coalhouse pizza

food is good but theserviceneeds work. we went in on a saturday night around 9:00pm, only because we were travelling through and didn't know the area. we saw coalhouse and assumed it was a coal fired oven cooking pizza. we ordered calamari, the roasted meatballs and the sidewinder pizza. i enjoyed the meatballs most, they were tender and the marinara sauce was good. the pizza and the calamari were good, but i wouldn't say the best i have ever had.serviceis definitely a problem, slow to start and follow up through out dinner was virtually non-existent. i had to get up numerous times to reorder a drink, ask for more napkins or a glass of water. there were numerous servers and bussers, but only two table of two in our section. if i am ever in stamford again i would likely try one of the other wood oven pizza joints.

another delivery calamity.... ordered 2 pizzas and a salad at 5:00pm on a monday, i was told delivery would be in 30 minutes; 45 minutes later i called and was told that the kitchen was backed up and that the order should be out the door in 5 to 10 minutes. called again 20 minutes later to ask where the delivery was and was told that the order should be delivered which it was not..... at 6:20 my husband called and told them to cancel the delivery and he took me to cotto wine bar in stamford and we had a great dinner! if you can't handle an order for delivery on a monday at 5pm you definitely have a management problem!


-----17 feb, 2014-----

we love the pizza and the meatballs. we wish they would offer a pasta fagioli soup or a hearty vegetable soup.
we really dislike the woman that answers the phone, she is diifficult to understand. their deliveryserviceis lame... they do not deliver before 5pm and refuse delivery orders when busy.... this has caused them to loose quite a bit of business from my family.... hire a more efficient staff!

went last night with friends. food was just ok at best.servicewas not. we had about 4 different waiters throughout the night. this is my second time to coal house, the first time i was much more impressed!

bad food, non-existent service, clueless mgmt. maybe the pizza is good, but the "panini" were terrible. what was described as sautéed peppers and onions were actually raw and for 11.95 i expect more than 4 slices of warmed over steak on a cold roll. sadly, that was the better of the two. oh yes, and it took 45 mins to get them.

kitchen is obviously overwhelmed. menu is too big. stick with what you know and do it very well. stop trying to be something that you are not.

servers have not been trained properly and that is managements fault. it's the worstservicewe've had in a long time.

restaurant market in stamford is very competitive. this place will not make it if they don't get their act together.

good food, suspect service. the ingredients are good, and the final product is definitely worth multiple visits. however, theservicehas always been subpar; i'm not embarrassed to say that i've left $1 tips there. don't expect your food to be hot either when it arrives - that's a 50/50 proposition. they've also expanded their menu in order to compete with a few newer restaurants, including plan b. they need to stay their lane and focus on the pizza - that's what they do best. with more focus, this place has all the pieces to be a top 10 restaurant in the city.

great pizza, cool atmosphere. stopped in for lunch because the mediterranean a few doors down was full and i'm glad we did. the shared salad and large pizza were excellent and the decor of the place is blues and jazz. the tops of each table are dedicated to a singer with pictures, photos, album covers on the table top. ours were count bassie and son house. theservicewas a tad slow, but it was the lunch rush. the pizza was great. looked huge when it came with large slices, figured we'd need a box. by the time we were done, it was all gone.

great pizza/beer. awful service.. my friends and i were so excited when we found this place. so many beers, $5 flights, and great pizza. trivia on wednesday nights was fun too. but then we started going more often. the first couple times we shrugged off the horrific service. but sometime during the summer, the prices went up twice (no more $5 flights, and wine is ridiculously expensive for this type of place), and theserviceplummeted. people can only take so much waiting - especially when the place only has one other table! when we had to clear our own table because it was looking like the town recycling center, and when i had to physically bring our bill to one of the half-dozen staffers milling together behind the bar, enough was enough. what started as a weekend event is now take-out once a month. i truly hope they get their act back together, improve theirservicetenfold, and drop their flight prices. i used to leave coalhouse feeling like this was the best new discovery in the world; lately i've just left feeling duped. i'd really love to have that original place back again...

great food, terrible service. coalhouse's pizza, beer and all around atmosphere are excellent. i've only been in the restaurant itself once, and it took forever to get anything done. i chalk that one up to it being a very busy night, and was willing to overlook it considering the pizza, wings and ribs were all really good.

that said, i've tried to take delivery a number of times, only to be told that deliveryserviceisn't available several times. if they cannot offer delivery reliably, don't offer it all and make it a pick upserviceonly. both times we've actually taken delivery, it took forever...which seems to mirror theservicewe received in the restaurant. great food, wonderful beer selections, hobbled by so-soserviceor rather, no service...it's now a theme.

all together, i really appreciate the quality of the food but it's moving down my list as the first place that comes to mind.

good pizza, horrific service. the pizza is better than most places in the area (although you have to remember the pizza around here sucks).
however, theserviceis beyond bad. the people in there have no idea what they're doing and don't seem to care about the customer. pizzas take on average a half hour to forty five minutes to arrive on your plate, and take out can be a nightmare. the employees frequently forget take out orders and when you arrive in the shopping center location they scramble to throw the pizza into the oven. instead of being honest and loyal to customers, they decide to lie and tell them that the pizza "will be out in 2 minutes," or "is coming out now." hopefully the owners can take notice of the countless reviews that discuss the terribleserviceand address the issues with their employees.

the worst meal in fairfield county. when the restaurant was new my friend and i were excited to try it. thin crust, brick oven pizza is something that i crave. we went for an early lunch and were very, very pleased with the clam pizza and the pepperoni pizza that we ate. both pies were made with fresh, quality ingredients, were well seasoned and had the right amount of char from the oven. so i thought there was finally a local place, closer than frank pepe's in fairfield and colony in stamford for a great pizza. i ordered take out of two pizzas a week later for dinner. unfortunately, i was all the way back home when we realized that we were given two completely scorched "pizzas". the crust was burnt, the pancetta was burnt, the pepperoni was burnt, the peppers were burnt... i didn't want to bother return them so we just pitched them in the garbage. we didn't bother approaching the restaurant again for a long time, just assuming they needed to figure out how to handle food quality. we went back and dined in this time as we were at today's kitchen up the block. the food that was served that evening was disgusting. the wings were without salt and *sigh* burnt. (from being in the oven? the exterior crust still had a "gummy" moisture content and so i dont think that they were fried.) the pizza was burnt. not charred, burnt from bottom to top. my son's meatballs were made with mostly breadcrumbs, no salt and had entire clumps of just breadcrumbs within. additionally theservicestaff could not handle the volume of customers, but that's not our concern. this is the worst restaurant we have encountered since...well it has been over a decade. we aren't going back.

not worth it!. the quality of the food is very uneven, none of it great, tables are crowded together, and theserviceis absolutely terrible. we had a pork sandwich which was cold, tough, and tasteless. the pepperoni pizza was ok, but most local pizzerias make a better one. also had a pizza with pesto which was so oily it was inedible. the tables are so crowded together that the waiters can hardly even get to you. we waited forever to have our order taken, and we were only one of two tables there.

uneven food quality - what gives?. first time we went to coalhouse pizza, we were amazed -- fresh, nicely prepared salad not drowned in dressing, really great tasting pepperoni on the excellent thin crust pizza, friendlyserviceand a fun atmosphere. it' hasn't been as good since -- but the weird thing is that how the dishes are prepared seems to vary. great one time and lackluster the next.

each time we've been back, it's been a little different. sometimes the pizza crust is too thick. the flavored mac n cheese has been amazingly delicious several times (more like a slippery, high quality melted cheese sauce on al dente macaroni) when we have ordered the flavored kinds (with mushrooms or broc raab, for example) - but we got the plan mac n cheese once and it was a whole different ball game - more like cheese with flour added to it and really awful.

the salads have fancy descriptions but they arent necessarily prepared as they are written up - don't believe it if you see "roasted grapes " --it's a tasty salad but i have yet to see roasted grapes in that salad.

sometimes they are nicely dressed with restraint and sometimes there is too much dressing on them.

they have a chicken scarpariello dish that one time was amazing -- the next time it didn't look like the same dish and wasn't even close.

the most recent disappointment was a pasta with "marinara" sauce and basil. the pasta was called spaghetti but it looked like chef boyardee - the pasta so thick and unevenly textured -- i even got an egg shell in it.. the "marinara" sauce (they just call it a tomato sauce but the waiter said it was a marinara) looked like it was really vodka sauce or had vodka sauce mixed in -- it was not a clear marinara. but had milk or cream added to it.

unusual can be great, but none of this added up to a great tasting dish, unfortunately. i would not recommend this dish at all -- unless on a different night somebody else is cooking and it's completely different.

this is a fun place and the people are very nice, so i'm hoping somebody can tell me what gives. is there a trick to getting the best food or should i just enjoy the atmosphere and forget the food? time of day, day of week - are they the key?

definitely like the people, the place, and think the food is worth trying -- but i am going to revise what i've told foodie friends about this restaurant or they will think i am nuts if they go and have the downside of the uneven experience we have had there.

long live coalhouse pizza -- please pay attention to what's going on in your kitchen!

horrible. by far the worst pizza...burnt,servicesucked. waiter didnt even speak english. owner was an awkward fellow. mario and remos are the best pizza places in town, true italian restaurants.

i'll never go back agian. it felt like being in the twighlight zone. this was my second time there at coalhouse pizza. and i cant believe that both times was a nightmare. the pizza( if thats what you call it) was very thin and burnt all around the crust. i dont think the owner of that establishment knows what he or she is doing. to top it all off, theservicewas as sloppy and unorganized. i ordered a beer 3 times, and when i asked my waitress the 4th time she told me she was busy. i will never go back agian. it should be called slophouse pizza