Metro Espresso Pizza Cafe

I have loved this place. I usually enjoy their pizza very much, however the pizza I received last night was terrible. Soggy and wet are the best words to describe what I got when I opened my to go order. I of course will return, but will check my order before I leave the restaurant. Disappointed is an understatement.

Pizza is okay. Employees are very rude.
Apparently, they have increased late-​night prices. However, it doesn’t say that anywhere. I asked for a menu & the rude cashier said he didn’t have one (although I could SEE the menu right under the register). I understand having increased prices, but I don’t know if it’s legal to not have them posted anywhere.

Absolutely horrible experience! Was down on vacation to visit my mom and had just proposed to my girlfriend at the Magic game when everyone wanted pizza. We got there and no one was inside except one other table where the owner was sitting with friends. We ordered pizza and sat and sat and sat. After approx 30mins my fiancée asked about our pizza when we saw the kitchen help scrambling and apparently did something to the pizza. The owner went to the kitchen and got involved and then sent out our poor waiter as the victim, coming out with two partial pizzas they came up with from somewhere that were nothing shy of cardboard. I told the poor waiter, who was a very nice guy, this was completely unacceptable and weren’t paying for the cardboard pizza and wanted to talk to the owner. The owner finally came out after the waiter told him we were very upset and wanted him to come out. The owner came out and started by apologizing how they messed up the pizza. Excuse me I thought it was his restaurant, but apparently takes no blame for sitting there socializing while our food was ruined. I told him maybe if he was managing his business instead of sitting and socializing he would have realized over 30mins had passed since the pizza was put in the oven and wouldn’t have been burnt. After expressing my disgust at the whole situation he finally said there was no charge. If he had merely come out from the beginning and apologized for the mishap and offered the cardboard replacement at no charge instead of sending out the waiter as the sacrificial lamb I would have given 4 out of 5 stars but never came out until we demanded to talk to him. 5 stars to the waiter who was more than pleasant and professional.

Had my 2 pizzas not been delivered almost cold, I would have given 4 stars. The delivery guy got lost, yet my place is easy to find. Spaghetti marinara was OK.
I’ll give it another try, soon.

I work close by so I do frequent this place quite a bit. The staff is always friendly and I’ve never had a bad experience so it puzzles me to see quite a few reviews mentioning rude service…
As far as the food is concerned, it’s just your standard pizza joint. I’ve never had any of their pasta dishes, so I can’t attest to them but I’d figure they’d just be mediocre at best. The pizza is pretty good. Nothing life changing but it’s delicious and good. It’s pretty greasy but its not intolerable. I will say that their garlic knots are some of the best I’ve ever had…

HOLY STROMBOLI! The food is D-​licious. There were so many cute puppies sitting outside too. Also, there was a group of guys skateboarding outside and they were awesome. It was like free entertainment! Definitely eat here.

I hate writing negative reviews, so let’s start off with the positive attributes of Metro Espresso Pizza Café. First, the location is great. Not too far from Lake Eola, it’s a good spot to have a pizza place that’s within walking distance of many other businesses. Second, the staff there is very friendly and nice. Third, the outdoor patio seating looks nice.
And the outdoor patio seating would be nice provided this place had better food. It’s not that it’s bad. It’s not. It’s just that it’s mediocre at best. I had a Metro Stromboli and the flavor wasn’t quite there. A good stromboli should have a hint of garlic in the crust. This one did not. And the side of red sauce was just bland.
Here’s the second thing, it took almost 30 minutes to receive our food. If this were a busy Saturday night, and the restaurant was packed, I could excuse this. However, it was a weekday night and there was only two other people in the restaurant. I get that they probably also have delivery orders to cook, but still, this wait was kind of ridiculous when most pizza places can have those dishes ready to go in 15 minutes.
Maybe some other Unilocalers have had better experiences here than my friend and I did. I’d be willing to give them another shot as long as I didn’t have somewhere to be within the hour.

While my veganism and allergies make it seem like I wouldn’t be good at reviewing Italian places because I can’t have the more complicated cheesy dishes or any meat, I actually think it gives me an advantage because it’s how well you nail the basics (pasta, marinara, veggies) that is more telling of the dishes you offer.
That being said, I joked that I could have been at a Cici’s Pizza or have microwaves a frozen diet meal for how disappointing the (very watery) marinara was. And I would be willing to bet the broccoli in my dish was not fresh and heated in a microwave.
There were two things at play here– the taste and the wait. People will wait for good food, and conversely they won’t mind mediocre food as long as it’s fast. No one will bother with mediocre food that takes forever.
So even though there are a lot of pros (location, friendly service, not super expensive, delivery), I just can’t give more than 2 stars to waiting 20+ minutes for squishy, overlooked (over-​reheated?) pasta with tasteless marinara that coagulated on top of the pasta with a good amount of red water under it, and broccoli that was bendy and chewy like a toy I would give to my puppy.
Pretty disappointed. If we weren’t scared of waiting another 20 minutes I would have asked them to remake it, although who knows if it would have come out any differently.
I hope they get their act together with the basics and hopefully their pizzas are better.

Don’t lie to me about making your own dessert than tell me you actually don’t. When I decide I don’t want anything because you told me you just fill your cannolis and that’s considered making them don’t act rude. I understand you’re not happy about the fact I don’t cater to your lack of originality and great great Italian grandmas tiramisu recipe. But being rude on my way out won’t wake me come back another day. I live close by. I won’t be returning nor will I advise others to come visit. Rude staff that lies to you to try to make a sale. I prefer quality over quantity. Even if you had shitty food but great staff I’ll come back. Now I guess I won’t ever try their food let alone their Dixie cup tiramisu…

I ordered over the phone and they said ¹⁵⁄₂₀ min. I got there 15 min later and they forgot about my order.
I paid for it, not knowing that I was going to wait so long.
I ended up wanting my money back and they wouldn’t give it to me. Instead gave me a shitty pizza that had been in the oven for 5 min. The dough had not been cooked.
The owner proceeded to ask if I wanted a drink since I was waiting and I told him I wanted my money back. He didn’t give it back to me. So I paid for shitty service and shitty pizza.
I used to tell everyone to go there… NEVER AGAIN.
Super disappointed. I can’t even eat the pizza because the dough isn’t cooked.

The ridiculously bad baked Ziti along with a barely attentive service staff solidifies this as a downtown establishment I will never eat at again.
Unfortunately I live across the street and would have been pleased to have a solid pizza place close to home.

Excellent ambience and food quality. A lot options in pizza and pasta. We order the Pizza Bianca and was amazing! Really really good. I can’t remember the name of our server, but she was a little distracted talking with some friend or relative I don’t really know.

My husband I came here one night after participating in the Thorton Park Wine Walk event. We wanted to soak up all the wine with some food before heading home, but we had the dog with us. Luckily, thus restaurant had a cute outdoor patio that was pet friendly. We snagged a table and we were quickly attended to by the waitress. She was friendly and prompt.
I had assumed this was a strictly pizza and light snackage place. However, I was pleased to see a fairly large menu. I ended up getting a gyro platter that was very tasty. I really like greek food, so this was a fun discovery. The pita bread that came with my platter was actually two pieces of pita bread with melted cheese in between. I’ve never seen this before, but it was carby and cheesy and I liked it fine. My husband got a slice of pizza and a beer and he seemed pretty happy with everything.
Overall, this was a decent little restaurant with a nice patio and a decent selection of food. We will probably return.

Overall the pizza is average and makes for a good late night stop. I appreciate that they only pre-​make cheese pizzas and add all of the toppings fresh when you order, but this makes your order take longer than most of the other late-​night pizza places downtown. Pros: pizza is decent. Cons: the wait and the gentleman working the counter most nights has little to no customer service.

I retracted my prior review for this place because I think that particular visit things were just off. Since then I have ordered delivery several times and the food has been great. The metro meatsa is always awesome. We’ve also had the tour of Italy which is appropriately overly cheesy, creamy, greasy deliciousness. The meat sauce is pretty good. LOVE their garlic knots.

We came on a Saturday night. It was slow and perfect for good conversation and good homemade Italian near lake Eola. Unfortunately the calamari was greasy and chewy and calzone was decent at best. After the disappointing start, we got two slices of plain pizza. The crust was uncooked and doughy. Too bad. I good pizza from this place before. Don’t order pizza by the slice. I had better success at ordering entire pizza. No wonder the place was slow…

Food is hot and tasty. Servers are friendly. Space and bathroom are clean. I like it here will be back again.

Metro Espresso I feel has to be evaluated and appreciated in context of what it is: it’s a simple, small, Italian restaurant serving pizza and some other standard Italian dishes. It’s not fancy and I expect they get most of their business for the exact reason they got my friend and my business: they’re open late and have a great downtown location near Lake Eola. If you’re at Aku Aku or any of the many nearby bars and clubs, this is a good spot for some late-​night pizza.
I found the pizza to be pretty basic and simple but nothing at all to complain about. The service was prompt and polite and the outside patio is a nice place to sit at night as long as the weather is decent. Could the pizza be better? Yes, certainly, it could be, but it wasn’t bad, per se, either. I’ve not had their non-​pizza dishes so I cannot speak for them, however, the menu was at least fairly varied for a small café like this, so that should count for something (though sometimes too many menu items can also spell disaster – I’d be keen to hear the experiences of more people who ventured beyond pizza here).

I had not been to this place in quite a while but I had some friends over for a saturday afternoon of being lazy and watching movies. We ordered pizza from Metro, mainly based on proximity. We ordered a large pizza with a couple of toppings, one being meatball. It arrived quickly. My girlfriend used her card to pay for the pizza so she answered the door. The delivery guy convinced her to give him cash for a tip instead of adding it to the card receipt. I think this is a ploy so that he can go back and tell his co-​workers that we didn’t give him a tip because he is probably supposed to share it with them.
More importantly, the pizza had only 1 or 2 pieces of meatball on each slice. Another friend, who frequents Metro, called them to tell them about it. First, the person that answered the phone suggested that it was our fault because we didn’t examine the pizza before the delivery guy left. Their solution was that next we call, we should remind them of this so they can give us extra toppings. UGH.
I’ll be sticking with Paninos or Anthony’s (or digiorno) in the future.

This was my first time here a few weeks ago & I loved it. I ate lunch here. The menu offers a wide selection for almost everyone to enjoy. From pizza to pasta dishes, you will find something to enjoy.
The staff members were friendly, nice, & the place was quiet for lunch. I sat inside. I ordered a small pizza to share with my friend. There are outside tables available too.
The food came out fast, tasted great, & I had no problems here.
On a funny cool note, there was a poster for Hairspray the Musical advertised by a local theater in the window that had already occurred. As a huge Hairspray fan, I asked the waitress if I could take home the poster. She said yes. This made me very pleased.
I didn’t try any other food items from the menu, so I couldn’t give it 5 stars yet. My pizza was great though. Prices are very reasonable too.
I would definitely return in the near future & I highly recommend Metro Espresso Pizza Café.