Sal's By Victor — Restaurant in Williamsburg

If you're in the mood to get yelled at multiple times before you order, this is a great place to go. The pizza is actually really good (thank goodness we got our pizza to go because we didn't feel like getting yelled at more). But as soon as we entered the restaurant, plenty of their staff yelled at or over us. We stood in the entranceway waiting our turn for the counter so we could order our food to go. A man who appeared to be a manager yelled at us and pointed us to the back of the restaurant as if we should have already known the order counter for to-go orders is in their stock room / kitchen.

So, we followed the man's orders and went through their stock room to the back of the restaurant. We went past a rack of wine bottles, past a counter of cakes, and other stockroom items. We got to the back of the store and saw a cashier who took our order for a pizza. This cashier was nice as could be to us at first which was a severe change from the man in the front who yelled at us so we felt comfortable ordering our food from her.

After we placed our order, we stood there waiting for it to be made. As we were standing there waiting, we didn't know where to stand as their waiters were going back and forth between us and we were ALWAYS in their staff's way of doing their jobs. It was very uncomfortable. Eventually, we found ourselves standing off in a corner next to a table they were using to do their accounting. I have never seen a busy restaurant doing their accounting in the middle of a workday, especially not where guests are but it's their business.

Eventually, the woman who was so nice to us a moment ago, started coming out of the kitchen and screaming over us to other staff members back and forth. She was a foot away from us and rather than going around us and talking to her staff, she decided to scream over top of us to staff members behind us and have a whole conversation with them...again, as if we were in their way.

We finally decided to go back to the front of the restaurant and wait there for our food. That's when five of their hostesses asked us in a row if we wanted to be seated. I don't blame the first hostess, after all, that's good customer service. But these 5 hostesses asked us seconds apart and were standing right next to each other so they could clearly hear the first FOUR ask us the same question.

Anyway, as we were waiting for our food, we noticed one of their hosts then seated another guest at the same table literally in their stock area with their general ledger accounting books...which were still wide open right next to him. So, I guess any guest seated there or any takeout guest is welcome to know all of their accounting info. But hey, who doesn't want everyone in town to know how much money you make?

Finally, we got our food and went back to our hotel to eat our pizza but Sal's didn't give us any plates to eat it with. We have hands and it's pizza so who cares?

I don't care they have their own way of doing things but this is Williamsburg, a tourist town. So, 99.9% of their guests are going to be tourists, especially when Sal's By Victor (which I don't even know what that name means because it's certainly not proper English) advertises in tourist brochures. That means, they want tourists to come there but then yell at tourists for not already knowing their policies of ordering in the back of the restaurant literally in their kitchen and then yell over them because guests are standing in the way no matter where they stand.

I will add the pizza was pretty good but it's no better than any other pizza place in America. It's certainly not SO fantastic that a guest should put up with getting yelled at and over by multiple staff members. I get the feeling they are a niche restaurant catering to people who want an "experience" of getting yelled at but it's not for me.

There are plenty of other great restaurants we found in our travels around Williamsburg that reflect the "Virginia is for Lovers" slogan. So, please go to one of...

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