Torino’s Pizza open in Roanoke
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I received an email recently from Frank Guilfoyle, who owns Honeybaked Ham and the building that houses it on Broadway Avenue near Towers Mall. Frank was writing to let folks know a new restaurant has moved into the space next door to Honeybaked Ham.
The new place, Torino’s Pizza, is an Italian restaurant offering dine-in, carryout and delivery options. According to Guilfoyle, everything is cooked fresh to order. Torino’s offers appetizers, salads, subs, pasta platters, pizzas, calzones, stromboli and “rolls,” which I assume are similar to stromboli. For those who are not in the mood for Italian, there are burgers on the menu.
The pizza comes on either a New York-style crust or a Sicilian crust. For New York-style, size options are small, medium, large and family. Cheese-only prices are $5.99 (small) to $9.25 (family). Sicilians come in either small ($7/cheese only) or large ($9.50/cheese only). From there, toppings cost extra. They also have some pre-designed pizzas, including vegetarian, Hawaiian, Greek or a white pizza.
Subs come in either 6-inch or 12-inch, and the list includes many of the usual suspects (cheese steak, pizza steak, Italian, eggplant Parmesan, chicken Parm) but they’ve also got a Mexican steak topped with cheese, steak, onions, banana peppers and tomatoes, and gyros.
Pasta plates are all $7.99 to $8.99 and come with garlic bread. That list includes lasagna, manicotti, ravioli, spaghetti, fettucine Alfredo and baked ziti. Calzones and stromboli come in small, medium and large and range from $5.99 to $14.50 for a large deluxe calzone or a large chicken stromboli.
The PDF menu Guilfoyle sent along has a few coupons on the bottom, so if you call to order you may want to ask about that. The telephone number is 904-5575. If you try it, let us know what you thought.
August 4, 2011 - 6:38 AM
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Time for a taste test!
I am so excited for all of the new businesses in the Towers area!!
You really can’t have too many pizza places.
I may have to check them out this weekend.
I’d like to get a real Sicilian pizza…hope this is the place.
I’ll definitely be giving them a try soon. Kristen is right, there is no such thing as too many pizza places.
I went there today. My dining companion had veggie lasagna, which he said was very good. It looked good. I ordered veal parmesan because I hadn’t had it for a long time. I had some quibbles with it. The meat wasn’t breaded, it was a thin slice of veal,which I was happy about. While flavorful, it was as tough as shoe leather.
I also had a problem with the spaghetti served with the veal. It came all cut up as if it were for a child, and the sauce desperately needed seasoning. It was freshly made with tomatoes, so it was light, not a heavy red sauce, but IMO needed salt badly.
I ordered a supreme pizza to go, jut to try it, and am pleased with it. It’s good. I’ll go back but won’t have the veal parm again.
On the basis of this post, Leo and I tried them out tonight. Oh. My. Gosh. We went in with the mindset they’d be like most places. Our default with a new restaurant is to order a variety of foods on the first visit, so we can see what we like, what they seem to do well, etc.
On first going in, we were greeted by the owner of the building and one of the servers for the restaurant. The server greeted us warmly and got us settled with drinks almost before we could open the menu. She was incredibly pleasant and eager to answer questions. We should have known something was up when she looked at us slightly oddly for our orders.
I’m a huge fan of garlic knots – and so is my other half. Most places give 5-10 small pieces of dough, whose leftovers are good for a late-night snack, and that’s what I had in mind. So I ordered a double batch with a side of alfredo sauce, thinking we’d have about half to take home with us tonight. One order would have been enough to feed a family of four – as a meal. The orders were huge. They were, however, freshly baked and topped with an incredibly addicting garlic and butter blend and served with piping hot, obviously homemade, alfredo for dipping. My husband ordered the pepperoni roll as an appetizer, thinking we’d share a few bites, see how it was, and take the rest home. What came out wasn’t simply a roll, it was half the bakery. Their appetizer pizza roll could easily be called a Stromboli on someone else’s menu, and is more than enough to feed a person for a meal – possibly more.
Each of us ordered a 14″ pizza, under the impression that we’d eat our slices have plenty of leftovers to nosh on for the week. The husband likes some toppings, I like plain cheese. Their pizzas somehow seemed larger than 14″. They measured out right, but the taste was out of this world. After one and a half slices, we were utterly satisfied. The toppings were plentiful and quality. The dough was what made the pizza. It has the good pizza crunch while the inside remains just a little chewy. There’s a very, very slight sweetness to it as well. It reminded me of the good New York style pizza that you can buy by the slice.
To complete the experience, we ordered one of their desserts – Zabolas. The’re described on the menu as “donut holes covered in honey, sprinkled with powdered sugar and cinnamon.” In fact, they were like eating a freshly cooked funnel cake. There were 15-20 pieces of dough on the plate, each one consisting of 2 “bites.” They were covered, but not soaked in, a thin layer of what tasted like baklava-like honey butter and lightly sprinkled with cinnamon and powdered sugar. No one ingredient was overdone. Heaven on a plate – and all for $1.49.
Now, while the food was all sunshine and roses (yes, that good), there were little quibbles. First, the waitress could have warned us that we were ordering enough to feed the Waltons. Secondly, the order the food came out in was a little…odd. We got one pizza before the appetizers, then the apps, followed by the other pizza. Honestly, though? These were the only two negatives we had. Overall, the experience was wonderful. Our glasses were never empty, the staff was interested in getting to know us as customers, and the food was out of this world. The prices are very reasonable and the atmosphere is warm and welcoming.
We’ll definitely be back – only we’ll probably order about 1/4 of what we did tonight!
Debbie and Mary, thank you for the reports! Sounds very promising. Mary, I guess you won’t have to do any cooking for a couple of days! Your post made me hungry.
Mary, your post made me want to get in the car and drive out there! Even though I had (a delicious!) lunch yesterday at the Mountain View Italian Kitchen.
Lindsey, thanks for the post, we’ll def check it out!
Omg I came here last night. The food was amazing best pizza I’ve ever had! And the service was phenomenal! I definitely recommend this place. There’s no disappointment here!
I’ve been twice now, the food has been good both times. Steak and Cheese sub 6″ – same price no matter loaded, very cool. Good taste, not greasy, plenty of food. Both the small greek salad and the house salad are nice. The house dressing has lots of feta – yum. The Deluxe Calzone was full of toppings and not too much dough. The small is plenty for two. The Supreme 10″ pizza was plenty for two and covered in a ton of fresh toppings. The staff has been very nice. Prices are reasonable and the food is very good. We’ll be going back!
We had lunch here today. The pepperoni pizza was delicious. High end cheese and nice thin crust…mmmm. Eggplant parmigiana sub was very tasty and a nice size for the price. Was pleasantly surprised by the cannoli as well. Definitely will be back…
We tried their delivery service last night and were very impressed. Ordered the family size supreme and the zabolas. From order to front door was right around an hour. The delivery lady was pleasant and friendly, the pizza and donuts were hot. It was delicious! The toppings were fresh tasting and generous amounts. The crust is amazing, we had the hand tossed which was thin and had just a bit on sweetness to it. Loved it! And you can’t beat the prices – $20 for the large pizza and dessert delivered to my door? We’ll be putting them on speed dial.
My lovely wife and I placed a togo order the other day… its a new place we were not sure what would show up,BUT it was the best. I mean the best pizza and cheese steak sub. Thankfuly we live close and will come here often!! This place is what I call HOOOOK it UUUPP!! It realy is good and We will be back.
Went tonight for dinner, pizza was very good, with a great new york style crust. Veggie calzone (small) was huge, but filled with frozen (instead of fresh) broccoli, and spinach, and canned mushrooms…c’mon!
No greeting when we walked in. Got up and grabbed our own menus, our server, who never told us her name, will not last long in the service industry I’m afraid…very awkward service. Our entrees came out over the course of 15 minutes, waitress was lacking knowledge on menu items and details. Saw several people having trouble with their checks, saw a couple waiting for a to go order the ENTIRE TIME we were there:..
LUCKILY, this place will survive on their food alone, and hopefully they will sort out their pathetic (sorry, its true) waitress that served us tonight. Go! You will like the food if nothing else.
My husband and I went to Torino’s Pizza for the first time last Friday and we left thoroughly disappointed.
We ordered a large Supreme pizza and it did not look or taste like an Italian pizza. We were the only people dining there on a Friday night around 7:30pm. That’s not a good sign that the business will survive. The cobwebs on the light fixture close to the table and dirt on the floor didn’t help to improve our dining experience.
Mary J’s review on Aug 7th that said “the taste was out of the world” is the exact opposite of our experience.
After a great first experience was disappointed with our second try of Torino’s. Called in order for large surpreme and garlic knots. Advised it would be about 25 minutes. Arrived to pick up and it was closer to 40 to be ready. Then they did not fix the garlic knots. The cashier caught this BUT left the pizza sitting on the counter the whole time they fixed the knots. Never offered to remake pizza so it would be hot or even to put in oven to keep warm while we waited. The pizza just wasn’t the same quality as the first we had. Not only was it cold from sitting out while they finished order the center was soggy – couldn’t pick up a piece, had to eat with a fork and use spatula to get out. Hope just a bad night for them.
Best tasting pizza in town and that is saying something because Roanoke has some great pizza! They do need to work on their serving organization a bit, but wow great food.
I live 2 mins. from this place and placed a order for 2 pizza’s. It took them 1.5 hrs to deliver. We were told originally 45mins. to 1hr which to me was ridiculous but decided to order anyway. After waiting 1.75 hrs I called to inquire as to the problem and was told the driver’s car had broken down. I stated” I will just come and pick it up” since it was nearly 11pm at night. My answer back was they are not ready yet they are still in the oven. Right then and there I knew I had been lied to about a broken down car. Within 15mins.we finally received our order with a small discount of $5.00. I will never do business with these people again…you will starve to death waiting on them!
I think the pizza is great, but the last time we went there for lunch the service was just a disaster.It took 20 minutes just to have our order taken, then another 45 minutes before we got our pizza, and only then because I asked where it was. Come to find, it had been ready and sitting in the kitchen and our server wasn’t aware of it.
The last time we did take out, we waited 45 minutes before going to get it, then another 30 minutes standing around in the restaurant, only to be told that only “part” of our order was ready. I pointed out that we’d only ordered 1 thing. So which part was it..the crust or the sauce?
Sad to say, it doesn’t matter how good their food is, if they don’t get their service act together it will be game over. If it isn’t already.
Twice now my mom and I have visited Torino’s to find ourselves thoroughly enjoying their New York Style Supreme Pizza. LOTS of items…lots of taste at a very reasonable price. Next week we look to try a combo Baked Ziti and Lasagna plate. More than once I’ve heard that you get MORE than what you pay for at Torino’s. So far for us that has indeed been the case. The culinary adventure continues…
We had dinner on Friday night at Torino’s with friends. Things were a bit slow, and there was only one staff member taking orders, both dine in and carry out. She was doing a great job, but I hope they can get her some help soon!
The food was really good. Portions were huge – I ordered a small calzone and it could have easily fed 2 people. My husband had eggplant parmesan, and again, the portion was very large! Needless to say we enjoyed the leftovers last night for dinner!
Trying to call today (Fri) at 11:00 A.M. They won’t answer the phone. What’s up with this place?
That is odd, Fletcher. I haven’t heard anything that would cause me to believe nobody is there to answer the phone…
That’s so depressing…the food there is really good and a great deal to boot. I hope they’re not gone.
Hope they are not gone already. Just heard about this place from a friend and wanted to try it tonight…
No cause for alarm. Went there tonight for carryout and they are alive and well. Two waiters, and all the booths were full. We called in our carryout order and it was ready in less than 30 minutes. Amazing pizza, but carryout does get a little sticky and greasy in the box. Saw a huge calzone being taken out to a table while I was paying, and they said it was a small calzone… Prices are great too. Two large pizzas with one topping each was just over $20.
The don’t seem to like to answer the phone, 11:00, no pick up. No online menu. Needs to at least stick one up on his Facebook page.
The owner of this place is quite rude. I don’t see this business lasting much longer if he can’t figure out his employee issue! Food is great, but it takes much more than that to keep a place up and running!
The owner is quite rude?? I don’t believe so. We have been eating at Torinos for the past 3 months and he comes out and greets us and makes sure everything was good. There was an issues with some the the service but when addressed he fixed the problem and now the serice and food is perfect! He also supports our church. That is not a rude man. Well recommended. This place will stay open because their food is great and everyone who tries it loves it!
Tried out the new pizza place. I was very disappointed. The owner was very rude. The waitstaff was inattentive and the floor was FILTHY. They need to clean the lights hanging over the tables too. Portions are huge, not a good way to make money, but not my business. This food is clearly not Italian food. It is just a pizza place pretending to offer Italian food. Next time I want pizza I will stick to papa johns. My advice-steer clear of this place.
Exactly what Kim said. They are in need of better management! They can’t be making enough to be where they are located, and you can tell that the food is not made fresh. It takes a lot more to keep a business open than good food!
I went in to this place after reading the reviews just to see what it was all about. The dining room was very clean. The portions are big but i like to take left overs to work, so it works out on my part
. The waitstaff was very friendly, even though she was on the phone taking an order she said hello n said she would be with me in a minute. im not sure if we are all talking about the same torinos’ pizza but i would recommend this place to anyone. Great food, friendly staff and a great atmosphere. Love this place
I finally got the chance to try this restaurant, as well. We ordered a pizza for carry-out on Friday night.
It did take a good many rings for someone to answer the phone, but they answered it and took our order in a friendly manner. We were told the large pie would take about 45 minutes, which I understood on a Friday night. The pizza was pretty good – nice crust, lots of toppings. I would order a pizza from Torino’s again.
we went there the other night and ate a large supreme sicilian pizza and is was the best sicilian pizza ive had in 14 years. Ive been to italy and this is the topper!!! recommended!!!
We’ve gone back and also gotten take-out a few times…it’s become my favorite pizza in Roanoke.
Great food. I get one order of Ravioli or tortellini to go and it feeds my whole family. Cheap dinner!!
I have been to Torino’s twice. Once last week & again today for Administrative Professional’s day and I am very pleased. The Carbonara Alfredo & the Baked Ziti are both very good. Large portions. My only disappoint is they do not have Tiramisu but the Choc Mousse Cake is very good (large portion). Prices are very reasonable for serving size & service was very good. Both times (1st time around 6pm & today for lunch) they were not real busy. I hope they do get enough business to stay open. I hope to take my husband there soon. I will be returning & look forward to it.
We absolutely love Torino’s. They are having a tough time keeping waitresses it seems but the main girl is always friendly and the manager usually comes out to see how everything was. I think they are just busy and trying to make it all work. The food is ALWAYS delicious and the prices are great. We share pasta meals often and LOVE their salads!!! Also the desserts are wonderful. We would suggest everyone try this place!
The food is great but the service sucks. Been there 2 times for carry out and both times they said come in 35 minutes to pick up the food and when I got there I would have to wait an additional 15 minutes and the manager Amy has a nasty attitude. Maybe the bad service is reserved only for takeout customers! They wont see anymore of my money!
did yall go out of business because i called and tried to place a order and the the operater told me that the number was out of service
Torinos was an outstanding resturant, why did they close?
Steve, I loved loved loved the food, but it wasn’t good enough to overcome the service challenges. I wish the guy would open another pizza place…his pizza was fantastic. We ordered pizza from another local place last weekend and after Torinos it was just depressing.