panCoast Pizza — Restaurant in Walnut Creek

Walnut Creek has its fair share of delicious restaurants as well as fast casual spots to choose from. But it doesn't have a whole lot of pizza places, especially when you're in the mood for just a single "slice" of pizza. With that said and done, this takes me to "panCoast pizza" which focuses on their New York-styled pizzas. Located directly on S. Main St. and parallel to Highway 680 on the south part of Walnut Creek, this place has been serving their piping hot east coast pizzas dating back to 2012.

What makes this place great is that the owner Bob Pancoast is originally from the Philadelphia/New Jersey area which means he brings a lot of his ideas out west. I ended up coming here during the evening of Sunday 9/5/2021 at around 8:30pm. Even though this was 30 minutes before closing time, they still had a very generous amount of customers ordering for dine-in and to-go. Since I live out of town, I decided to dine outside and take advantage of the warm late summer evening.

The inside of this place is rather small but still allowed indoor seating as well as TV's, a self-serve fountain drink station, and a single restroom. After looking over the menu, I ended up going with a slice of their sausage, olives, red onions, and cheese while my +1 went with a slice of their pepperoni with jalapeños. Prices here for the slices are fairly reasonable as you can get a fairly generous slice in between the $5-7 range. In addition to the slices, they also make whole pizza pies as well as hoagies, salads, and strombolis. They also carry a fairly decent amount of craft beers on tap.

Considering it was quite busy on a Sunday evening, my pizza still only took about 5 minutes until it was ready. Overall, this definitely has a nice unique New York taste to it with the crust being thin while still packing in a ton of flavor. The only real downfall is that since this pizza was sitting under a hot oven for quite some time, it didn't have that 100% fresh out of the oven taste. If I could critique one thing about this place and that is to not have that cracker crust taste to it. Otherwise, I thoroughly enjoyed my slice from start to finish. But it was still flavorful, filling, didn't have a whole lot of grease while it was generous with the toppings. The outside area was also well lit and spacious; perfect for those comfortable Bay Area evenings.

All in all, "panCoast pizza" is definitely one of the better mom-and-pop pizza joints. They have fairly generous hours being opened Sunday through Thursday from 11am-9pm and Friday-Saturday from 11:30am-10pm. Decent prices, a very large assortment of specialty pizzas to satisfy all taste buds, and above average customer service. My rating, an above...

It's a good slice, not great, not bad, good enough. The crust is NY style thin but floppy without the cracker bottom to hold up so it folds under pressure quickly. The sauce doesn't go anywhere near the edge, see pics, so the margins are an inch or more which isn't great. It would be ok if like Totos (see my review and pics) it had the more flavorful crust style but the crust is simple flour water crust, like a saltime cravker versus a Ritz cracker. Ingredients ratio is fine, not too little but not overly generous. I had the Julie's style as recommended by the counter staff. The roasted garlic was nice but otherwise unremarkable. Pricey for a 14 inch at $25 with tax. Two could eat one 14 inch but an inch or more is flour crust so uninspiring. Sauce ratio was too skimpy. Mouth feel.was chewy and fine, the ricotta added a little nice saltiness.

This was the place was recommended as the place in this smallish part of town and it is fine. Atmosphere fine. Green salad was basic at $7 and they put the wrong dressing on. The dressings were fine but the blue cheese didn't have any actual chunks of blue cheese, although it tasted decent.

All and all unremarkable particularly for the cost, with tip, drink and salad at abouut $40. Fine if you need a slice and don't have time or options to head into other parts of town but not craveable or memorable.

Staff was fine but not overly friendly nor...

3 mos ago ordered a pizza, wings, salad for pickup. 1st time. Last.

Pizza was undercooked..it all tasted boiled vs crisp. Yuck.

Wings were raw; cold in middle

Salad...they didn't check their produce, had the old slime on it; expired + missing toppings and dressing!

Immediately drove back; called on the way. Explained the issues. Woman apologized but was defensive. Told then I had everything in the car with me to prove to them. She said it was not necessary to come in and she would process a refund.

So, only a few blocks from my house, I turned around. We were going to go order from another spot.

Strange she didn't want to remake it.

Now, you would think, that after all the incompetence we experienced, we would insist she do the refund there, in front of us.

No, we trusted her. We trusted PanCoast

More like Pan-Con....

Till this day, zero refund. Bank says they never got a credit.

I called again, 5 days later. Same woman. She denied ever speaking to me and denied I even was a customer, despite me saving the key info on the receipt.

Fast forward to end of May...