Critic's Review
Riverfront Pizza was the last cockroach left in the riverfront before they started to tear it down; they've moved across the street in the space formerly occupied by Metro.
The first thing you need to know is that this isn't a serious restaurant at this point; they're not open at night or on weekends, which is when pizza places make all of their money. Dased on the signs on the window, I suspect they're doing something on a larger scale, although there are no permits on file so it might just be a dining room.
I ordered at the counter. They get $3 for a plain slice here, which is patently ridiculous for old slices that have been laying around for hours. I was in the mood for a stromboli, which is $7 with tax.
This place is your typical take-out pizzera; a small room with no ambiance. Making matters worse was that the back of the room was populated with the owners and their friends; a lady chasing a kid all over the room; people yelling across the room. A completely uncomfortable place to eat or even wait for food to take out.
It took an awful long time to warm up a stromboli. I'd only put 20 cents into the meter which only yielded me 9 minutes. I was concerned it might run out.
Finally the girl comes out from behind the counter and hands me a bag, as if walking the 2 feet to the counter would have been an issue.
16 years and they don't have any takeout containers or boxes.
I opened it up and took it out; it was a bit small but on the surface looked fine.
I took a couple of bites and I wasn't very inspired. I didn't care for the sauce; too pungent, and the dough was very chewy. Turning it over exposed the problem.
How many times was this thing reheated? This was probably burned before it was reheated; in NY they'd throw this out or serve it to someone in the family. In South Florida, they charge you $7 for it.
Time to see what was inside.
Nothing special. Not much cheese. Ham and some pepperoni maybe? I began the dissection.
Slices of Deli ham.
And some pepperoni. That's about it. A Sbarro's special. Adding insult to injury, about 2 inches from the end was all bread; almost nothing inside. And of course the bread was too well done to eat.
Conclusion
Looking at this place, I don't get the impression that it's a serious restaurant. It's a bunch of people who hang out in their family pizzeria and if you happen to wander in they'll sell you whatever they have lying around for $2 more than it's worth.
These people are capable of making good pizza, but they don't seem dedicated to actually doing so. Call it being jaded or bored; they seemed much more interested in their food than mine.
I could say that I wasted $7 giving these people another chance after 7 years, but I choose to be optimistic and say that I saved $12 by not wasting $19 on a whole pizza. There's more than 1 way to look at things.
Of course they're not open on weekends or at night, so who cares.
Review 6/12/10
This place is open late-night and is in the style of a NY pizza parlor with pies with all different toppings available by the slice. Since you'll likely be hammered whenyou go here, you'll most likely enjoy it. Because most people eat this pizza when they're highly inebriated, they have a reputation for pizza that's much better than it is.
I went in there looking for either a meatball or sausage slice, and I didn't see what I wanted. The Goombah behind the counter asked what I was looking for, and he said, yeah, you want sausage? He then grabbed a slice with pepperoni and sausage and flipped it into the oven. Are you kidding me? I didn't want pepperoni. What a bozo.
Well for $4 it wasn't even a very big slice. Let's see, that would be $32 for a 16" pizza.
I'd had a few beers so it tasted pretty good, but not enough to know that I'm not coming here when I'm sober.
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