Stellina Pizzeria — Restaurant in Washington

Review is solely for the Waffle Shop component of the restaurant.

Tldr; food is just okay, kind of pricey for what is was and a limited menu, staff was nice, decor is kind of nice and diner-y but also sort of sparse and haphazard and not in a good way, mandatory 20% service charge about which they have confusing wording.

Food: Classic Waffle Combo/Plate/Somesuch ($18) - This is the one with bacon, Italian sausage, two eggs and a waffle. It was decent but kind of pricey for diner quality food. The sausage seemed to be an Italian link they pulled the casing off and split in half. Not bad but I probably would have preferred it whole with the casing on. Waffle was also decent but really nothing special. Eggs were spot on over medium as requested, great job on that.

Americano ($5.50) - really not very good coffee and, again, pricey to boot. Not sure about refills because I only had one mug which was a standard 8, maybe 12 oz.

Also, note that the food is pretty limited. It is essentially 4 or 5 variations on a waffle based breakfast.

Service: Staff was friendly and they have a built in 20% service charge which I'm fine with. The annoying part is that the menu says something to the effect of, "the service charge is not a tip, it goes to cover our additional costs related to minimum wage increases for servers. Tips aren't expected but are appreciated". Alright. I clarified with our server and he said that the service charge essentially was the tip. Please be better at this wording. Maybe something along the lines of if you would usually leave 25%, leave an extra 5% because we've already charge you the 20%.

Decor: Some two tops, a big wavy diner bar that was kind of cool and some booths on the other side which I think was the Stellina side. A kind of annoying mirror wrapped the whole way around the inside. Some kind of cheesy DC pictures hanging above the cooking area. It's like they tried to create an old school diner feel but didn't do a...

We went for family dinner. I was expecting to be blown away by the pizza because of all the great reviews but the two pizzas we ordered took a while and looked like they had been sitting out after coming out of the oven so that wasn't a very good impression.

I suspected it was because there were alot of to go orders from what I saw?

We ordered a third pizza and the take out had dies down so that one came out fast and was fresh. It was hot and cheese melted.

I don't know why the first two weren't like that. We were sitting right by the counter so it was literally 5 feet away. The third pizza was good.

Another thing that stood out which I didn't like was that when the bill came and I went to pay with cash the waitress announced that they were a cashless restaurant unless you had exact change. I don't live in DC. I'm from Miami where there are tons of restaurants and I've never heard of that. A restaurant that doesn't accept cash? Ok. It would make alot of sense if they posted that somewhere on the menu or informed us when taking out order. The waitress also had an attitude about it.

But then on my way out I see one of the waiters that helped us with several cash bills and coins with a receipt which seemed odd because the girl had just told me they didn't take cash and there he was giving someone change. When I asked him about it he didn't really have an answer and kind of smirked.

Honestly, I don't understand that. Either you take cash or you don't, exact change or not.

I wouldn't eat...

Decent new authentic pizza+ spot (albeit a touch pricey for what you get) in the neighborhood but ruined by an unannounced 20% gratuity charge which was taxed (legally customers should not be required to pay tax on tips or gratuities) for a table of 2. I only got wind of it when I asked, meaning in theory if I had not known I could have tipped double. Regardless, I think it should be up to the person to decide what the waitstaff should receive for their work — that’s the whole point of the tipping system, to ensure good service for both the restaurant and diner alike. If you are an establishment that doesn’t trust that your customers will tip you, then either you have no faith in your waitstaff or your customer: It’s a bad entry point philosophically. I called the manager to give them some feedback and he said I was not the first to mention it. The QR code ordering system needs to be improved (he agreed) and less importantly the napkin containers/dispensers are way too big for the deuce tables..

Other than that I wish them every success and would be happy to post a follow up review, especially if they decide to address the gratuity and transparency/lack...