After reading the reviews for Caputo's Friendly Inn, I had extremely high hopes. We've been looking for a new go-to pizza place, and I figured we couldn't go wrong with the number of high reviews
The atmosphere is cozy. It's a bar and restaurant, and we almost drove past it - its truly a hole in the wall. It's probably an incredible place to get a beer, with extremely friendly staff and patrons.
We ordered two large cheese pizzas and a steak sandwich.
The steak sandwiches are not good. The meat is spongy and of awful quality. The bread is also spongy and dry. There is absolutely no flavor at all to the sandwich. No seasonings, barely any salt, just onion, lettuce, mozz, "meat", tomato and dry crusty bread.
The pizza is better, but the crust is identical to the dry bread used in the sandwiches. There is absolutely no moisture in the pizza crust, and it has the texture of spray foam insulation or packing peanuts and tastes slightly of corn. I'm assuming that perhaps by getting the pizza with toppings, you might get some of the fat from the topping to drip down into the crust and hydrate it, but I shouldn't have to get pork on my pizza for it to be edible.
The sauce is incredible. It's probably one of the best pizza sauces I've ever had the delight of trying and the cheese to sauce ratio is perfect. If pizza were just sauce and cheese I'd understand the good reviews, but crust is the foundation on which all good pizza is built, and this crust is absolutely horrendous.
Maybe ask if you can buy a quart of their sauce, make your own dough and bake your own pizza. The sauce is that amazing. But I can't with the crust.
It's a good value for pizza - the 16 cut square pizzas are enormous. If they ever decide to make a better crust, I'd absolutely be here every weekend. Until then, they get a firm NO from me. read more