LaRosa’s Pizzeria

Ahhh… I feel very sad that La’Rosa’s did not meet my expectations in any regard… but I will give them 1 extra star for at least trying.
Arrived on a Sunday night at 8:54pm, was informed they are open until 11, giving the 3 of us plenty of time to eat. Our waitress was clearly new. She took our order, then repeated it back to us with 2 mistakes. Sub the minestrone for onion soup, and the toppings for the calzone were wrong. We corrected her. She then repeated it back, wrong again. I thought maybe we’d have to write it down ourselves, but she said she figured it out.
Started with an order of fries, my Dad received the onion soup (positive so far!). No complaints. Then the garlic bread arrived with the kitchen ticket still in the basket. Rookie mistake, no harm done. Then the calzones came — really disappointed here! Smaller than I expected for $ 7, and 50% of the dish was all bread. The entire ends of the calzone (arrived cut into 3 pieces) were all bread. So tragic.
Then my Dad’s spaghetti and meatballs arrived, with only 2 meatballs. He called our waitress and asked if that was correct. She responded saying «I’d be happy to bring you another meatball.» The dish was supposed to come with 3. Offering to bring a 3^rd as a side (and implying we’d pay extra) is not a remedy. She then had an awkward back and forth, and she finally walked away, bringing a soup cup of 2 meatballs and sauce. They went from 1 to 2 stars for at least attempting to fix it, though she refused to own her error.
Unfortunately the rest of the night was a dud. The waitstaff began to vigorously clean the nearby booths. Still 90 minutes to close. Like lifting up booth cushions next to us. It made us feel like it was time to go.
The meal was over and we paid our check. The waitress picked up her receipt, and took away all 3 of our glasses. I totally respect clearing the plates away. Grabbing the check while your table is still sitting sometimes is tacky… but flat out clearing our table and all but wiping it down made it obvious we were no longer welcome.
To top it all off (see my pic!), we received mints with our check. Mine was literally empty. This isn’t a joke! I wanted to have a good experience here, I promise.
As a native Cincinnatian, I wish I could say I’d return. Alas, maybe it’s only this location. Want a killer calzone? Try Adriaticos.

Chicago pizza in Dallas with a New York name, I should have known better. Get a salad or sandwich, but skip the thick pizza.
Blah!

Always a fan of LaRosas and their pizza! I give it 4 stars and not 5 only because the service/​quality of food isn’t consistent every time. Otherwise, I enjoy LaRosas!

Some of the best Pizza ever. Can remember eating this as a kid. Always look forward to coming back to Cincy for it.

This location has been a family dinner tradition for many years and I’m sad to say that the service is so consistently bad that we do not want to go back. We always get slow service no matter what and usually clueless waiters who forget to give us items we order then charge us for them. On spaghetti a plenty night my dad has to order two bowls at a time because the waiter never checks on us for him to get a second bowl.
I’d recommend skipping this location and going to the rapid run store or glenway store by race rd.

Always my go-​to when I’m in Cincinnati! Good pizza and food all around. I’ve never had bad service.

I’m not going to review LaRosa’s in general. It’s one of those Cincinnati restaurant sacred cows that you either get or you don’t. They like their sauce sweet, with basil the primary herb instead of oregano. They use a LOT of it. If their sauce was latex paint, I could scrape a typical large pizza and use it to coat a medium-​sized bedroom. And they undercook. (Though in fairness, the heat in the oven probably has trouble penetrating a gallon of sauce to get to the crust.)
It was the first pizza I had. My family loves it. And they have a pretty good gluten free crust. It’s weird, but it’s Cincinnati.
No, my review is for this location. It’s their flagship, right across the street from their HQ, so you would think it’s representative.
Try ordering from them at anything approaching a peak time and you will find that you can’t. We tried tonight, and the estimated delivery time was 140 minutes. Yeah, there was snow here this morning, but three other times over the past half year, we couldn’t place an order at all, not even for a later delivery. The location just seems to take a timeout when things get too stressful. Hats off to you folks if business is so good you have no worries about refusing it, but there are plenty of alternatives.

We live 3 blocks from the boudinot store. It doesn’t matter what day or time we order, it’s always over an hour wait. The wait wouldn’t bother me except it never arrives completely correct. Their answer us to redeliver… at 60 to 70 minutes. Going and eating in isn’t much better. It’s usually 30 to 40 minutes to get a pizza there. I would avoid this chain if your looking for a timely, accurate, or friendly experience.

Very happy with LaRosa’s prompt response to my concerns as expressed above. I greatly appreciate their efforts to address it and know that my family and I will definitely be back! Thanks, LaRosa’s!!!

The food is always hot and delicious here each and everytime I visit! Brian or server was very informative of the new beers on tap and other specials being ran that day :) my small group showed up close to closing and ran a little passed closing hours, he was nothing but polite and not once tried to rush us out! Very pleased with his service and the food! Will be back soon! :)

Seriously, we just had an excellent meal here. The waiter, Garret was exceptional too. He knew the menu and made good recommendations. I had a personal pizza and my wife had a hoagie. We also had the best garlic fries we’ve ever had. Nice atmosphere and great pizza. Why did I wait so many years to come here? I’ll never know!

I have no idea why this place has 3 stars. It is LaRosa’s for pete’s sake. it’s like Dennys, «its an American institution»!
Here are a few pro-​tips from a real Cincinnatian:
Get the pan pizza, because the flat stuff just isn’t worth your time (at least in my opinion).
Order anything with bacon. Preferably if you are also going to add capicola or sausage! Hell, I’d get all three.
Get the antipasto salad to share.
Order it to go, pick it up, bring it home, lay out a sheet/​blanket, and enjoy family night with your siblings, and play catch phrase.
Because that is what LaRosa’s is all about.

We came here ONCE because we were craving junk food pizza. Yes, that’s the best way to describe it – not fancy pizza. Everyone knows that, though, about La Rosa’s.
We ordered a ton of food — a pizza, garlic rolls, and fries just for two people. It was all as expected: pretty mediocre, uninspired.
It’s a huge restaurant — the nicest La Rosa’s we’ve ever seen!

I remember this place from waaay back in the day when they had murals of slightly racially stereotyped Italian kitchen scenes. There was also some kind of separate restaurant that was kind of a higher class special occasion place, forget the name. Fun fact from the past: they had pudding pops for the kids.
I digress, a few years ago this place underwent massive renovations to bring it to the modern age and now it is a place with a few private party rooms, a sports bar, and standard restaurant.
The food is plain Jane Italian. It’s edible and will fill ya up, but it’s nothing to write home about. There was a time when all I knew was Larosa’s, but now that my eyes have been opened to actual Italian food, I find it not worth my time. Why am I even writing this review? j/​k.
Our server Daniel was a very attentive and nice fellow. I hope you encounter him if you dine here.

LaRosa’s is hit or miss… One day you get a good pie the next its over or under done. Im a big critic since I’m a big fan of New York style pizza and pizza in general, this is far from the best in Cincy but I don’t think most of this city knows good pizza so it works for them.

How have I never written a review for the Boudinot Larosa’s!!! My service here has always been very good. With minor exceptions their flagship store service is good. I am actually not a fan of their pizza sauce BUT I do like their white sauce pizza’s and LOVE their home made rootbeer! The price is somewhat high but I like the fact that Larosa’s is one of the only places to deliver pretty much anywhere in the city never saying that «it’s too dangerous». I support this Cincinnati staple.
Free pizza with 11K’s for Red’s home games!!! (I’ve had LOTS of free pizza).

Aww man, I didn’t want to have to do this review. I am changing from 5 to 2 stars solely because of the horrible service that I received on 4, yes FOUR visits.
The service here really is on a new level of horrible. While I have many nostalgic reasons for loving the food, and I appreciate the attention to dietary concerns with their gluten free crust, I simply CANNOT eat inside the restaurant here.
1) This place has the absolute worst staffing that I have ever seen. At peak times, on numerous occasions the food has taken close to 40 minutes to arrive, and you can easily go 20+ minutes without even seeing your waiter (/​ess). Not acceptable.
2) The servers are usually nice, but mostly inept. This again could be staffing, but forgetting to bring items, bringing appetizers with the food instead of when they are ready and conducting meal-​long disappearing acts are frustrating and unprofessional.
Again, LaRosa’s does have, in my opinion, the best gluten free pizza at the best price point. However, I will never, ever step foot in the dining room here again. Despite the fact that I have come to this location since birth, the service has truly gone too far downhill to justify patronizing this place anymore.

Oh LaRosa’s, yet another Cincinnati institution that I ‘get’, but frequently question.
When I was growing up and would come to Cincinnati to visit family (my parents grew up here) this was always on my mom’s list of places to go. It’s pizza, calzone, hoagy’s, and more. She used to be so homesick for the sauce that when this Boudinot location had a general store in the back still, we’d buy a huge container, ship it back, and freeze it.
Given my history, I’d think I might have a little more fondness for the sauce, the place, the history. Somehow between these ritual visits and moving here (oh yeah… the SO works here on a severly part time basis) the magic has worn off. I still like LaRosa’s and their steak hoagy with provalone, pizza sauce, tomato, and jalapeño was something I discovered and DO crave, but there is just enough mediocrity in the place that I’m not overly impressed with my experience very often. Service is spotty and though I’ve had some great experiences, I’ve also had some disastrous ones (forgotten orders, cold food, no apologies, etc.).
To be fair, I think having someone ‘on the inside’ of this business has partially tainted my view of this as a dining establishment. The corporate structure, management, and staffing seems at times a bit challenged; they employ a lot of teens (and I hardly feel that makes them qualified to manage, though maybe that’s the industry?). I think more than anything, there is a bit of a chain feel to LaRosa’s that I only expect from national, impersonal Applebees, TGIF, etc that somehow has infiltrated what I recall of a LaRosa’s experience growing up.
The business is third generation now (I believe) and the food is decent (most of the time) but in an atmosphere of truly local places to eat, fresh options, healthy venues, I have a hard time choosing LaRosa’s more than ‘once in a while’.
The Boudinot location, as the flagship location, is a tad more special (and larger) than some of the other stores, but it has come to have a homogenous, generic feel to it as well.
Maybe someday I’ll move away (and by that I mean WHEN I move away) and a visit to LaRosa’s will again become special. In the meantime, I’m a bit disillusioned by what they have to offer even though that steak hoagy really hits the spot sometimes.
Keep on keeping on Cincinnati institutions… I wish you the best.

I’m trying to figure it out. For me, the most hit-​and-​miss place I visit. And it is only pizza. How tough is that? No matter what their formula for sauce is, or their bake time in the oven, or their pour time for a beverage, why o why can’t this place be far more consistent?
Sometimes this place is decent — good enough for beer and pizza. Like some others have written, the taste is modest and the prices are in the middle of the ballpark. Not good enough to get an extra star.
Sometimes, including the last time, this place has terrible service. In the huge gap in time from seating to drink ordering I could have died of dehydration. When my drink arrived it was bone dry by the time a chance to order a refill was given. Then I’m guessing it took 40 minutes for the pizza to show up, at least. I was starving and, unfortunately, this pizza isn’t top shelf pizza for my taste buds. It wasn’t worth the wait, but it was all I had.
Wait wait wait. Finally my check came and it was time to go. I’m not too sure why, but I paid in cash. I guess I’m glad I did. This was one of those, «Bring me my change and then I’ll figure out the tip situations.» She didn’t bring back the little black thingy that the check usually comes in.
So you may ask, «How much was the change I was supposed to get back?»
Answer, «Thirty cents.» Yup, she claimed her own tip.

I’m a fan of LaRosa’s in any location, but this one will always be my favorite. This was the first LaRosa’s, and although it’s been remodeled, it still has a charm that the others are missing.
Maybe it’s because I have so many fond memories of this location. Back when I was a kid, LaRosa’s was a «fancy» restaurant, unlike the chain it is now. It was white tablecloths, candles, wine bottles on the wall. I remember this one used to have a mural of Italy painted in the waiting area. It also used to have a full bakery. I miss all those things about it, but LaRosa’s has just morphed into something different now.
The food here is the same food you will get at any LaRosa’s location, and there isn’t really anything stand out about it now that all the fancy is gone, but I’d still recommend going if you’re in the area and care about LaRosa’s history at all.