Critic's Review
The narrative is that they've moved; but it seems more likely that they sold the brand, phone number and customer list to Pizzacraft. So the Taco guy who makes Italian food I never wanted to even try is now making Anthony's supposedly superior Italian food.
Meanwhile Pizzacraft is closed for "renovations".
Review 7/5/20
When Anthony first opened this place I mocked him for opening a place without his flagship pizza and his delusion that his "other" italian food could stand on it's own. A year later; the signs in the window tell it all; Pizza and Wings. I checked his menu to see the pricing on his pizza and wings, since they don't have a coal fired oven here; the "feature" that made Anthony's in the first place. The prices are outrageous; but stupid people are desperate in these hard times. $20 minimum for a pizza. Making matters worse is that there's limited flexibility; you cannot get a topping on a Grandma pizza, and you HAVE TO get 1 topping on a "Whole Square" pie; the starting price for online ordering is $23 and it includes 1 topping.
The prices here are absurd; they've raised the price point a LOT since opening. You'd be hard pressed to agree to pay these prices at a really good Italian restaurant much less this little take out storefront; but I haven't had a pizza in months and I haven't had a pizzeria grandma pizza in a decade. I'd planned on making Eggplant Parm this evening; but I decided I'd get a pizza. I was on a fasting day so I'd only had bone broth all day; a perfect day to gouge myself with carbs.
I also noticed on their web site that they were opened late on Sundays, I could pick it up at 10pm and eat it hot out of the box.
Except that the hours on the web site are wrong. I get that businesses are running different hours after the shutdown, but it's been 3 and half months; there's no excuse for this. Luckily I decided to check something at about 8:05pm and I saw "Closes in 55 minutes"; time to shit or get off the pot, as my Dad would say. I ordered a Grandma Pizza.
They have the option to pay when you pick up, which is a good thing; it said it would be ready at 8:45. When I walked in at 8:42, the pizza was ready.
Girl in mask; very mechanical environment. Pay, sign, and out the door.
The description of the pizza:;
Whole 19" pizza. "Grandma Pie" - Tomato Sauce / Mozzarella Cheese / Romano Cheese / Basil / Olive Oil
Romano Cheese doesn't belong on a pizza, so I ordered the pizza with Romano only on half of the pizza. I figured I'd try Anthony's recipe, but I didn't think it would work.
I expected the box to be bigger. A 20" pizza box is really big. Opening it overwhelmed me with a feeling of sadness. What a sorry looking pizza.
Anthony obviously didn't attend high school, because this isn't a "square" pizza. Not even close. It's also not 19".
For you math enthusiasts, A 19" x 12" pizza is 228 square inches; which is the equivalent of a 17" round pie. This pizza was 181 square inches of food; about the equivalent of a 15" pizza; 20% smaller than I expected.
I wasn't ready to eat yet, but I tried one slice from each side of the pizza. This is not a Grandma Pizza; at least not a good one. It wasn't bad; it tasted like a typical South Florida Pizza. The slice with Romano was definitely wrong; like when you cringe as that friend at the pizzeria douses his slice with table sawdust; this didn't really taste like fresh romano; it tasted like table sawdust.
I decided I wanted a real grandma pizza, and I'd just made some tomato basil sauce base yesterday; an outstanding grandma pizza has cheese on the bottom and a fresh tomato sauce with garlic and olive oil on top. I spooned some sauce into a saucepan; added oil and garlic and simmered for 1/2 hour. When it came time to eat, I covered 4 slices with the sauce and put it into the oven on tin foil (I didn't want to crisp the crust) at 325 degrees for 12 minutes. Don't ask how I came up with that formula.
I probably overdid it with the sauce, but this was delicious. This was near perfect on the non-romano slices. Even the garlicky tomato sauce couldn't save the slices with the bad cheese.
"Romano" Cheese on Pizza is a Loser
I knew that romano cheese (or parmesan) doesn't belong on pizza, and I was certainly right about that. The sprinkled cheese, whatever it was, ruined the half of the pizza that included it. Even the garlicky tomato sauce couldn't save it. It was just bad.
Conclusion
I really don't get what Bruno is doing; You open a restaurant, build it into a chain, sell it to a Private Equity Group. Make millions of dollars. Then you open a storefront takeout restaurant that isn't nearly as good and price it over the moon. It makes no sense doing something this mediocre.
This will be my last visit to this place, despite living nearby. I can make better Italian food than this without having to put on shoes. I've gotten disappointing food twice, and the prices here are more about Bruno's ego than the quality of the food. The pizza I got today wasn't even a reasonable facsimile of a Grandma Pizza; the closest thing I've had in South Florida to a real grandma pizza slice was Sbarro's Roman Slice.
There's no universe where this pizza is worth $20.
Review 3/20/19
So Anthony Bruno has opened a pizzeria with no pizza; something only Anthony could think up. I thought I'd give it a try.
Italian food is pretty easy to make at home, so I don't usually feel the need to pay $20 for a bowl of pasta. The exception is eggplant parm, because buying an eggplant commits you to 3 meals in a week; plus it's hard to slice it really thin without a machine the way restaurants do. But no eggplant today.
I wanted to use their online ordering system, but not use my real name, because some people actually know who I am. I have gift cards for this. Pick a name, any name. Their system is actually pretty good; the only things I don't like is that they require both email and phone # (both bogus were supplied) and there's no option to pay when you get to the store. This guarantees a $0 tip, because who is going to tip before you find out if your order is ready on time or if they screwed it up?
The difference between this place and a pizzeria is that you can't just order an $8 meatball parm sandwich, you have to pay $11 and get a side with it. Who want's a side with a meatball sandwich? I ordered a salad, surmising that I could eat it later on.
They have some nice benches outside, but you can't eat on the benches. No outside place to eat the food here.
Inside is chaos. 3 guys at the register, 2 people waiting. It's kind of like a kitchen with a counter. Did I say Pizzeria? Assoluti Tomatoes (foodservice special) and DeCecco pasta; Good stuff, so your plate of Rigatoni has a 25 cent per serving cost. Also available at the Fresh Market.
They have an espresso machine and wine up front, as if you're going to sit in this place and drink wine? How about a nice Sub-Zero chiller guys?
I guess you could sit on the couch and eat a plate of eggplant. Or maybe not.
Someone notices me in the back. "What's the Name?", "Jones; I ordered a Meatball Parm". The food is ready.
I grabbed to enormous bag and sped home. It took < 10 minutes to get home
A take out menu in the bag, but no napkins or utensils. I could see eating the sandwich without a fork but how would that work with the salad? If you're taking this back to your office make sure you get a fork.
I kind of expected a sub, but this is a sandwich on really big bread.
The ratio of meatball to bread was troubling. The bread was very soft and airy, so not as bad as I thought initially.
Something that bugs me about restaurants is the staged photos. It's much worse when the photos are nothing like the product they're actually offering.
This is the picture on their website of the "Meatball Sandwich":
As you can see it's completely different. These meatballs are sliced, kind of black on the outside, with a strange texture that brings into question what they're made with. Hardly any sauce.
These meatballs have a lot of filler; maybe half bread; they actually remind me of turkey meatballs. I had trouble keeping the sliced balls from falling out as I ate.
The salad was a good size for a side salad; certainly a better choice than fries. Ripe tomatoes; pretty much the same salad as at Anthony's CFP. His Italian dressing is very good; although it would be nice if they gave you a choice of dressing.
I ended up putting some blue cheese on this so my version may have been better than yours if you get it. Note that this picture was after it had been in the fridge for a while and not right out of the bag.
Conclusion
Anthony's Pronto is an idea that exudes arrogance; that Anthony's food is so superior that they can have a restaurant every 1/2 mile, and that people will pay $15 for a take out 1/2 chicken when they can get a whole chicken for $5 next door.
The sandwich I got was fine, but here's the rub. This is the restaurant's tagline:
Fresh, Classic Italian Dishes, MADE-TO-ORDER
but these meatballs were clearly sitting in a steam table for 1/2 a day. That sandwich on their web site was made to order; not this one. So why is this different than Mr Nick's or any other pizzeria or sandwich shop? The menu is really quite dull; Rigatoni 5 ways and a lot of chicken. Roast pork is the only thing that you can't get at 40 other places nearby; personally I'm not big on roast pork except maybe in a Cuban. Most notably there's no pizza; and pizza is where these types of places make all of their money.
This place will hurt Midici's take out business next door, but since there's no seating here it will have minimal impact on sit down restaurant business. This place is for people who can't cook; nobody who can boil water or open a jar of sauce is taking out most of this stuff. Gia Russa Tomato Basil sauce is better than this.
Anthony's isn't bad. It's just the arrogance of calling his sit down pizzeria food "restaurant quality".