Sahara Pizza

Excellent pizza! I was just looking at some of the earlier reviews and it’s strange. It is true that this is definitely not a eat in sort of place but more of a take or delivery. I do believe that it is under relatively new ownership and being a family owned franchise I’ve heard thru the grapevine that they’ve been dealing with some serious medical issues which may explain some of the strange open/​close hours of late. Also, they are changing locations and hopefully this will make the facility a bit more family friendly and provide more interior seating. I’ve only had delivery since I moved here a year ago but have been extremely pleased with the quality and the service. If you had a bad experience, don’t write them off yet, give’em another try you might be pleasantly surprised.

Awesome pizza we had here very kind service we had the large and my husband almost ate the whole pizza with out sharing we had the pizza with all the different meats on it so loved it we will be back also liked we were able to catch the end of the football game

I’m local and pregnant, and I really wanted some garlic twists… It is 3:30pm on a damn Saturday! And my boyfriend called to order me some they answer just to say they are closed!!! Why are you closed at 3:30 on a Saturday??? And why would you be there just to say your closed. Not cool. Very unhappy pregnant lady. They have done this number out times throughout the years. If you have set hours stick to them!

I’m sticking up for Sahara’s in Cle Elum they do one hell of a business most of their pizzas or take out for delivery so if it takes 40 minutes for you to get your pizza, then I suggest buy one at Safeway and take it home and took it. Can you come to Cle Elum, you’re not in Bellevue anymore.
I have bought and pizza Sahara’s since they were opened 5 years ago and I’ve gotten bad pizza. By the way i buy one large ultimate and one small cheese every week. Sorry about your gluten allergies that can be a bummer
This isnt Pizza Hut Papa Johns or dominos it is family run and owned

Great crust, great sauce and great service made for a great experience at Sahara. Plus the value was totally there!

So much fun. We were early and the staff made my grandkids, Brayden and Domineaux feel so special. The food was amazing. The service was great! :)

I hesitate to leave a poor review because it can in fact have a very detrimental effect on a business. However, there are times that warrant a fair, honest review.
We went to Sahara on a Tuesday evening around 1830. Party of about 10 for dining in. Advertised as family friendly and pizza is generally fast, so we chose Sahara. Dining out with kids can certainly be a challenge. After driving most of the day, we were hungry.
Arrived and cleaned off our own table to sit. Not a big deal, but I figured it would at least be noticed and would result in menus to the table. Something — any acknowledgment that a large party had just walked in, primed to spend money on a mid week night.
5 minutes go by, nothing. 10 minutes go by, another party comes in and orders at counter. Turns out that they don’t have table service — would have been a real inconvenience for them to let us know.
We get the pizzas ordered. On a comparative basis, somewhat expensive. However, the hope was that the turnaround would be fast and pizza good. After running the credit card, we inquired as to how long it’d be — and found out it was 40 minutes.
Super! Just super!
Pizzas arrive in spurts. First 2, then next 2, then next 2, starting at about 20 minutes after order. Last pizza arrived — specifically gluten free with no cheese. Gluten free is a special order and people who require it get raped on price. Due to both the health ramifications of gluten exposure and allergy, as well as paying a proud for gluten free, these orders should not be mixed up ever.
Last pizza came out completely wrong and needed to made again — and this is 40 minutes in. 75% of party is already done eating at this point.
To their credit, Sahara gave us the mistake pizza for free and made the replacement quickly. The pizza is good enough for one star — thus this is a two star review.
Two other stars taken off because slow and bad service seems to be a recurring issue. If a huge portion of Sahara’s business is delivery, then do not have a dining room if you cannot service it.
If you are going to advertise yourself as family friendly, then be it. A broken jukebox, a video game, a pool table, slow service, and no wait staff is not family friendly,
Cle Elum is a small town and perhaps we just caught them at a bad time. We are pretty forgiving — however, this seems habitual for Sahara, so it is easy to feel somewhat snookered in how Sahara presents itself and the product it delivers.
I wish them the best and hope that they read this review objectively. We spent $ 160 or so on a very high margin item — pizza — so it’s not unreasonable, along the same «it’s a small town» reasoning, our business should have been valued, not non chalantly taken for granted.

It amazes me how super critical people can be. First off, Cle Elum is a small town. I don’t ever recall it being known for 5 star restaurants or anything extravagant. With that said, the restaurant does look like a hole in the wall but the pizza was good. My family didn’t come here looking for ambiance… We came here for decent food which we got. So if you’re snooty, this isn’t the place for you and you might want to stick to the big city for restaurants that are more to your standards. If you want good pizza, then at least give this place a shot before condemning it. Us? We ordered two large pizzas and they were good! We’d come here again.

This place is great. Came over to Cle Elum for our family Thanksgiving and brought everything except for something to eat the night before. Called them and they told us they closed 20 mins ago. (which we totally anticipated) but the awesome lady said they were just cleaning and that if we could come pick it up they would make us a pizza! thank you sweet workers for feeding our family!

If you’re passing through Cle Elum, skip this place.
My family and I have been ordering pizzas from Sahara for the past 3 years & I am proud to say we will NEVER be a customer here again.
We picked up three pizzas this evening, one being the Jungle Veggie, which should have a variety of veggies on it including artichoke hearts & zucchini, both of which weren’t on our pizza. My mom called in & talked with Mariah. Throughout the entire conversation she was severely argumentative & disrespectful — eventually cursing at my mom, telling her she doesn’t give a f**k.

Very slow. Ordered on a Tuesday night and Was told 45 minutes to delivery, took an hour and a half. Never again

AMAZING!
I love this place!
Always great service, and wonderful food. Been here multiple times and it is always 10 out of 10. Diana is a sweet lady and all of the staff are very friendly.
5 stars! Best pizza place in Kittitas County!!!
Make sure you try all of their chicken pesto dishes!

Got a Sahara Ultimate which was very good. Fast and friendly service. They also make some pastas to go. They don’t offer the full Sahara menu, so call and ask for pizzas they make.

Monday night, staying at Suncadia. I decided to venture off the property to eat, but it turns out most of the local restaurants are closed. Since I’m traveling with my kids (ages 10 & 6), I had to find someplace they’d like.
Nothing was open in Roslyn, so as we were driving through Cle Elum to find a McDonald’s, we found Sahara Pizza.
The place is as divey as it gets. Very dark on the inside. I wouldn’t say this is kid-​friendly, but it’ll do.
But the pizza was freshly made (I kind of didnt want to look back in the kitchen), and it was served to us, piping hot. My kids (ages 10 & 6) thought it was amazing. I was actually very impressed with the quality.
I know there are higher-​rated pizza places in this town, but this wasn’t bad.

Spend less money on the fancy box and more on the pizza crust! I called to make sure it was going to be thick since the last one we had was awful and they said it would be.
Well, it wasn’t. It was ridiculously thin. Again. And $ 23 for a medium canadian bacon. Are you kidding me?
Safeway is better and only $ 6. Never eating here again.

Planned to eat in Roslyn, but village pizza was closed on a Monday. This pizza was really good. We live in Philly and I definitely order from here if it was in our neighborhood. Very straightforward good pizza. Super super casual inside. Perfect for us because we have a toddler. I’d come back.

I have gone here in the past when it was different owners and it wasnt anything special. Greasy pizza and it took almost 30 mins for my pizza and bread sticks. But i had heard that someone else had taken over so i thought i would give it a shot. When my wife and i entered i noticed that they had done some nice remodeling. We ordered a large half pep, sausage, and black olive and half veggie for the wife. We talked with the new owner until the pizza came out, which was in less than half the time from the last time i was there. Right away i could tell the difference. Crust was crispy and light, not doughy. Cheese was melted and stringy when i bit in to it. My wife and i ate as much as we could and grabbed a box for the rest. Overall the pizza was great and the atmosphere was equally great. Will definitly be coming back.

My partner and I were stopping in Cle Elum for the night on our way to eastern WA, and after a lot of driving decided to try ordering delivery food for the evening. The woman working the hotel desk said Sahara Pizza was «the shit», so we figured it was worth a shot.
Calling these people was PAINFUL. The guy taking my order had no idea what was going on, and I was asked to repeat my order many times. Additionally, he was pretty rude and when I asked if I could sub one (same priced) chicken item for another laughed and said «no, they’re like… twice as expensive». Okay, whatever. Apparently, his idea of a good response to «what does the dijon chicken taste like» is «uh… like… dijon chicken».
That said, the woman who actually delivered the pizza, though obviously a bit frazzled, was over the top sweet. The pizza got there in a very reasonable time, and the most important part — it was delicious. We got the tiki pizza, dessert sticks, some wings and salad. The pizza was pretty great — tasted fresh and the chicken was nice and moist, not dried like a lot of pizza places. The dessert sticks were phenomenal — pizza dough twists baked in a butter sauce covered in vanilla icing. Even the wings were to die for.
Great food, semi crappy service. I’d order there again, perhaps not on a saturday night. I get the feeling these guys are one of the few (if not only) games in town for delivery food.

Has changed ownership several times. Greasy (I mean swimming in grease), low quality ingredients. I live in the area, and had taken my family there — two hours to get two pizzas. Terrible service, they cook everything one at a time, and if you are an in «restaurant» patron a simple order will take an hour. I’ve eaten there plenty of times and have finally sworn that I have had enough.
The food is bad, service incompetent and expen$ive. If you want a good pizza goto Nitro’s across the street.
Update: There have been two shifts, first new «owners». Then another round of «new owners». Meh… it’s mediocre. Only difference is now everything gets burned

I kind of like pulling into a strange town, middle of nowhere, that I have no idea what the town name means, or how it is even pronounced. Cle Elum is a non-​stoplight town (as the mayor proclaims in his ‘welcome’ section of the free newspaper) and was built as a logging town, later coal mining, and was a stop on the westward roll of the Northern Pacific Railway. The town was pretty much wiped out from a fire in 1918, which destroyed 29 square blocks of buildings. Only one building remains from that era.
I had just come through the Snoqualmie Pass, was making my way east on US Hwy 2, which I am navigating across the US in short spurts, and was tired and hungry. After cruising the entire strip of the town looking at the motel options, I turned around in the parking lot of «GIANT BURGERS SERVED ON FRENCH BREAD» (it wasn’t open, damn!), and settled on the Traveler’s Inn, a modest motel whose sign assured me they had «FREE WIFI». Funny how that’s changed over the years, the ‘come-​on’? I remember when those signs said «It’s COOOOOOOL inside,» or «Color TV». Now it’s wifi and breakfast. I have sure had some pitiful «continental breakfasts» on this trip. Perhaps the skimpiest was the Good Nite Inn, in Calabasas, CA. (Where guests also have to sign a pledge that they will BE QUIET at night!) GOOD NITE!
Checked in the Traveler’s Inn, with the help of Mr. Patel, who assured me that the ‘wifi was very good’. The room was very small but immaculate. The motel filled up as the night went on with contract workers for the Bonneville Power Association, I guess they were either clearing timber or maintaining lines. The were a rag-​tag looking crew.
Settled, connected to the internets, it was time to peruse my dinner options, I was really in the mood for a sit down, leisurely meal, but Cel Elum (local Indian word roughly meaning «swift water»), offered few choices beyond coffee shops.
I had spotted a few billboards for Sahara Pizza on this trip («The Hottest Place in Town»), which I learned later was a modest sized chain in the Pacific Northwest, and two locations in Boliva (???) (the country).
So when I spotted one in downtown Cle Elum, I figured I’d grab a pie, go back to my motel, and catch up with my online work.
The sign outside promised there was a pool table and games inside, but once inside, the greeter board said «excuse our dust, we are remodeling», and the seating area was pretty decimated, and gaming stored away somewhere. It may have also said under new ownership, or management, IIRC.
I ordered a medium, Pepp, Sausage, and Double Cheese, and a couple of cans of Diet Coke. There was a brief discussion about whether or not they could change a hundred dollar bill, and I asked where the nearest ATM was, just in case, and that was an enigma to the employees, they didn’t seem to be able to tell me that. (Turns out they did have change for a hundred, and there was an ATM directly across the street).
15 minutes later the pie was out, I was on my way back to the no-​tell motel, and digging into to the pie, which was a lot better than I could have hoped for. Some of their POP materials states that «they use the finest mozzarella money can buy», and I don’t know about that, but it was pretty good. Toppings were ample, crust was firm, sauce was a little sweet for my taste, but not to the point of my not liking it.
The famous «BurgerDogBoy how is it the next day after sitting out all nite» test was passed with flying colors.
Sahara is a good choice. If I rated this pizza on the
scale, it would get 6 out of 8 slices