Parry's Pizzeria & Taphouse — Restaurant in Tyler

Heard a few people like this place, so against my suspicions decided to give it a try. I was not wrong. Decided to show up with my 2 teens to give it a try on a Thursday night at dinner. It was so crowded we had to do an online order and wait in the parking lot. I made a huge order with ×3 14" pizzas, and meat calzone, cheesesticks, mozerella cheese wedges, and some parmesan fries. Was 108.00 for alot of food. They tried to tack on a tip automatically on the online app. That is certainly not appreciated. I do not tip before receiving service thank you very much, especially on a dang pick up order. 😤 I ordered extra pepperoni on my pizza. It sure didn't seem like it. I had to compare mine to my sons. When I looked at his, it was extremely skimpy on toppings. Pitiful. We all agreed the taste or quality of the pizzas was about a 6 or 7/10. Definitely not worth the hype or price. The mozzarella cheese wedges appear to not have been fried at the correct temperature as they were not crispy or crunchy in any way and were grease laden. Yuk. I would give the calzone I had about an 8/10 It tasted good, but it is barely bigger than the size of my hand! Are you kidding?? For 14$?? That's a bad joke. That might feed a woman or kids under the age of 10 years old. It is definitely half the size of a calzone from another popular spot in town, and theirs is cheaper and ATLEAST as good. My biggest gripes is that I parked in the "to go" at exactly the pickup time. I sent my 2 teens in to pick up the food i ordered online. They were immediately accosted by 2 people peddling something in front of the door with a display set up. (I will come back to this)They come back missing 2 items. So I sent them back in, and the girl working the desk couldn't figure out what they were missing. My kids had to take food back in after loading it in the car. Another girl brought out 2 pizzas. I had to get out of the car (I have a knee injury) and hobble in there to witness a rendition of "who's on first" by Abbott and Costello, in regards to the food. I get my phone out and display the order to the dummies at the front counter. This girl tells my 15 year old "those might be yalls". They are opening pizza boxes trying to figure it out. I just told the kids to grab it and let's go. We discovered manage to get everything. No apology offered. "We are good". I hate that saying. So they get in the car and I am fumed of course, so I decided to investigate why these 2 people were accosting my children in front of the restaurant. I am glad I wasn't too rude and listened to what they had to say. This guy tells me his story, and is running a suicide awareness charity thing, sharing personal details about why. 🤦🤦🤦 It really bummed me out. I had to tell the guy we needed to go becausd our food was getting cold. 😭My question is, why would you have this guy out front with permission to bother people with THAT when they are trying to go out and have an enjoyable evening?? I don't mean to seem insensitive, it really got to me, but is this really the right place for something like that?? When people are trying to experience your restaurant for the first time and grab some food to go?? All in all, we won't be back. This is just another trendy spot, just like I figured, with some over priced, "just ok" pizza, with some kibbles and bits meats toppings on it. It is a taphouse like BJs, where drinkers can go get their grub on. Simple as that. Not for us. It's expensive to pay alot of dummies to not get your order together...

My friend and I went here on Monday, 12/2/24, at 2pm. They were at about 25% capacity, so there was a lot of open seating. There were 3 young ladies standing at the hostess stand talking amongst themselves. We waited for a very uncomfortable length of time and none of them said hello or even made eye contact with either or us. I wasn't counting the minutes, but it was more than 5 minutes before I spoke.

At that point I quipped "Do we seat ourselves?" Nothing. They still didn't even look at us. They were talking to each other, looking around the room, and staring at their computer screen. After several minutes it was clear that they were in fact looking for a place to seat us. One of the three took a walk around the restaurant which again was sparsely occupied.

They looked absolutely confused on what to do. After several minutes with no acknowledgment that we were standing 6 feet in front of them, we finally got "Is it just 2?" Yes... just 2. More confused discussion. One of them eventually indicated that she was ready for us to follow her. As we went around the hostess stand, another employee came up and halted us. More confused discussion. The one about to lead us stepped back to the hostess stand and the other two. Wherever she wanted to take us just wouldn't work. 4 employees now and no one seems to have a clue.

Again, we're standing beside the hostess stand awkwardly for a few minutes. Finally one of them asks, "Are you OK with waiting a couple of minutes?" Another cautioned her that it might be longer than 2 minutes. I looked at my friend and we both agreed on the answer, "No thank you," I said. We left and likely won't ever come back.

My friend and I have both been in sales management and customer service for decades. Some observations.

1. There were a lot of employees standing around and not doing much. 3 hostesses on a Monday at 2pm? 2 standing at the togo desk. 2 or 3 at the bar with one or two guests there. Others milling about and standing around talking.

2. I get that many restaurants can't and shouldn't staff for full capacity. This could also be a day that one or more servers called in sick or didn't show up. I don't have a problem with that. If that was the case, we still should have been greeted and told that we'd have a short wait. We would have done that.

3. This wasn't the case of one hostess being lazy, or having a bad day, or being new and not being trained. This was all three of them acting like they didn't know what to do. Even worse, they didn't even say "hello," or acknowledge us, or even make eye contact with us a few feet in front of them.

4. If the manager can't get the hostess stand working, then how bad is the kitchen? This was a complete failure by 4 employees, and that means it's the management's fault.

5. No one ever apologized or stepped in to intervene (other than the woman who stopped them from seating us). Was she a manager? I don't know. She was 5 feet away and never spoke to us.

6. This place is a franchise. They have policies, training, and a plan for how to open a new location. They've been open for almost a month (roughly, I think). It's been long enough to work out the kinks.

There are way too many good options in Tyler to come back and see if they fix...

I suspect that Parry's business model in East Texas is predicated on the fact that many people in this region of the country are unfamiliar with New York style pizza and what the denotes good pizza from bad pizza. Parry's claims to offer authentic, New York style pizza here in beautiful Tyler, Texas, however, I'm here to warn you that 1) Parry's does not serve New York style pizza and 2) their pizza is not good.

As a lifetime native Philadelphian and a business professional whose home office is located in New York City, I am well acquainted with both good pizza and New York style pizza. Just as people in East Texas are blessed with the knowledge of what makes great barbecue and perhaps Cajun food, people of the northeast specialize in Italian food. I can tell you that if Parry's tried to serve what they call New York style pizza in Manhattan, they'd cause a riot out on the streets. People would get hurt.

We ordered two pizzas, plus a hamburger and french fries for our youngest daughter. By all accounts, the hamburger and french fries were the best fare we ordered that night. This wouldn't be a problem if it was a hamburger joint, but given the fact that Parry's claims to serve New York style pizza, they set their own bar quite high. The higher the bar, the bigger the fail.

both the specialty pizza we ordered and the margarita were neither special nor margarita. The ingredients were clearly low quality, and there wasn't much of them on the pizza itself. Both pizzas were incredibly dry, with barely any cheese or sauce. The toppings were also minimal. And the crust was nothing special, either.

But perhaps the worst blasphemy of this pizza was the copious amounts of Parmesan cheese sprinkled all over the pizza. Ladies and gentlemen of East Texas, you never sprinkle Parmesan cheese on a pizza before baking it. It renders the cheese crunchy and completely ruins the taste and texture of a pizza. The pizzas were already dry enough, this made them like eating a round piece of plywood with sandpaper on top.

Granted, Parmesan cheese is a popular topping for pizza in the Northeast. however, it is always offered at the table as a condiment AFTER the pizza has come out of the oven and served at the table. (Usually, hot pepper flakes and oregano is also offered as condiments for pizza)

I only provide these details as it means of presenting my own bona fides as someone who knows good pizza. I don't want to see you disappointed or misled that this pizzeria is giving you the true New York style experience.

In spite of the food being unacceptably non-representative of the restaurant's claims, I can give it points for atmosphere and service. The dining room is lively, clean, and seems like a good place to drink a bunch of beers and watch the Cowboys stink it up on a Sunday afternoon. Perhaps if you drink enough beer before the pizzas arrive, you might not notice how dry and unpalatable they are.

The service at the takeout counter was also very nice. If I was an optimist, I'd say that the good service and atmosphere could be the foundations of a great pizzeria. However, there's nothing about Parry's that makes me believe that they are going to learn the art of New York style pizza...