Zoe's Pizzeria — Restaurant in Waunakee

I retired from leaving reviews after issues with Yelp, but I'm disappointed enough with my visit to Zoe's to come out of retirement.

I love New York style pizza. Casa Bianca was excellent, but closed years ago. Pizza di Roma was authentic and pretty good, but didnt make it through the pandemic. So I googled "New York Style Pizza Madison" and the only other place to come up was Zoe's. Waunakee is a bit of a hike, but given that they sell pizza by the slice and garlic knots (both NYC staples) I figured they were worth a try.

The first red flag was when I asked the young lady working the counter if they indeed had NY style pizza and she said "What's that?" I should have walked out. But I persevered, and brought home a large pepperoni and sausage and garlic knots. Second red flag was when a large was 16"-- a large NY pizza is usually 18-24", and it's so thin that despite the large slices it's not egregiously filling. The idea is that you fold each slice in half when you eat it.

So yeah. It's not NY style pizza, by any stretch of the imagination. It's regular midwestern hand tossed pizza. The sauce is also sweeter than I prefer-- NY sauce has some sugar but not a noticeable amount-- and they use a blend of cheeses I cant identify-- NY pizza exclusively uses whole milk mozzarella.

The garlic knots were smaller than usual, but you got a half dozen for $5. They didnt really taste garlicy, I mostly tasted uncooked pizza dough. Still, I enjoyed them more than the pizza.

The total for the two items came to over $30, with the bulk of that being the pizza. I wouldnt expect a large 16" 2 topping pizza to be almost $30. Salvatore's (New Jersey style) uses all locally sourced ingredients and a large two topping pie is around $20.

So, obviously, my point is that this is NOT New York Style Pizza, and if you are looking for NY pizza, look elsewhere. Maybe PdR will reopen. Maybe Milwaukee has something. I dont know. But this isnt it. And I'm disappointed, because now I dont know of anywhere in the midwest to get my favorite style of pizza.

Independent of what I'll hyperbolically call false advertising, it's not terrible pizza, but it's far from the best in the area, and among the most expensive. It's pretty comparable to Glass Nickel in both style and quality (but not price.)

Only reason I'd go there again is if I was in Waunakee, wanted pizza regardless of type, and didnt want to drive into Madison. But even then Waunakee has...

While I wouldn't rate this as my fave pizza in the Madison-area (Salvatore's and Grampa's share that esteemed title), Zoe's serves up a decent pizza pie for the 53597.

I appreciate that Zoe's offers three crust options (Hand Tossed, Regular Thin or Cracker Thin) since the family and I don't share the same crust preferences . From a textural standpoint, the crust at Zoe's has the right combination of both bite and chew, I just don't find the same level of flavor as the crusts at the aforementioned Salvatore's and Grampa's.

The red sauce is better than average. While it does not offer much herbal complexity, it does not have that "out of the can" taste. There are four other sauce options (alfredo, BBQ, ranch and olive oil) if you are looking for a change of pace from the standard tomato sauce.

Besides the standard mozzarella, there are three other cheese options (fresh mozzarella, feta and cheddar). My dad always mixed in a little cheddar one the pizza he made, so I utilize that option when I'm feeling nostalgic. Our household is also a big fan of feta cheese, so we select that option occasionally.

The seven meat options are pretty standard. It would be nice to have non-standard options like prosciutto. Topping quantities are generously applied.

The kids LOVE the garlic knots as an appetizer - I can take them or leave them.

There are a variety of pasta offerings, sandwiches and salads on the menu as well. I have not given them a try yet, so you are on your own if you choose to wander off the pizza reservation...

The staff are friendly and the carryout pizzas are always ready on time. The fairly pedestrian dining room provides a dine in option if you are looking eat out. I prefer Zoe's over Waunakee's other pizza options (Pizza Hut, Doughboy's, Little Caesar's and...

Very Disappointed. Had a busy weekend and wanted to have a pizza delivered to us to make things a bit easier. Looked around at the options and Zoe’s was supposed to be the only one that can deliver to us. This was according to their website during the ordering process. However that was not the case. We ended up getting a phone call saying that they can’t deliver. The thing is their website for ordering was identical to another place we looked at and that site specifically stated that they could not deliver to us but Zoe’s did not. So we had to drive over and pick up our pizza. I was thinking “oh maybe they will compensate this mistake by maybe giving a discount for our inconvenience or maybe even just refunding our delivery fee. None of this ended up happening and I left very very disappointed in their customer service and not owning up to their mistake. Plus the icing on the cake with having a luke warm pizza to try to enjoy due to this...