We stopped at Guido's on Shaw Avenue before taking our children to the St. Louis Zoo. We arrived about 12:00 noon on a Friday in mid-July and the place was quiet but not empty. Parking was no problem at this particular time on this particular day. The atmosphere was above average inside, but we chose to sit outside.
We were seated promptly but it was about 5 minutes before our waitress arrived. We ordered drinks, tea and lemonade, immediately but it was another 10 minutes before our waitress was able to deliver them. She was in and out of the restaurant, however, all the time. She messed it up though, because we had ordered one lemonade and one iced tea and she brought two lemonades and one tea. The tea was average but the lemonade was overly sweet and had a taste of too much chlorine in the tap water.
It was another 15 minutes before she took our order, though, again, she stopped by the table several times to say that she would be "right back". Finally, she did deign to take our order. We had the Guido's Deluxe Pizza, or something to that effect. It was a large with pepperoni, sausage, green pepper, red onion, and mushrooms.
Another 25 minutes passed, and finally our waitress let me know that our pizza was in the oven, after we asked where our food was. Another 10 minutes passed and FINALLY our pizza arrived. It was EXCELLENT. However, our children, both under 3 years old, were going completely insane by this time. We herded them to the table and shoveled in the pizza as fast as we could.
As I said, the pizza was one of the best I have ever had. The sauce had a bit of spicyness, and the toppings were quite generous. The crust was, as is typical of a St. Louis-style pizza, thin and cracker-like, very crispy. The pizza was apparently baked in a brick oven and had a bit of char on the bottom. We had leftovers, which we took along with us. On the way home from the zoo, we snacked on the leavings. Nothing was wasted.
All in all, I would recommend this place but only if you're not in a hurry. I don't know if it was the waitress or the procedures of the restaurant owners, but the service was INCREDIBLY slow. I have eaten at a lot of restaurants, but this was the slowest I've ever seen, especially considering it was lunch time and the place was definitely not packed. How long does it take to make a pizza?!
If the service was better and quicker this restaurant would have received 5 stars. The food we had was excellent.
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Guido's Pizzeria & Tapas
4 reviews –
