We absolutely love this place! The pasta is amazing! We have ordered via DoorDash 2x now and the food is so high quality! If you are looking for flavorful Italian food, go here! I recommend the chicken alfredo or spaghetti and meatballs! read more

This place is good, but what makes it great is Wednesday night trivia. TJs has the BEST trivia in the triangle - hands down. The calzones here are huge and good. The pizza is good. But again. The trivia is great. The owner is really friendly and fun as well. I will never be bored on Wednesday nights. read more

I decided to give this place a try since they deliver to my residence (about a mile away). I should have ordered pick-up from somewhere else instead or picked up a frozen pizza from Target. In order to get a fair view of what they offered I ordered cheesy garlic bread, a calzone (olives, mushrooms 2x, sausage, and garlic), and chicken alfredo with broccoli. Let's also be real...I was hoping to not cook until Sunday. The Good: It at least looked edible and was still warm when it finally arrived. The Bad: It was so bad I couldn't even eat it (and am writing a review). I didn't use a coupon or Groupon and frankly there is no way I would ever pay full price for this place. The cheesy garlic bread wasn't that cheesy or garlicky. There was actual spots that no cheese was. It was unimpressive. The chicken alfredo with broccoli, I just don't know. The penne pasta was at least cooked okay. The sauce wasn't the worst I have encountered. The chicken was dry. The broccoli wasn't mushy, which is a win. Overall it was a bland, basic, forgettable "pasta dish". There was no complexity or depth of flavor, which from what I experienced, is an overall problem here. The calzone. I ordered a calzone expecting a hot, melty, gooey, flavor explosion. Clearly my expectations are too high. The calzone was big, so that would have been great! I cut into it and took a bite. Gooey it was not. Bland, wet, and mushy it was. When I peeled back the top layer of dough there was actual liquid on top of the sauce. I have nothing nice to say about the sauce, dough, or filling. The best part of this experience was the delivery driver. He was super nice! I also didn't get the ranch I ordered (and paid for). Turned out I didn't need it since dinner was borderline inedible. Amante's and Brenz also deliver to my place and both provide substantially more flavor for the same price point. read more

Great by the slice choices. Friendly service. Fast and good quality. Nice combo options that appeal to kids. No complaints! read more

Tomato Jake's - Pizza Near Me - Durham, North Carolina

Never been inside Tomato Jake's or ordered from them before. How about I thought it was a salad joint. Don't ask me why I assumed that. Anyhoo. I looked at the menu on line before going inside. Come to find out it's a Italian spot that sells pizza and calzones and hero sandwiches. My my my. I decided on a meatball sandwich with chips.. yeah potato chip not fries and a drink. It was a combo. Ordering online was easy even though I was in shopping center parking lot lol. I walked in a little early to check out the restaurant. It was clean, very roomy, open kitchen. They had a couple game machines. Seemed to be a very fun restaurant to dine in. For kids, teens and adults. There was a few items I want to try so I will go back! read more

Tomato Jake's - Getting my order ready - Pizza Near Me - Durham, North Carolina

I'm so sick of fluffers saying I don't know pizza. Get a load of this, I've been to Italy TWICE (stayed with locals, ate out, etc). I've also had pizza all over the US and Toronto (huge Italian population). I love pizza, I love food, I love to travel - put those 3 together, fluffers. GUESS WHAT??? Pizza in the US differs wildly across cities. So suck it, I know pizza and Tomato Jake's has bad pizza. I meant "bland" as in it had no flavor from the vegetables other than salt. I made better pizzas in middle school Home Ec classes. Here's a list of pizza places I've been to in the Triangle that have better pizza than Tomato Jake's: 1) Pop's Backdoor (Durham) 2) Broad St. Cafe (Durham) 3) Bella Monica (Raleigh) 4) Pepper's (Chapel Hill) 5) My kitchen read more

Pizza quite good! Fresh mozzarella, pungently tasty mushrooms and the crust is yeasty fresh. Greek salad good too. Friendly and clean. Both indoors and outdoors is pleasant. read more

Tries to do too many things and none of them well. Kid's night, Trivia night, half price wine night, etc, etc. Tomato Jake's does a lot of promotions to try to draw in people. Unfortunately, what they forgot about was the pizza which is average at best. It's fast food pizza (a lot Domino's) at gourmet prices. The location is great being one of the few eateries near the mall but not in the mall. It's okay in a pinch but I would not go out of my way to go there. read more

What was initially a decent visit with friends for Wednesday night trivia turned sour when the team rankings were announced. One group had an immature, homophobic team name that was repeated over the PA and followed up by the emcee with an equally immature, homophobic joke about fruit. Why this happens in 2014 in a town as progressive as Durham escapes me, so I will award Tomato Jake's my very first 1-star review. As far as the food goes, our purchase was "limited" to a poor selection of alcoholic beverages and appetizers. The bland garlic knots were served in a pool of oil alongside bland garlic bread with equally bland marinara sauce. Neither appetizers had even a hint of garlic. So if you're in the mood for bland food, you can get it elsewhere in Durham sans 1980's-style homophobic standup routine, I assure you. read more

I tried to join some friends for dinner at Southpointe Mall, but the waits were ridiculous. Over 2 hours for Maggianos! So, we decided to hit up Tomato Jake's, which was a great alternate. We had no wait. When you enter, you order at the front counter, and they call you up after your food is ready. There were numerous four-person booths and tables throughout. Seat yourself. No waiter service here. Food: Your general pizza fare menu: pizza, salad, calzones, subs, etc. I had the eggplant parmagiana sub. It was prepared well. Sauce was decent; breaded well. I think everything is made in-house. I also had the Greek salad which was average. Nothing really to say good or bad about it. Drink: They had domestic beer bottles for $2; imports for $3. Good deal! There were about five beers on tap which were more expensive, except there were $2 PBR drafts! Ambiance: Good for groups. TVs around. In a strip mall, but typical suburban-type place. Definitely a good alternative to the mall craziness! read more

Worst service ever. My daughter and I came in for lunch and we were ignored twice after waiting in line to get a plate and then again when we needed a to go container. The lady at the register literally skipped me and asked the person behind me if they needed help. Wth Food was overpriced and nothing special. read more

If your thinking of going to 'Tomato Jake's' ... don't. This place was the worst excuse for a pizzeria i have ever been to. My girlfriend and I just had a terrible meal there. First off we noticed that the place was filthy and that the booth seats were covered in food. I watched as an employee wiped down the table with a stank ass rag pushing the old dried up food onto the seats without a care. Next, some guy who I believe to be Tomato Jake decided it would be appropriate to ask us questions about our personal life while we were waiting for our food. Keep to yourself guy, please n thanks. Lets get on to the food portion of our experience at Tomato Jake's. We ordered a house salad and a meatball sub. After we ordered we took a seat on our food covered booth seats, and noticed a sign on the wall stating "we only use fresh vegetables from local vendors." so we thought, Hey this may actually be pretty good! NOT. Their local vendors must be the dumpsters from behind Target, because the house salad we got looked like it had been scooped up from the floor, topped with some nasty tomatoes and cucumbers, oh and lets not forget the poorest excuse for garlic bread "croutons" that I have ever seen. I cant remember the last time I was disgusted from eating vegetables. The meatball sub was decent, but was ruined by the biggest glob of cheese that smothered the whole fucking sandwich. Personally i think Tomato Jake should get a clue about the shit he calls food. Coming from a background of working in good restaurants and coming from New England where family restaurants actually take pride in what they make and don't just throw some garbage on a plate and call it "homemade" food. I am disgusted by you Tomato Jake.. This review does not give justice to how horrible it actually is. I hope that whoever reads this review never goes to this establishment.. one last time.. worst food ever. read more

If this place opened North of the Mason Dixon, it would have closed down in a week. Chef Boyardee puts this disgusting cardboard to shame. Give me five minutes, a flour tortilla, a bag of Sargento, and some Ragu and I'll put something together better than this! Hands down! How this place stays open is beyond me. read more

Always delicious! The pizza and cheesesteak sub are amazing. Just tried the The rickety rickshaw salad and it's very good!

This is the hub's and my go-to pizza choice, especially when we want to pick up something to-go. Most of the time we like to keep it classic and get a pepperoni pizza. I can't really count how many pizzas we have eaten from here over the years, but two dozen is probably a good estimate. A couple of times we have felt simply "meh" about the pizza, but some days, anywhere you go, things can be "meh." We once ordered some individual slices to be warmed up and ate them in the restaurant. They did not reheat well, and we told Jake this. We didn't want a refund or anything, and we were happy enough with the slices to eat them all, but we knew Jake would want our feedback. He did appreciate it, and he said if that ever happened again to let him know. While you may not expect it from a pizza place, they make really good wings. The pieces are big and meaty, and the buffalo sauce is very flavorful. For years we have also gathered here to gorge on post-competition carbs of beer and pizza with CrossFit friends. They have ample seating for everyone. I'm glad that we have Tomato Jake's as our neighborhood pizza place! read more

If you want the best pizza in Durham, look elsewhere. Service, cleanliness, and communication are way below average. It took them 45 minutes and 2 tries to produce a cheese pizza. Five employees and one other customer. Nope. I'd rather pickup dinner from the Petco across the parking lot. Rotten Tomato Jake's is more like it. Two tries to make a cheese pizza, really. read more

Great service and delicious pizzas with fresh ingredients! They have trivia night every week which is fun and plenty of tvs to watch the games. Sometimes I even see cornhole outside which I love to play in the summer. Plenty of outdoor seating too... Perfect for a warm night :) read more

This is my favorite pizza around and I eat a lot of pizza! Everyone has their own personal bias regarding the type of pizza they like - so while this might not be everyone's favorite- it is damn good. Have been eating here ever since it opened - always get mafia meats pizza and wings which are great. Also, have always had superb service. I am surprised by negative comments on service. Try it for yourself!! Have a good all u can eat buffet in sunday now too. read more

Large slices for a decent price. Pepperoni was a bit greasy but not too much to handle. Kitchen guys are pretty funny if you sit at the bar.

I go to Tomato Jake's pretty frequently. The employees are always friendly and they seem like they're having fun while working. They have TV's with NFL Sunday Ticket, free wireless, awesome 80's music and there are always booths available. The pizza slices are huge. For quality and taste, it's pretty similar to mall pizza, but a little better. It's also similar to mall pizza in that the pizza has already been made and cooked, and they heat up a slice when you order it. The pizza and sandwich options are great, but I don't recommend the salads. The descriptions say they are a mix of Romaine and iceberg, but it's pretty much all iceberg. Very low quality salad for the price. read more

I've lived in the area for about 4 years and never felt compelled to try TJ's until I decided to launch a try with my groupon. We tried the Godfather salad, a hearty of slice of pizza, pasta salad, and an chicken parm sammy. All were decent in flavor and the pizza/sammy were piping hot. I found it hilarious that the Godfather salad was deemed to be an extremely monstrous, dominating salad and I found it to be merely average-sized (take a lesson from Cheesecake Factory, eh?) I didn't leave with a memorable impression of this place- maybe it was the atmosphere which felt a bit cold and rote. Um....takeout? read more

Tomato Jake's is somewhere between A-OK and "Yay! I'm a fan." Is it incredibly remarkable? No. But it works. I do like their variety of pizza, like the one with all the meat on it and the other piece that I had. I like that they give you a playing card as the way to call you up when your pizza is ready. So all of that is good. They're also quick, so if you're looking for a bite before you go watch a movie-film, it's a good choice versus the mall options and the movie theater concession stand. They also have trivia, which I've heard isn't half bad. read more

I'm down with Tomato Jakes. They've always been quick and tasty. The pizza is on a thinner crust, which I like, and the slices are huge. I usually get a slice, a salad and a drink. It's a great place to go if you have little kids that are getting crazy because they have ready made pizzas to fulfill their slice specials. So they can just pull one off and boom--you've got food in front of the little ones in a heartbeat. It's a little pricier than I would like, but it's in a nice shopping center close to a mall so I'm sure the rent is a little pricier than they would like. It certainly beats subway, the weird doc greens and the target cafeteria in the same shopping complex. read more

If this is what passes for good pizza, I'm afraid for the Pizza industry in NC. There are far better places to go. Bland, tasteless, boring. I'm biased, being from the big city, but there are far better pizza joints in NC. read more

TJ's has tried hard to be a good place. They have some pride. However, I too have tried to like TJ's for a few years now (since I live nearby) and just can't take it anymore. I've experienced more bad service from them than most restaurants. I've had to wait an hour for takeout pizza.. (the 40 minutes they told me and then the other 20 when I got there and they had to make the pizza... woops!) That's happened a few times. They get the pricing wrong, the order wrong, or some other weird thing happens on a regular basis. To make things worse, the pizza is usually bland, tasteless, limp and unenjoyable. However, sometimes the planets align and it's good! (hence the 2nd star) Glenn manages the place fairly well and I've found the food and service is usually better when he's around. However, this last time he just ignored me when I went to the counter to ask about how they'd priced my lunch.. He carried on about nothing with a customer he'd never met that just wanted a napkin or something... That customer wasn't digging the pizza and he tried to make up for it by being funny with him. Neither one of us ended up being too pleased with the situation. And this was a bad day for pizza, it was worse than frozen. I'm done with TJ's. I've given you every chance, you've done something super irritating at least every other time I've been. Bottom line: Buy a Digiorno. read more

Good pizza, great staff/service, and I always see them testing out new pizza ideas (currently they are working on a 'taco pizza's that I didn't get to try but sounded good from others) Pizza by the slice, and best Sicilian I've had in NC. I love being able to come in and feel like 'what do they have today' by the slice (since they always change which pizzas are available) Surprisingly, Not a bad place to grab a beer or 4 either read more

We "found" Tomato Jake's this weekend when looking for a place to have a soccer team dinner while in town for a tournament. We ate as a family first, and EVERYTHING was good. When I asked about accommodating a large group two nights later, they accepted the challenge. In addition to the food being good, the staff was UNREAL! Everyone was pleasant, and happy, and helpful! We had a truly great experience, and if you want good pizza or pasta, or are looking for a place to go for either fast service, or a place for a bigger group.... this is your place! read more

It's teenage mutant ninja turtles approved. Mickie, Ralp, Donnie and Leo come often. They like all the different style pizzas here. read more

Tomato Jake's - Pizza Near Me - Durham, North Carolina

The family was excited about trying Tomato Jake's. Especially the Mobster Mushroom, which has mushrooms and sausage (which is our family favorite). We also had the Mamma Mia Margarita Pizza. The Margarita was flavorful, however both pizzas were Very Very dry. No red sauce only olive oil?? Also disappointed that the Mobster Mushroom did not have much mushrooms :( Neat concept, not enough follow through. read more

Handmade pizza with gravy style sauce and family recipe balls. Delicious! The crust is a little crispy for me, but my wife loved it. Go for mafia meat or the roasted veggie both are well made. Draft wise: pabst, fat tire and bud light. To top it off, they donate any leftover pizzas to the Durham rescue shelter at the end of every night. read more

This place was decent. Not terrible, not outstanding, but decent. The food was pretty good, people nice, in a self service atmosphere. I wouldn't go out of my way to go here again, but I wouldn't cmplain either. The slices they give you are enormous. We got one for our two kids to split (4 & 1 years old). ~$20 for all four of us. read more

Ordered some food from here recently and really enjoyed. Quality NY-style pizza with large, thin slices you can fold in half. Ordered online and had this and a salad delivered, which was fairly basic but quite good for that. Pizza was a great NY/New England-style pizza, quite different from most other pizza you'll find in the Triangle. Website allows you to personalize each half of the pizza, which I didn't realize at the time but is quite nice. Definitely worth checking out! Unless you're going artisan, this is better than a lot of other typical pizzas you'll get in the area. read more

Came here for the first time on a date night with my hubby. We were catching a movie at South Point Cinemas and needed a bite fast. I suggested pizza and low and behold remembered this little guy tucked away by Target. All I can say is WOW. Food- great! Prices- even better! Atmosphere- loved! It has been so hard to find a good pizzeria down here. Papa John's isn't real pizza to me and the best I could find was NY Pizzeria in Brier creek. That is until I found Tomato Jakes! Since we were pressed for time, we ordered a 2 slice with a fountain drink and french fries. We were going to order chicken wings as well but my other half forgot. :P He had a meat slice and I had a slice with roasted veggies. It was so good I wasn't even chewing! All I could think of was, "Man this would taste EVEN BETTER with feta cheese on it." Which I believe I had the option of doing, but I didn't want to break away from the pizza. :) We sat in a booth inside but they do have a lovely seating area outside with umbrellas. I really liked the sports atmosphere, they had flat screen TV's so no matter where you sat you could see a Baseball game play, which I appreciated. I was really impressed and I can not wait to try other items on the menu. read more

My wife and I love this place. It's our only place for pizza in Durham. The crew is plenty nice, the salads are always crisp, and pizza is always more than enough. Tip: They make a phenomenal pepperoni and pineapple pizza. read more

Stopped here before heading to Super Target to sustain ourselves through a Friday night of exciting grocery shopping. Tomato Jake;s wasn't really how I expected it to be, I was under the impression it was more like a sit-down restaurant. I was very pleasantly surprised with the way this eatery is arranged. You can grab a menu to look at, walk up to the counter and look at the giant menu or look up at the screens to see the specials, don't forget to check out what slices are available to order by the slice up behind the glass! I ordered a slice of the Green Monster which had spinach, pesto and feta and the boy got a green monster and another roasted veggie pizza. We split some cheesy garlic bread, got our card and picked out a small booth. About 8 minutes later, our 9 of clubs was called and when dug into a delicious meal! I wasn't a huge fan of the cheesy bread, but I would definitely come back here the next time I'm in the mood for pizza! read more

So I've been to Tomato Jake's a few times over the years, and I keep putting off writing a review because I like the place, but never cared for the pizza... Went back recently, and it'd probably been a year since I've had the pizza. Got a slice of... I think veggie with sausage added, and it was seriously delicious! The crust was really good, and the large slice was very filling. I worry that I'm going crazy, since everyone else on Yelp seems to hate the pizza here, but... I'm standing by it! Especially because I think other "NY style" pizza places in Durham have gone downhill... To add to the new-found delicious pizza, the staff here is always super friendly. The seating area always looks clean. I've been to trivia night and it's a LOT of fun, but you have to get there super early since all the tables fill up. And I don't know why, but kids LOVE Tomato Jakes! Is it the 2 video games? Or kids just love ALL pizza places? One thing I would change there.... I'm kinda lazy and I wish they gave you numbers for your table instead of you having to go pick up your order yourself. Ah well... more exercise = more pizza to eat, right? read more

Fun environment, but the pizza tastes like complete garbage. They would be better off buying their pizza from Costco. Randys or Alfredos are both much better. read more

My wife loves their buffalo chicken pizza. I've like all of their other creations as well. They do a great job with their pies!

Went here for a company lunch and I was looking forward to eating wonderful pizza (since they specialize in pizzas) but it was definitely below average. My pizza tasted more like a frozen pizza and the cheaper main stream pizza places are far better. The service was good though. Everyone was friendly but unfortunately, that is not enough for me to go back again. read more

Tomato Jake's does a good job of having a variety of food on their menu beyond pizza, however, most of it is overpriced in my opinion. I have visited here twice, once on trivia night (which was packed, zero tables available for people not playing trivia who just wanted to come in for a quick bite). My pizza was pretty good, plenty of flavor, a little over salted. The tortellini pasta looked quite good. I can not recommend the $14 chicken on romaine since it was over priced for a mediocre salad. Overall, I would say Tomato Jake's is exactly what you would expect for a counter service pizza joint. read more