CENTRO — Restaurant in Tustin

Big news for beer and wine drinkers in Tustin. Centro, a winery and microbrewery, is now open in Old Town Tustin.

The brewery-restaurant is owned by Pozzuoli Vineyard & Winery, which is located in Paso Robles. (How often do you see a winery that lists its two locations as someplace in wine country, and Tustin?) Pazzuoli opened a tasting room in Tustin a couple of years ago at 15481 Red Hill Avenue, and now has opened this impressive location in Old Town Tustin.

I'm a wine fan, but what really got me excited about this place is the microbrewery. They call the beer side of the operation Archaic Craft Brewery. I visited on opening day, and they had four beers on tap, but only one was created in house, and that was the Honey Kolsch. If the Honey Kolsch is any indication of the brews we can expect from Archaic, then this place will be great for beer drinkers. It was a great German style Kolsch, with good mouth feel and no harsh aftertaste.

This is a true family business, with Enrico Pozzuoli as the winemaker, and his son Sandro Pozzuoli handling the brewmaster duties. I spent some time with Sandro discussing the beers he is brewing. His knowledge was apparent, and I was impressed that, even though he wanted to roll out a beer or two more for the grand opening, he held back because they weren't yet where he wanted them to be. Look for an IPA soon.

I'm hoping they will expand the number of available beers on tap. Certainly, if they want to make this a destination for microbrewery crawlers, they'll need a greater selection. But how many beers can you really drink? For now, live with four, and go to Centro to check out the impressive modern/rustic interior.

As to the food, we tried the Margherita pizza ($9) and the Hummus plate ($8) (we dug into hummus plate so quickly, we forgot to take a picture; picture above shows cheese plate ordered by another patron). Both were excellent. The pizzas are baked in a wood-fired oven. They also offer cheese plates, salads, paninis, and desserts.

Beers were $6 and $7 a pint, and the wine ranged from $10 to $15 a glass. Personal pizzas cost about $10 to $14. Some pizza is available by the slice for $4. If you like the beer, you can take a 32 or 64-ounce growler to go.

Centro is a great addition to Old Town Tustin. Be sure to...

Customers are a lot more likely to remember how a place made them feel, and not so much the food that they ate. Last week, August 19th 2018 what was supposed to have been a great dinner with friends visiting from out of state, turned into the most bitter and humiliating experience. Three kids and two adults, we all ordered pizza. One of them was vegetarian covered with arugula from which a fly came out. Our server who happened to be also the owner Mrs. Daniella came along to bring us water and we showed her the fly. You won't believe her reaction... She started yelling at us: "What are you trying to say? "Centro" has the cleanest kitchen on the block." "This fly came from the sky." Wow, if only we had known we would be yelled at, we would have never said anything. The bill came, we asked Daniella if she would kindly remove from the bill the pizza, which we sent back almost untouched. And this is where it really got ugly, not least because she happened to be the owner. She got so mad, she pointed to my 5 year old son and asked: "Whose child is this?" She looked at him, pointing and yelling: "You are the worst behaved child that has ever visited this place. You went to the restroom three times...." Then she shouted to all of us; "Now go home! You are not welcome in my restaurant- ever again!" Her son also joined her, yelling at us to leave. Then she added: "You spoilt Americans, I hurt your feelings, right...." And only because we had been silly enough to have pizza at her place. Mrs. Daniella, I hope that once you start losing customers, you will remember not only to say the right thing at the right time, but far more difficult still, to leave unsaid the wrong things, no matter how tempting it might be to insult Customers who have had the audacity...

Today we ate at Centro. We ordered 4 pizzas and some drinks and had a great time. Everything was perfect until we found a bug in my daughter’s pizza. The owner was actually there when we saw it and removed it from her plate. Before apologizing or offering us another pizza (neither of which ever happened) she immediately became defensive saying that had never happened before and it probably came from somewhere else as we were sitting outside. My child was so disgusted that she started tearing up and couldn’t eat for the rest of the night. When we asked for the pizza to be removed from our tab the owner initially refused and then when she returned with the adjusted bill, insulted the younger kids for being incredibly misbehaved. The younger child at that point started crying and when she returned with my credit card said this matter wasn’t about feelings when she was the one had insulted our party and told us we were never welcome back before asking us to leave despite not having finished the meal we paid for. Her reasoning being that they closed at 8 on Sundays (it is 8.20 pm) and she had to close, even though there were other people not pressed to leave the restaurant. She didn’t need to tell us to not come back. I hope to never come across such horrible customer service which not only disregards their customers but insults children because of something they cannot control. Simply pit: would...