Riko's Pizza — Restaurant in Town of Hempstead

Visit Date: January 11, 2025

My friend Ralph of Ralphalicous events was hosting karaoke at Riko's. I was able to make his gig, my boyfriend, and one of his housemates whose also my friend went with me. Later on in the evening another one of his housemates also came down. And we also saw a few of our other friends at the event as well.

Riko's is very lively, very full of the younger crowd but they seemed to like us older/middle aged people so that was a plus.

I would say the focus is more on the bar but the food was good. I don't always get food when I go to karaoke but I didn't have dinner and I was prepared to pay for some food at Riko's. Just a heads up their last food orders go in at 10:45 on a Saturday night.

I opted for the hot honey pizza, I didn't get to try to the pepperoni hot honey pizza trend until last night even though it's been a thing for a while. Riko's did a good job with the pizza. They serve thin crust but it was pretty filling. I had two slices, my boyfriend had two slices and his housemate/my friend also had two slices. The hot honey gave it a sweet taste but it wasn't overly sweet, it blended well with the pepperoni. I was impressed for my first hot oil pizza.

Overall Riko's is an entertaining place for a Saturday night and they need to hire Ralph back for...

Good crust and texture, but where's the flavor? Our first time here . We picked iup a hot oil, margarita ,meat lovers, and Nashville hot chicken pie. The location has a sports bar vibe with outdoor seating with a fantastic view of the Merrick Mall parking lot. The pickup window is a bit strange, more like a coat check window. The pizza? Meh overall. We liked the thin crust, but the toppings let everything down. The hot oil is their signature and it was pretty mild and tasteless. The margarita was the best overall mainly because the tomatoes added some flavor. The Nashville was a conundrum. When you got a bite of pickle, it was great, otherwise it had a strange slightly off putting taste and smell. The meat was OK, but the cheese and sauce(!) flavor wasn't there. This reminded me a lot of 1990's Domino's when their crust was bar pie thin though I'm sure this is better quality, but not better enough IMHO. Did we eat and enjoy it? Yes! Will it replace or go into rotation with our go to local places three of which are walking distance away? ...

Love the Levittown location and it is conveniently a 5-minute drive from my house. But after having Ed and Tyler as servers and hearing that they would only be at the new Merrick location. Hands down wouldn’t get pizza anywhere else, because the service that I have gotten from those two is out of this work and most definitely the best service I have ever received from any food establishment. One day Ed and Tyler were both off and I got Riley she is amazing and like Ed and Tyler they are all very professional and very personable and that is what being in the food service industry is about. These three are employees that everyone would want to get their hands on. Riley is very fast and has patience like a saint. Ed is also very fast and has a memory like a robot he remembered my drinks from 4 weeks ago and I don’t know how he does it but great job! Tyler is very good at making sure everything runs smoothly and great under pressure with he’s a great leader and he always has his staff's back. Great job to all three of you guys...