Caruso's Italian Restaurant & Pizzeria — Restaurant in West Lampeter Township

An 11 x17 plastic menu placard reminiscent of a greek diner in its exhaustive and ambitious size should have been my first clue that food quality might be an issue: no one can do everything well. Food choices range from a nice italian entre menu to pizza to Stromboli to chicken , subs, and cheese steaks with some appetizers to round it out. The drink menu is an anemic list of fountain drinks so popular with restaurant owners who have no care for their patrons' health and freely serve them sugar, dyes, and concentrated high fructose corn syrups laced with glyphosphates. Nothing creative or healthful to be found on my drink menu. From a sound perspective, this is a poorly designed Loud joint full of hard surfaces with zero physical barriers between the loud kitchen, th busy counter, and the dining room with no fabrics present to soften the blow.. The phone's scream competes with the blaring radio and the usual noise associated with a kitchen and a restaurant full of folks. All of this is amplified mercilessly by an open ceiling truss roof perfect in height for amplifying the din below and adding a hint of reverb or echo. Throw in the commerce from a drive in window and you have an overpowering urge to leave. For the 20% of us who are autistic, adhd, have hearing issues, or who have sensory processing issues, trying to hear and function in this place difficult at best. Garlic bread was misnamed... with the thickness of a communion wafer, and the shape of an amoroso roll, it arrived on tissue in a plastic basket with no hint of browning or herbs: just a flat slab without a prayer of ever having character. This bread was a zero effort butter garlic salt and slap it in a basket affair.... a sad start. "Bread" arrived with a small caesar salad on a flat plate. There was romaine, shaved cheese & croutons inundated by an industrial ladle full of some offbeat excuse for an italian dressing heavy on vinegar. It was not caesar: no egg. No anchovy no evo. No cracked pepper. I quietly asked my wife to taste it. She took a leaf and did not finish it. I asked her because i wanted to see if maybe the bread had me so pissed off I could no longer taste properly. She made a face,put what was left back and said wrong dressing. But hey, she had her own worries: a house salad featuring light bleached iceberg for croutons, three hunks of tomato and two discs of cucumber big enough for me to consider taking them home to replace the tractor tire. While pondering sacramental bread and tire sizes, our entres arrived. Besides the service, the entries were the best part of our meal. I am from the Marche' region of Italy where tomato sauces are often darker and hearty and rarely if ever dainty. The sauce on my eggplant rollatini was bright red sweet sauce with a big note of basil and a hint of salt... not my preference but still nicely done. My wife had a fusilli primavera which she enjoyed. With our meal done, our check arrived, we paid at the register, and headed out with leftovers now reminded that the tractor needed tires and of our all too catholic childhoods. Perhaps it's Time for a...

Good food. Normal prices. Great bread for subs.

Editing this review 7 years later:

So, my initial review for the average person stays the same. The flavor and general ambience you get here is really positive. However, I'm going to add some personal notes more as feedback to the restaurant as well as to a very select few who might be considering eating here as an option:

We have a recently diagnosed Celiac in the home, which means they cannot eat even a crumb of gluten without their body going into full-blown attack against itself. We ordered online, as we had a coupon that was online only, and included a pizza that was gluten free in the order. Since there is no way to indicate any type of food allergy or special comments on the online system, I called them in reference to the order to ask if they were able to make the pizza in compliance to the Celiac's needs. The manager was polite, but the answer was no. Because of the nature of having flour in the air and all over the prep area, she could not promise that it would be made safely. She did indicate that there were gf subs available so we switched to a cheese steak sub on a gf bun. These, apparently, are made in a separate area. I asked if she was able to talk to the cook about wiping the area, using fresh utensils, etc. She said that she would. I wasn't horribly confident that the message was going to go through, but we moved forward anyway.

The sub was more of a sandwich, about the size of a whopper. I'm not sure if they measured out the same size amount of meat they use on a normal sub, but it seemed small, especially for the price of around 13$. I was not able to locate this item on the online menu and there really isn't a copy of the hard-copy menu online, so I'm not sure if this is readily explained on their in-store menu. It wasn't bad, but just small for what you get. For non-gf subs, they offer a weekly special that is a full sub and fries for 8$. It seems silly that you get a smaller sub and no fries for almost twice the price.

Also, as a note to the restaurant, I recognize and appreciate your openness that you were unable to make the pizza in a gf environment because the flour is every where. Most pizzarias that offer a gf pizza make it in the other section of the store, where you make your subs. It's easier to clean and prep there. Not everyone with a gluten allergy is going to call. If you offer a gf pizza, many people assume it's going to be made in a way that is sensitive to allergies, otherwise it's...

I've been a long-time Caruso's customer, wrote a glowing review to their incredible Silver Spring location, but my experience at the Willow Street shop left much to be desired.

They messed up my order. And it was a pretty simple order. I might have just ignored it, but frankly, I'm tired of paying for something I didn't get.

I know mistakes happen, and I get it, but what you do when those mistakes happen is what defines your customer service.

I called the store, and they confirmed they got it wrong (the cook didn't even know what belonged in my sandwich), but the manager had no interest in fixing it.

Sure, they would make me a new one if I wanted to spend another 45 minutes biking in the cold to get it. Or they could add an unnumbered credit ($1,? $2? who knows?) to my account for the next time, but honestly, if you can't get a basic sub right, and further to make it my responsibility to fix it, then why would I come back?

I would have been happy with a refund. Even half a refund would have satisfied me. I'd have been thrilled had they sent their driver to pick up their mistake and bring the correct sandwich. But fixing their mistakes is not a priority at the Willow Street Caruso's, and when the staff doesn't even know what belongs on a sandwich, mistakes are going to happen. So if you are picking up, check your food before you leave. Check your delivery before the driver leaves. The place is staffed by kids, they aren't checking anything.

I can not underscore how frustrating the experience was. I biked across town to order that sandwich, I'm a fan of their food, and I'll never go back there again.

That's alright. There's a Two Cousins a few blocks down the road; I am certain they will be thrilled to get...