Palermo’s of Hamilton

I am giving five stars for the bacon cheeseburger pizza that I get once a week. It is to die for. Crispy bacon makes the pizza.
I have also had their soups which are delicious and OMG for the garlic bread.
This is a food rating; I’m still thinking on my review for service & atmosphere. This is a neighborhood bar.
Seriously just try the bacon cheeseburger pizza; you will not be disappointed.

I like this place. The pizza is really good. Nice servers. Place is popular and the bar gets crowded. The hot seafood appetizer is delicious and the hot bread appetizer is very good and quite decadent for richness. Drinks are decent size, taste, and price wise. I usually get the house red or a martini.
Here’s the thing, last week I ordered calmari and what I got was NOT clamari. Not too long ago on Unilocal a reviewer stated some restaurants will try to pass off fried pork intestines as calmari. The telltale sign are lack of pieces with tenticles and pieces that are uniform and smooth. I got these huge, round, symetrical, tasteless pieces of. .something. .that smelled vaguely like pork with equally tasteless red sauce. The cost? $ 10. What a downer.
Shame on you. Zero stars for that sleight of hand. However, I have enjoyed this restaurant in the past and won’t be writing it off. There is no excuse for that. It’ll take a while for me to forgive that one.

For the first time ever I was disappointed in the pizza here. It came out like another reviewer described his bar pie. Crispy edges and outside, but soggy sloppy middle. No, I do not take pictures of everything I eat, but I do post mostly positive reviews. So what does that tell you? I just want this place to correct whatever is wrong because I have always loved the pie here and bring out-​of-​town visitors. I think something has changed and needs to be addressed. I also say the Apple Streussel Cheesecake was wonderful! The waitress was a long time coming back to our table and did ask if there was anything she could do, but by that time we were pretty much done eating pizza. It seemed like she was the only server doing the lunch service and she didn’t cook the pie.

Apparently, at one time all the Palermo’s in the area were under one ownership team. These days, they have gone their separate ways and share only the name. Having visited the Bordentown shop and been happy with their Tomato Pie, I wanted to try them all.
This Italian palace sits on the bottom of Klockner Road. It is a nice space, if dated, but it definitely harkens to another time when these places were full of locals; the men around the bar, and families in the dining rooms eating home cooked Roman meals. It certainly has its charm and could easily fit into Chambersburg, if Chambersburg was still Chambersburg.
I sat alone at the bar for a late lunch and ordered their Bar Tomato Pie with Sausage. I was entertained by an array of large HDTVs above the back bar and the outer walls. It was a rectangular bar with seating on 4 sides. I liked the lay out. When the Pie arrived it looked beautiful — steaming with bright red chunky crushed Tomato and a nice spread of crumbled Sweet Sausage. Rather than serving it on an aluminum pizza oven pan, it was presented on a large round white platter.
The outer crust was golden, cracker crisp and delicious. Yet, the center of the pie had condensation between it and the cooler plate. this caused dampening of the undercrust, and when I went to pick a slice up, the gravy, cheese and sausage slid off the base onto the plate, leaving just the white crust in my hand. It still tasted good, but it did detract from the overall enjoyment of the pie. I learned why most pizza shops serve their pies on the metal tray, to hold heat and reduce condensation.
I would certainly return to Palermo’s if I found myself in that neighborhood, but there are so many other very good to excellent pie emporiums in Hamilton that there is no need to settle for less that total wonderful excellence when only a tomato pie will still the savage beast.

Ordered food today and was over charged for sauce. When I called and asked about it the manager treated me like a child and talked to me in a demeaning way. I asked for the owner and it turned out the manager was his son. Poor management will ruin this place.

We come here regularly. They have a variety of good meals at fair prices, and make very good pizza. My personal recommendation is to skip the Brooklyn pie, which is not the greatest, honestly, and go for the Traditional — it is much better. Nice people running a good neighborhood restaurant and bar that deserves your business!
By the way, since you’re taking the time to read this, know that this restaurant is fine for your kids, but I checked NO on the good-​for-​kids question because I don’t want your brats screaming in my ear while I’m eating. (If your kids are well behaved then of course I would love to have your party at the next table LOL!)

Went 3 different times. Once at opening ard 11:30 & we heard a man cursing it was SOOO funny he deeply apologized & it was Marco the owner. He actually sat down & talked to us 20 minutes. I had chicky parm & my friend had a sampler plate. Delicious… another time I had fried seafood combi & mozz sticks… very good…& once again a girls night out apps & dinner… only one meal out of 5 was not up to par, but server corrected the situation. Did u ever notice that the ppl who give bad reviews NEVER post their picture… hmmm…whtz that tell u? We will certainly b back!

I don’t know how this place is still open. After a handful of times only for the convenience, we’ll never be back. The food is just only edible. Not much better than frozen TV dinners. Silverware was dirty. Plastic water glasses smelled of mildew. The staff doesn’t have a clue. Slow and unfriendly. If you walk by the kitchen, it smells of cigarette smoke. Hostess was so unprofessional, leaning over the counter with see thru pants. She was definitely getting negative attention. My friend just reminded me about another employee who was acting more like a stripper. Whoever does the hiring should be more picky. The bartender spent more time on his phone and talking to staff than serving drinks. We waited close to 20 minutes for 2 glasses of wine! He had a crappy attitude and claimed to be the manager. There was a female behind the bar doing shots with customers when the so called manager had his back turned or during one of his many disappearances. The owner is rudest man with a mouth that would make a sailor blush. If you try to talk to him, he’s like a typical belligerent drunk. Even most of the regular patrons left a bitter taste in our mouth. Loud, drunk and obnoxious! I wouldn’t recommend this place if one was starving and this was their only hope of survival. I get better service at the wawa up the street!

Buyer beware, be prepared for a bait and switch here. I will forever tell people to avoid this place!
Online menu plus menu at the restaurant shows items for a certain price but when you arrive it’ll be a different price. If I could rate this place for less than a star I would.
Order a pie and 30 wings. Was told 40 dollars over the phone, I thought that must be a mistake based on the other time I was there. When we arrived to pick up our food we questioned the price and was told that the wings had «gone up» from 30 wings for 15 dollars to magically 30 wings for just about 30 dollars; so double the price just in case any one was asleep there for that note…
We noted the fact that online the menu price stated lower, and we even opened a menu on site, one that was at the register stating the price of 30 wings for 15 dollars… Yet we were still told that because we accepted the price we were told over the phone that we must still buy the food! Worst customer service ever. I would never recommend anyone to go here!

While I won’t go into the details of how Palermos did not honor the conditions of my reservation, The restaurant actually called today to confirm our New Years Eve reservation. I will say that the manager was crude and rude when we came in.. He never, never should speak to a customer the way he did. I quote,“I can’t do anything about it. What do you want to do, beat me up? Go ahead, beat me up.” How incredibly rude! The food was tasteless. They ran out of glasses.

Needed a place for lunch after a morning at Grounds for Sculpture in Hamilton NJ. Palermo was a perfect fit. The three of us had a different Panini and each one was better than the next. Fried calamari started the meal. Each came with soup or salad. Mike was our waiter and he was great striking a balance between attentiveness and not in your face. I will definitely recommend Palermo’s.

Food is good. Atmosphere is fine. Staffs are horrible. Host was talking on the phone while we were waiting to be seated. After seated, had to wait 10 minutes for the server to come to my table. The server delivered a wrong dish to the table and does not even know what the dish supposed to look like. Had to grab another server to confirm the it was a wrong dish. Made me wait 15 more minutes for the correct dish to come out. No apology from management. I would rather go to Mama Rosa’s down the road. Maybe back when they get better staff.

I have not had the opportunity to dine in here but we have had plenty of pizza for take out. My family dines here often and they really enjoy it.
We always take out a few tomato pies, usually with either sausage or mushroom. It has always been a good pie, never inconsistent. The ingredients/​toppings are also always fresh. Good sausage!
I think this place is a fantastic addition to the neighborhood. I’m looking forward to dinning in and trying something off the menu, i’ll keep you posted!

Amazing fried chicken… amazing. I also loved the mussels and the desserts. I left soo full. It was very good. The drink specials were pretty good too! A great causal night out!

I love this place. I order catering for my job here every party we have and Marco takes care of us. The owner is such a friendly and amazing fellow. The staff here is top notch. I have never been in this place to eat, I always get delivery or catering but I have to say it is amazing!

Worst fried calamari ever. Breading consisted of a very light layer of flour, seemed like they came out of the freezer and not freshly breaded. Tasted old, like cardboard. Sauce on the side was some tomato sauce with red pepper flakes sprinkled on top.
Burger and panini not much better. I know it’s not meant to be fine dining, but Gordon Ramsay would lose his mind here.

This place is legit! Small neighborhood bar/​restaurant. To me, it is the hidden jewel of Hamilton.
The food is great, the price is right and the portions are simply amazingly HUGE!
I had the Trenton burger and it was hands down one of the best burgers I’ve ever had.
They had a band playing in the bar area, and those guys were rocking some good tunes.
I pledge to become a regular at this joint and so should you!

Really good pie, one of the better around here. Almost as good as Delo’s. I wish to location was better…

14oz burgers, old school tomato pie and a wide variety of sandwiches. The menu is larger than i thought and the bar was a good size but the beer selection was pedestrian. The menu includes Italian and Greek selections.
The dining area is small and on the Saturday we went for lunch it was booked for a party. This left only a few tables and the bar available. The service wasn’t horrible but it was slow.
I give the tomato pie a thumbs up along with the large burger. We did get a meatball parm that was made on stale bread. My relatives live down the street and have had the meatball parm before and it was pretty good so the stale bread isn’t the norm.