PapaLeno’s Restaurant

Excellent! Smells like a traditional warm pizzeria when you walk in, comfortable surroundings. Very good price points and terrific bread!

Really good pizza for a small town, a decent place to stop for a bite while walking around Berea. The personal size pizza was the perfect size for my lunch. The salad was very basic lettuce with some red onion and a few tomatoes, not very exciting.

We heard about the garlic bread and decided to stop in during a trip to Berea. I ordered a salad with fried chicken breast.
I seriously think it was a chicken patty. The salad was fine but nothing special. The garlic bread was essentially frozen bread drowned in butter… I was done after a pinch.
It was okay and given the limited options around campus it was okay.

Best pizza ever! I live in Berea and make this a special treat! And the garlic bread is to die for…
Easy carry out and great delivery!

I honestly don’t see why everyone keeps giving this place such praise. It’s like they’ve never had decent Italian food. The pasta obviously comes out of a bulk container or something they probably buy it at Walmart. The sauce taste like it’s straight out of a 5 gallon container with some dried oregano sprinkled in it probably cooked in a large aluminum pot on some stove all day. The Parmesan tasted old and powdery had no smell to it at all. And that was the time I tried the pasta. I decided to give the place another try about a year and a half later and pretty much the same thing I had a chicken Parmesan sandwich that tasted like it had been microwaved. I’ve honestly had food truck sandwiches that tasted better. The third time I went was with some vegan friends of mine hippie types and they absolutely loved the vegan stuff they had. I think it was some kind of eggplant concoction I just drank some water and chatted with them.

Cute, cozy restaurant right across the street from Berea College. Ambiance is great– there are intimate wooden booths and larger tables to sit at. The restaurant is inside of an older, historic building, so the layout is very unique. At any given time you see people dining here, laughing and feasting under soft, warm lights.
The prices are affordable and the food is tasty. They offer pasta, pizza, sandwiches, and dessert. Next time I have to try the Mountaineer, their version of supreme pizza. The name is actually the mascot of Berea College! The pasta comes with their famous garlic bread which the students swear by. It was delicious too! Garlicky, buttery, crunchy and salty on the outside and soft on the inside. Sandwiches come with chips. Drinks are self-​serve and if you order water and like it with lemon, there’s no shortage of citrus near the soda station.
Service was prompt and even though my order was misheard, they promptly fixed it and brought out the correct order– oven baked spaghetti. Couldn’t beat it for $ 8.99. Spaghetti and meat sauce served with a heap of melted mozzarella cheese on top. I red-​pepper flaked that bad boy and it was soooo yummy! I also tried the philly cheese steak sandwich. It seems like it is served with the same bread used for the garlic bread except that it is plain, sans garlic butteriness but it stands up well to the juicy, seasoned beef, onions, and peppers. I loved the food and of course the company made it even better!

Owner keeps deleting my post about his rude behavior?
Went in for lunch with my husband, tried to order my usual kids chicken Alfredo meal (since Gastric Sleeve surgery I can’t even finish it), never had issues before. When asked what drink I wanted I said water, then she looked at the menu and then said I couldn’t get it, I said I always normally get that since I’ve had surgery (at least 6 times since July this year). Then she asked a man in the back and he replied. «No! I’m the owner and I said no!!» His tone was extremely rude, which is why I left.
Will not be back. You’ve lost very frequent local customers.
He has since replied on a post but deleted it about being «annoyed» that people want to pay a kids menu price. Lied about offering a solution. I get that he wants to cover up his actions, but employees and my husband were witnesses.
Now he has blocked me from posting it on his business page

From my Freshman year college days… up studying to be something great to now coming back every year for homecoming… this places reigns supreme! I enjoy all the food they have here and they are the absolutely nicest people you will ever meet! Their Chicken Philly is to die for and they atmosphere is fun and family like. I visit here every time I am in town!

We 2 vegan tourists ate here while shopping in Berea. I got the Portabella sandwich, which was good but it seemed like half a sandwich. My friend got twice as big a sandwich here (and she thought she had ordered a half a sandwich). The price I paid was fair enough for what I got, and I was happy that when I asked if they had fruit instead of chips they were happy to substitute some green apple slices. My food was good but I could have eaten more.
The service was fine considering that you order at the counter and someone brings it to your table. They got really busy just after we got there, so the line wasn’t too long for us.

Papaleno’s really is as good as it gets in the area. Every time I have guests in I take them to experience quality food for a very reasonable price. After four years living in Berea, I have become a huge fan of this business.

Best Italian in Berea. Really great breadsticks and great pasta, spaghetti, lasagna, etc

Great food largest bread sticks I have ever seen in my life. Prices are reasonable. Not fancy but nice. I would come back. I had the baked spaghetti.

Papaleno’s is ok. They have pretty good pizza, and the big slice is nice. Sometimes the service and food is inconsistent. Usually the food is cooked well, but I’ve gotten really watery pasta and undercooked food a few times. The service is usually sort of slow, but not terrible. It’s nice to have a pizza/​pasta restaurant so close to campus, and most of my experiences have been nice.

Papaleno’s is okay. It is one of the hot commodities down in berea and known for their homemade bread and pizza crust. But honestly I’m not a huge fan of them. Their pizza taste weird and they are over priced. My time that I did enjoy their food though is when I got the shrimp Alfredo which was very delicious and worth my money

Pizza is so good there!

So amazing! This was my first date place with my wife and the food is amazing! It is a must place in Berea.

This is a great place to eat. It’s a nice warm environment, and the food is really good. The sandwiches here are some of the largest I have ever seen. The pizza is wonderful and cheesy, and the entire restaurant smells like it. The pastas are good, though i would recommend the baked ones they have. The meals come with a bread stick drenched in garlic butter, and it’s something to look forward to. The soup of the day is really affordable, but it’s enough for an entire meal. I look forward to my visits here, and i never leave dissatisfied.

There’s no place like home. Once you step into Papaleno’s you are immersed in the scent of fresh hand-​tossed pizza made in an oven you can see from the front door. Everything is delicious-​not good-​delicious.

Great pizza and even better lasagna. I was told the Lasagna is a old family recipe and you can taste it. The large garlic breadstick they give you with your meal is a little overindulgent, but it tastes great. Great menu in a small college town. Always have great, ready made salads as well. A lot of options on the menu. The only thing missing from the meal is a pitcher of beer. If the town was wet (moist) and they were allowed to serve beer, it would be an absolute 5 star. Definitely the place to eat if you are coming through Berea.

This place sucks, overpriced, weird atmosphere, food sucks. Their ingredients are oldish tasting and I swear if their sauce doesn’t come from a can, a can would be a step up. The curtains are ugly (and they are everywhere) and the atmosphere is «tasteless bourgeois» The two times I have eaten here I left with a sick feeling in my stomach, and it wasn’t because I stuffed my face, as I have been known to do. One of the worst pizza joints I have ever been to, almost as bad as Mario’s.
*Additionally…Why would one even attempt to do a full menu Italian restaurant in a place where you can’t even serve wine?