Rounder's Pizza — Restaurant in Tyler

It was on a windless Tuesday evening, the kind that presses the sky close against the rooftops and folds the light into thin slats across the cracked pavement, that I wandered, not by reason but by some quiet compulsion, into Rounder’s Pizza, the sign hanging slightly askew as though time had nudged it with the same weary hand that guides all things eventually toward forgetting, and inside it was warm, not the warmth of sunlight or summer but the kind of heat that rises from ovens and sighs from human mouths made hungry by routine and remembrance.

The young man behind the counter, his face a strange tapestry of both youth and exhaustion, asked me if I wanted the usual though I’d never been there before, and I realized then that places like these, they do not serve food but familiarity, a sacrament of melted cheese and greased crust handed down like communion wafers in dim sanctuaries of linoleum and neon. The pepperoni curled like ancient script, seared and speaking a language older than hunger, while the sauce—blood-rich and clinging—was less an ingredient than an echo of some grandmother whose name was lost even to her children, her recipe living on in red-stained paper slips and whispered traditions.

I ate slowly, methodically, like a man condemned or perhaps already judged, and the voices around me rose and fell not in conversation but in cycles, like wind through a cotton field, rising with laughter and settling with the scrape of chairs and the low moan of someone remembering something they couldn’t name.

And when I left, the crust still warm in my hand and the sky darkening into a bruised kind of blue, I felt that nothing had changed in the world—not the pizza joint, not the town, not even myself—but that everything was, somehow, slightly...

This has been our favorite pizza place since we moved to the Tyler area. We generally just order it to go and have either door dash or waiter deliver because the Karen’s that visit this location are real Every time we’ve gone in person there have been women who act like complete children over the wait times. And truthfully we’ve had our pizza served us before people who came in before us and I do laugh a little because those people would complain and yell at the staff and be pretty much belligerent The one thing that has never failed is that these women act that way then the staff is even slower because nobody wants to deal with them or address them and then when someone like me who has been polite and kind and patient gets my pizza first those women and then come and try to have like a verbal altercation with me like I can control who is served first Each time I’ve been told because my daughter and I just have a simple one topping pizza that’s why ours came out first which makes absolute sense, that’s the truth but I will tell you that every time these women have come in here and acted borderline belligerent I do feel like the service is 10 times times slower for them And I can also tell you as a business owner I’ve seen the staff accommodate women that I would’ve asked to them leave had this been establishment Post Covid all restaurants are shortstaffed and I think if you can’t handle wait times and you need to stay home and make your own food, don’t bring your negative impatient behavior to the public, Not only does the restaurant not want to hear it neither do the fellow customers who are not complaining and just grateful that we can be back in public...

Usually all I have is good things to say about Rounders, however tonight I ate in disappointment. I called in & placed an order for 2 things of pepperoni rolls(which comes with sauce for each order) I made sure to tell the boy I was speaking with that I wanted ranch for both of those orders. Not only did the boy try to charge me for the sauce, when I arrive I made sure to inform the lady at the front counter about the sauce to make sure it wasn’t forgotten. When she repeated my order back to me she only mentioned 1 ranch sauce & I repeated to her that it’s supposed to be 2. Me trusting that the team had it right drove back home only to be disappointed when I opened my bag & the 2 boxes not finding ANY ranch or sauce of any sort at all. I call up there to see if they could make it right but Jaz ( the manger on duty, so so she says) tells me that her team said they put the sauce in the bag & being that there was no proof she would not be able to help me. Jaz gave me a hard time with her sarcasm & smart tone over sum ranch so I said I’ll juss like for my money back. She said she wouldn’t be able to give me a refund because the team put the sauce in the bag & to call back in the morning to try again with a different manager. This all could have been avoided if the team was actually working as a team instead of chatting. I lost my appetite & don’t think it’ll be coming back for Rounders...