Sbarro

I’m not loyal to a whole lot of restaurant chains, but I certainly am to Sbarro. Yes, the price point is a little high but to me, the quality is always there and the fact is that very little has changed about the company in the twenty five plus years that I’ve been a regular. I’m from North Jersey and I grew up on real pizza. The other chain places such as Pizza Hut and Dominoes just don’t have the flavour or general feel. Sbarro does. I love the pizza, the Ziti, and even the atmosphere itself.

SLOW…
Everything is very slow here. Took 5 minutes for anyone to acknowledge my son (while the 4 people behind the counter walk around furiously doing who knows what). Five minutes to pay (no line-​we were the only ones there). And pizza was cold.

Decent pizza, warm salad and up charge for a mini bottle of apple juice. Said something about the salad and they didn’t care or check the temperature, which could be a breeding ground for bacteria.

My husband and I came here for a quick lunch while at the mall. It was an okay experience. Not great but not horrible either.
1) The napkins aren’t easily accessible. I saw a few customers the cashier for napkins. All the cashier did was take some napkins and place them on the counter next to her. What was aggravating to see about this, is that the napkin dispensers are actually placed a few steps away from the cash register. The cashier was just too lazy to make the few steps over.
2) I thought it was common sense in retail/​food service/​in general customer service, to not complain about customers to the customer that’s in front of you. Apparently, this cashier (same cashier that was referenced in complaint #1) did not get this memo. She openly complained to my husband and I about the customer that she rang out before us. Rude!
3) We received our pizzas after not too long of a wait. My husband enjoyed his pizza and had a lot of flavor. My pizza was just okay. It did not have enough sauce or cheese. Weird, right? A pizza with cheese AND sauce? Wow, what a concept! The crust did not have much flavor but overall, the pizza as bearable and filled me up enough to continue to shopping.
Overall, an okay experience. It could have been so much better. However, I will come here again if I need to.

This place would get a 2.5 if possible. Definitely a place to grab something quick when you’re browsing the mall. I’ve always preferred the mom/​pop pizza joints but this is par. Pizza slices aren’t bad but the baked ziti and spaghetti aren’t that flavorful. The prices are pretty steep as well.

Let’s just start by saying this right off the bat… if you live in Springfield, thinking of just going out for some pizza, and you say to yourself or anyone you’re with, «Why don’t we go to Sbarro tonight», then what you should do is either smack yourself in the head or have someone else do it.
Sbarro is not a «let’s go out for pizza» destination, not when you have places nearby like Peace A Pizza or Bella Roma in the area. Sbarro is a «we’re in the mall anyway and too lazy to go anywhere else so this will do» pizza place. I’m a firm believer of supporting local pizza places whenever possible. They’re just better.
This all being said, in a recent moment of «we happen to be in the mall, let’s just eat here because it is convenient» mode, I will say that their pizza may have improved. The manager said that they recently upgraded their ingredients, and the pizza actually wasn’t that bad.
Let’s put it this way, despite the price point at Sbarro which remains too high for what you get in the end, taste-​wise I’d now choose Sbarro over national chain places like Domino’s, Pizza Hut, and Papa John’s. But certainly not over a place like Bertucci’s.
It may not be the highest praise, but that’s all you get from me.