, which has an exceptional flavor. The main issue I have with this place is the price. $36 for a pizza is a bit much considering it is only slightly more enjoyable than a Motor City Pizza Co pepperoni pizza (frozen pizza). For the record, Motor City Pizza is probably the only great frozen pizza I’ve ever had and rivals fresh high quality pizza. You could buy almost 4 of those for the same price as one from Slice House. In my 3 visits, I’ve enjoyed the food, but the price to enjoyment is too unbalanced. It is unlikely I will...