sa za

maybe too much to handle... i ve eaten at the za, as we gumpians call it, or just my friends do.. lol many times. the food is still good, just very inconsistent. service be painfully slow and ive noticed the servers are not well educated on the menu and offerings. while sa za has nothin to fear from central, which the food there is below average, they need to step itbackup to the way things used to be. would be nice to have some new menu offerings. i ll be back, maybe not as often if this continues. miss my guy smoke behind the bar..

best pizza i ever had!!. the service was very good. the food was out of this world. i could not believe a pizza could taste so good. we ordered the pizza pallaird. our server told us the dough is flown in everyday from new york. my husband says the veal parm was the best he ever had. we have beenbackand recommend it to everyone.

not for me. i have visited this restaurant twice. my first visit was with one of my young daughters. it was daddy and daughter day and we went out to eat. our experience was not the best but it wasn't anything that would have made me not want to come back. i had to flag down the staff to get refills on my water and tea and it seemed like the food took a little longer than you would think but what can you do.

my second experience was a little less than what i expected. my wife was working late so i took my twin daughters and son there to eat. it was a thursday night and a little busy. the hostess said there was not any seating available for my party of four. as i saw some empty tables i was a little takenbackand asked about them but she said they were all reserved. to her credit she did offer me an alternative to sitting at a table, she wanted me and my three children, two five year olds and a nine year old, to sit at the counter area in seats that were not even in a row together. needless to say my kids and i found other dining arrangements for the evening. i realize this restaurant is not for me and they really don't need my few measly dollars to be a successful business. good luck to them.

really. how do i start. it was my anniversary weekend so my wife, step daughter and i decided to check out sa za. my wife had heard a lot about it and thought it would be worth the stop. let me start off by saying that i movedbackto alabama over 5 years ago from new jersey. i gobackto jersey at least tree times a year to visit family and to get my fix of food and music. my first stop is a pizzeria called villa victoria. the best pizza ever. so when i hear about italian food in alabama, i'm all over it. after we were seated (about 1:00) pm the waitress took our drink orders. we ask for lemonade, no lemonade. ask for fruit punch for our daughter, no fruit punch. ask for apple juice for her, no apple juice. this has never happened to me before but what can you do. we ended up giving the 3 year old sierra mist which we don't like to do. after a few sips, she drops the drink on the floor. i pick up the cup and explained to the waitress what happened. she filled up the same, now dirty, cup and lid and put itbackin front of my daughter. my wife saw the whole thing and requested to have a clean cup. i still remained cool. when the pizza was about to come to the table, i requested more soda. she takes the cup and about 30 seconds she returns and asked me if the other cup (which was half full of water) belonged to me. this was odd considering she gave it to me. i replied yes and she took it away to be refilled i assumed. as i talked to my wife at the table, my wife chose to watch the waitress. my wife whispers to me, "she just screwed you. she put soda on top of your water." before i could respond, she tells me that the waitress has taken my soda cup and filled it with water. totally in shock and disbelief, when i got the drink back, i put my straw to the bottom and it was mostly water i tasted. very upset at this point, i asked another worker for the manager. when i approached the young lady and explained the situation, she gave me a constant plastic smile and said i'm sure my employee didn't do that and that this was her livelihood and she would never do such a thing. i tried to let her know that i'm really displeased and she said i could just leave. i replied "leave" and she said yes leave. at this point i'm at 10. i requested names and asked to speak to her boss. the waitress and the so called manager gobackto talk to some other manager. i then spoke to another employee who informed me that the other manager in the kitchen will fix everything. when the other manager shows up, the female manager tries to chime in. i tell her tobackthe hell up and that i was done talking to her. all of a sudden the manager says (without hearing my side of the story) you can leave sir. once again i am totally floored. i will be soon 50 years of age and have never, and i mean never, received such poor service in all my life. i'm a veteran and i currently work for the government and have worked as a concierge for a major airline for over 6 years and the one thing they would reinforce was that good news travels fast but not as fast as bad news. i'm not sure what kind of training is given to employees and managers at za sa's but they had better do a lot more. i must say from talking to people since this incident, i really hope and i pray the fact that we are african american has absolutely nothing to do with how we were treated. i plan to follow up with the owner to check the response. to be cont.....

meh. went to try saza'a after their renovation. this was my 3rd visit and 3rd diappointment. had the eggplant parmesan (15$) - it was more like an eggplant casserole over undercooked penne. at first, i thought they had forgotten to bread the eggplant because it was just mushy. it tasted fine but lacked texture of any kind. other firends got pizza (3$ a slice) - if i gobacki'll stick with that.


-----26 feb, 2010-----

great venue - ok food.. i have eaten at saza's 4 times now. the venue is very nice, the service is great, the food is - mediocre. i have seen all the reviews talking about how fabulous - blah blah blah - the food is and i am starting to think someone was paid to write them. everything i have had (with 1 exceptionn - the chopped salad) suffered from bland seasoning and in regards to the proteins - horribly overcooked. i was also told that the pizza dough is frozen .

still have some good waitresses, but need to lose the snotty male host. management should be aware that he sets the tone right off the bat. i used to love the staff here now i'm turning. love one sweet blond waitress in college.


-----06 feb, 2013-----

food is still good. service and atmosphere just gets more and more horrendous. just plain snooty. i'll wait for feedbackbefore i change my like to a dislike.


-----02 aug, 2011-----

good food, but im most impressed with the quality of the wait staff. great attitudes. everybody i meet seems truly happy.

keeps getting better. the early experiences we had with saza were frustrating, probably contributing to many of the negative reviews here. i have only had good experiences in the last year. i'm gluten free and they have some delicious options here. i will say one time my chicken was undercooked, but the waiter was very apologetic and helpful. (would have been better if the meal was free of course, but it camebackvery good.) the stuffed peppers, chopped antipasta, and chicken palliard are my favorites, being that they are gluten free, but it's hard to go wrong with any options here i think!

i wentbackfor a second try and since i know not to order their olive garden quality pasta dishes, i got eggs in purgatory for an app. it was really yummy, it's suck comfort food that it's hard to screw it up. i'll say that the breadsticks it was served with were very salty and overly garlic as there is enough garlic already in the dish. anyway, for an entree i ordered the 5 murshroom pizza with goat cheese. i don't really like mushrooms but this pizza was wonderful!! i took some home and ate it the next day. i crave this pizza and have started making eggs in purgatory for my family. much better experience this time!

lunch. o.k. while my wife and i where exploring the ally in montgomery on our stay cation we wanted to try out sa za's for it's "serious pizza! " by far the worst pizza ever!
one the crust was burnt and hard as a rock with no taste, the pizza was dry hardly any sauce, the cheese was not mozzarella but we think it was provolone? we asked for green peppers and got spicy jalapenos. these guys need to gobackto basics pizza 101. i don't see them saying in business much longer every one there had frowns on their face and no one look happy. it all flows down hill guys. hint, head over to auburn and zazu on magnolia. hang out a while and see how real pizza is made.

disappointing to say the least! my husband and i visited za za bc i am pregnant and love italian food! we went on our lunch break,which is an hour and a half,after waiting for 45 minutes for our food,and not receiving any drink refills,we asked for our meal to-go because we both had to getbackto our jobs. we waited another 20 minutes for our food and ticket. do not go on your lunch break! horrible horrible service as well!

do not believe the negative. i was sincerely blown away by sa za in montgomery. i didn't know what to expect in alabama, being a total food junkie i was expecting a southern impostor of italian food. not the case at all. we stayed at the renn hotel across the street, their recommendation was sa za. everything we had from the eggplant appetizers, to pizza, to pasta and the salmon was amazing, even the garlic sticks were addictive. i will def bebackthere and cannot wait too do so.
the service was smart, attentive and they had great personality,

wasted space downtown. this place has to be the worst use of restaurant space downtown. i hate to see it being used as the 'anchor' for the alley and the new hotel.

my first visit was after work on a weekday, a wednesday. met my wife there, since she works downtown, and we sat at the kitchen/bar area (not really a bar, just a counter area that over looks the kitchen area.) i ordered what sounded good, but what turned out to be both silly and over cooked. it was called grandma's sunday sauce and supposedly had meatballs, sausage and lamb shoulder over rigatoni. also tried to order wine, but apparently wednesday is a bad day to order wine, as they were out of the first three selections that i made, leaving me with only one remaining choice under $50/bottle. then they bring out little glasses that look like the glass i keep beside my sink to rinse with after brushing. this place will sell you wine, some bottles priced at $125, but they have no stemware, period, so you'll have to drink it from what amounts to a highball glass. what came out first was a salad that had been chopped to the point of pulveriization. seriously, this salad was just this side of the sawdust consistency. i almost had to eat it with my spoon! the flavor was ok, but just a weird thing to do with lettuce. then my meal arrived. it was served in a plastic crock, designed to 'look like' a cast iron kettle or pot, but it was a double lined, injection molded, plastic pot, with a wood top and a wooden spoon in it. the rigatoni with very little sauce was on bottom, covered by two entirely over cooked and unseasoned lamb shoulder steaks, and topped by two meatballs. no sausage to be seen. the lamb steaks were of a size that they wouldn't fit through the top of the pot. seriously, i'm supposed to remove this dried out, 1/2 inch thick steak from a pot that is too narrow at the top with a wooden spoon. i'm laughing at this point thinking, 'i must be on candid camera' or something. maybe aston kutcher is going to come over and say i've been 'punk'd' or something.
so i finally fish out one of these rubber lamb steaks and put it on my plate and cut a bite. tastes just like it looked like it would, dried out rubber tire. i try to smear some sauce from the bottom on it to make it better, but there wasn't enough there to make a difference. it was at this point that 'chef joe dimaggio, jr' came over to ask how my food was. now i'd not met the illustrious joe dimaggio, jr. at this point, so i didn't know to whom i had the pleasure of speaking. he comes over and in his best ny italian accent (well, it might have been his worst, or maybe there's no difference) he says "how you doin? how's the food?" to which i answer, i'm fine but the food is...(i bite my tongue here) ok." well, i might have just called his mother a whore, by the look on his face. again in that accent "ok! its just ok?" to which i shrug my shoulders and say, "well, the lamb is a little dry, the pasta has no sauce and there's no sausage this 'crock'".
he then proceeds to take my knife and my fork and cut a bite of lamb from my steak and eats it! off my plate with my fork! he then, with no further word to me or my wife, walks away,backto the line cook who's churning out this crap, and yells at him "hey! ya lamb steaks are dry!" my wife and i are laughing at this point because this whole evening is just ridiculous. chef joe then got his bags and left the restaurant. to top things off, the server insisted that we try some sort of chocolate tort for dessert, not because we had a poor dining experience (no body seemed concerned about that at all) but because it was going to be thrown out after tonight. so he 'gave us' the dessert for free because it was so old they weren't going to keep it.

on a more recent occasion ( i has sworn this place off after my first experience) my mother wanted to go for mother's day, and you can't say no to mom. so we made arrangements to meet all the family there on mother's day. we arrive early, as in, we were the first patrons in the door. we did this because we knew that with our party of 10 people, it would be crowded, and if we got there late, we'd wait for ever. the server put some tables together, and proceeded to tell us that our party would have to finish our meal with in 1 hour, due to the fact that it was mother's day and they would be very busy. at first, i thought i'd heard him wrong, maybe he was just telling me that it would take an hour for our food to come, but no, he repeated that we had exactly 1 hour to eat, and then we would be asked to leave so that they could turn this table. i just nodded and took this as more evidence that this place is so full of itself that they have no clue that they are pissing people off every day, over food that shouldn't be served in school lunch rooms, much less a 'fine dining establishment.' i don't even remember what i had that day. it was that unremarkable. but hey, at least it didn't taste so bad i couldn't forget it!

there are a few nice restaurants in montgomery. this decidedly not one of them, or even a close runner up. expensive food, less than adequate service, way too much attitude, and no ambiance to speak of.

not for me. i finally tried this place after an out of town friend invited me to dinner. other friends in town had warned me about the less that speedy service, but as i was going for a leisurely dinner with a friend i didn't worry about the speed. what i should have worried about was the food. i tried the polenta appetizer - i don't know about most people, but most polenta i've had is not soup. it is usually a firm cornmeal cake-like form that has bits of yummy things inside it or over it. my polenta was soupy and served in a large bowl covered with cheese and then a broth with some wild mushrooms in it. i sent itback- it was unappetizing and the description of the dish did not warn the diner of what they were getting.

then i ordered the pizza - cheese and i asked them to add roasted red peppers. it seems the waitstaff could suggest that a pizza may be too big for one person (my friend had ordered pasta) - i did not see a description of size so it was way too much food. if it had been good pizza - leftovers would have been nice. it was, however, as hard as cardboard by the time it reach the table and made me worry about breaking a tooth on the crust. the sauce was indeterminable due to a serious lack in sauce and the roasted red peppers did not have their skins removed before being placed on the pizza.

someone asked me as i left with the pizza box (the wait staff insisted i take with me as i left) if the pizza was good. i told them no. i will not be back.

ok food, good service. made reservations for a monday night girls night out - not really needed because we got there before the place started filling up (5:15). hostess said i didn't have a reservation, but did eventually find it in the book. despite the misplaced reservation, she was very pleasant and cordial. our server was very friendly and very efficient. two glasses of wine, a salad and pizza ended up costing over $40 - a little much for the quality. the salad was nothing special and the pizza was very average. i did have a bunch of pizza to take home, though. we sat outside and it was very pleasant. i'll gobackb/c i like the atmosphere, i'll just try something different next time, skip the salad and order both glasses of wine during happy hour!

$$$ italian in the gump. very upscale italian/pizza place in the new alley secton of downtown montgomery. i ate here for lunch one day last week and was suprised by the prices. the clientele was mostly business dressed folks. i had the wild mushroom polenta--which had been highly recommended to me and it was stellar. creamy, smoky and cheesy polenta and the wild mushrooms were exceptional. i had the puttanesca--alittle too salty, too spicy. i was tempted to send it back, but they were so busy i would never have gotten itbackin a reasonble amount of time. although very authentic in its' preparation, i think they added salt, when the anchovies and olives would have been salty enough. i won't ding them on it too much--it was edible and i'll know how to order it next time. the pizzas looked great and smelled wonderful. i was pleased, but my wallet wasn't--i'll plan better next time.