Lombardi’s Pizza

It only takes one thing to make me hate a restaurant. If you’re a restaurant owner, and you do this, I can’t respect you, no matter what else you do. In fact, when you set your shop up like this, it shows that you don’t respect me as a customer. You might as well just have the server tell me to go fuck myself when they hand me the check. It’s annoying, it’s an inconvenience, it intentionally levies an additional cost to your customers, and it’s selfish.

I’m talking about cash-only restaurants with ATMs inside. I don’t have a problem with cash-only restaurants – I understand that there’s initial and incremental costs undertaken when you go credit that not everyone bothers with. However, when you, as a restaurant owner, set up a phone line for the ATM, a place for the ATM in the store, set the fee for the ATM, and reap benefits of ATM fees received at your location, instead of providing your

It is for this reason (and for the highest hype-to-taste ratio in the city) that I hate Lombardi’s. Look at this – they constructed a place for the ATM to be housed outside:

The architectural design of the location supports the fucking of the customers. Thanks for showing us you care.

Any time I see this, I can’t get past the part where they hate their customers, and the rest of the experience is out the window for me. Luckily, the pizza wasn’t that great. My review is harsher than the taste of the pizza would necessitate, but you can figure out what I mean. The bottom line is that the pizza isn’t worth the money or the wait, whether it had been cash or charge.

I was with this girl I met at the LOST finale; I told her that we were going to take a food tour of the LES and we started at Torrisi, but they didn’t serve the Chicken Parm Sub for dinner (which I just had today … It was good – not mind-blowingly good, but better than your average Chicken Parm). Then she told me she was a vegetarian.

I wanted to end the date right there. What the fuck is with etiquette these days? You tell someone you are taking them on a food tour and they decline to tell you they’re vegetarian until they arrive? Bullshit. We had a Half Pepperoni/Half Fresh Tomato Pizza:

Of course it was soggy. Fresh tomatoes make most pizzas soggy, that’s just how it is. If she was one of those girls that couldn’t stand the sight of meat on the same pizza she was eating, I wouldn’t have bothered ordering. We got it to go and went to sit in that park in front of La Esquina.

Sorry I didn’t take those plastic cardboard stays off before the shots – I was completely spaced out that day. Still reeling from the vegetarian’s rudness, no doubt.

The pepperoni was decent.

My side was pretty much not soggy at all. You can see the quality of the cheese and the pepperoni in the pizza. They’re excellent. I liked my slice, but it was altogether disappointing for being titled “Best Pizza in NYC.” There are so many other great pies in the area, to say this one is the best steers tourists in the wrong direction. When was the last year they received the title of NYC’s Best Pizza? I don’t know, but the last time they updated their website was 2005.

Here’s the Upskirt:

Pretty shitty upskirt, I don’t remember it being terribly crispy or smoky – plenty soggy, though. I never order fresh tomato pizza, so I might be a bad judge here, but soggy is soggy.

My recommendation – Vodka Slice about a block down at Pomodoro. Don’t get anything else at Pomodoro, though, because that place gets average real quick. At least you avoid spending $20 plus a $2 transaction fee and wondering “Is this really the best pizza in NYC?”

It’s not.

Lombardi’s Pizza
32 Spring Street
New York, NY 10012
(212) 941-7994