Venice Pizza & Italian Eatery

CLOSED FOR GOOD. Sign in the window starts that this business is moving down the street to the former JAKE’s…

First time here… and the last! They sat us and we waited 15 minutes before anyone approached us. The soup she brought us was cold, had to ask her to nuke it. The entrée was awful! My husbands lasagna was one layer of horribleness! My entrée was chicken… I think there was chicken in there. maybe 4 – 5 chunks… there was no flavor. had to add A LOT of salt and pepper. Our waitress never came to check on us to see if everything was alright. Our meals came with dessert, he got the vanilla pudding. It was obviously from a can.awful.awful…awful!!! I don’t have one good thing to say about this place. Horrible food, horrible service… horrible all around. Would not recommend this place to anyone!

My mom and sisters went here before our Christmas Show in Pitman. My one sister asked for lemons and never got them. She asked the waitress again, and she was rude and said that she was having someone cut them. She never got her lemons. My mom, sister, and I asked for spaghetti and we ended up with linguini. My sister asked for extra sauce, never got it. No bread with meals. We were supposed to get 10% off and it wasn’t taken off, when we brought up the check to pay, we mentioned to the hostess, our waitress was up there. She said I gave it to you very nastily. My sister said I don’t see it on here. When the waitress added the bill up she noticed she didn’t give it to us. She never apologized. My mom and I have season tickets for the shows, needless to say they lost our business and we will not be going there again!

A mixed bag; I concur with those who say this place is convenient to the shows at the local theater, but not special in and of itself. We let the waitress know straight away that we were in town for the show, and we noticed a marked attempt to expedite the food of those who were in a hurry to attend. The «Showstoppers» special was a decent bargain, but all food was stingy on the meats. Salad was good, a nice variety of vegetable. The red sauce wasn’t great on the lasagna, but I did appreciate the cheesiness. Chicken venicio needed more sauce and chicken. Dessert choices were atrocious; they should have written the choices for dessert at the outset (pudding or ice cream. This isn’t a diner; it’s supposed to be Italian). Not bad, but needs work.

Not bad at all. We went in for a speedy lunch this week.
.I tried the Greek salad, it was fine but not really anything I would order again. Don’t order a salad here, it doesn’t seem like there is much thought put into it.
The turkey club was good though. I hate when places lump a ton of dry turkey in there and the rest of the sandwich is an after thought. There was balance in this sandwich.
The cole slaw was soupy and bad. Throw it out.
The fries were surprisingly good. Very good. Crispy crinkle cut fries with a soft warm center, nicely salted.

Good-​hearted little downtown eatery, a bit rough around the edges and more expensive than I thought it would be, but nice waitress (still getting used to serving sit-​down diners?) and I loved the food (penne and meat sauce). I got the feeling that the dining service is new, tacked onto the pizza place. Great location; enough street parking and the perfect pre-​show spot for the Broadway.
Thanks for being nice about re-​doing my entrée; suggestion: don’t put parmesan cheese on food without asking; some people hate it of whom I am one.

We sat in the «restaurant”-section of the establishment. Our waitress took our order and then disappeared for the next hour. Had to go to the counter twice for them to send someone over to refill our drinks. When our waitress finally returned at the end of our meal with the check she gave us some sob story of how someone skipped out on the check and she went down to the police station to file a report. Umm okay. So you leave the rest of your tables to do that? They probably just got tired of waiting for her to come by with the check.

Pizza sauce was way too sweet. I ordered thru GrubHub, who reached out after my comment. Venice didn’t offer anything, a replacement, credit towards next purchase. nothing, saying that they prepared the food how they usually do. I called myself a few hours later and spoke to a «manager» who admitted to me that the daytime manager had put too much sugar in the sauce, and that was the reason for the taste. She then offered me a replacement, for that night ONLY. My husband (who will eat anything!) had already ate everything except one slice so I declined and told her it was my first experience there and ultimately, my last.

I used to order from here all the time. I loved the broadway show-​stopper dinner meals and the pizza. However in the last year the business has taken a serious turn for the worse. First sign of trouble was when I had ordered the show-​stopper dinners. sausage and penne. I had ordered this many times before and been very peased with nice sized pieces of italian sausage and an elegantly flavored sauce with pasta. This time however I was given a large amount of pasta and what seemed like a scoop of some sausage crumbles. I called and the young lady was very apologetic, explaining that because of the food drive they had just done (which is wonderful and admirable but never at the expense of your regular customers), they were out of italian sausage and needed to substitute. I politely asked to be informed of a substitute next time and was offered a free meal.
I never took them up on the free meal since the next issue I had was with a delivery driver whom I felt was disrespectful. After my experience I called to comment to the owner and even recieved a personal visit which I felt was above and beyond. We decided to give them a break for a few months after that, but recently decided to go again. Once we ordered from grubhub and after an hour and a half our order of 2 pies were not ready for pickup, they said the grub hub orders dont always come through and next time we should call. Tonight we CALLED to order and the same thing. we waited an hour for pick up. .they knew we were there and said they weren’t ready but then we prompted them to check the two pies on top of the oven and they were ours. Who knows how long they were actually done. To top it off when we opened our pizzas they weren’t even cooked!!! It looked like roller skating rink pizza. I was livid when I called and they did get two more pies out for delivery right away but I am done with this place. The people seem very nice, unfortunately being nice is only a portion of running a sucessful restaurant. I wish them the best with the expansion but we will not be going back any time soon.

Best pasta sauce and meatballs I’ve ever had. Oh, and the Garlic bread? Wish they’d give me more because it was also the best I’ve had. Everything is HOMEMADE and it shows. Even something as simple as chicken soup is dynamite. I went here after moving to this town and was blown away, as was my wife. We go here every sunday and love the Italian music they pump through the building. The staff is SUPER NICE and the owner is a really cool guy. I live down the street and the owner once delivered the pizza I ordered. I thought that was neat.
I feel sorry for these guys though because it seems like a family business and they don’t seem to have much help. A real mom and pop sort of place. Their pasta dishes are so beautiful to look at I feel bad eating them.
Seriously though, order a side plate of just meatballs. They are so cheesy and soft. Love love LOVE them.

Food was good but service was sssslllloooowwww. I called ahead since there were ten of us. Told them we had a limited time. We were there 75 minutes and had to bring dessert with us since there was not enough time to eat it. Food was good, price was good, but took way way too long.

Not that exciting really, sauce out of a can. The pizza is tough as hell and not crispy. I don’t know whats worse the cliché italian music or the restaurant itself

Worst. Pizza. Ever. The crust was like cardboard with wet spots we THOUGHT were mushrooms. The sauce tasted like someone pee’d in jarred sauce and the cheese was abysmal. It had no idea cheese could taste like that. We have also ordered cheese steaks from there and they were awful. Even when specified to «make it gooey» with extra cheese, they were dry. Blech. Don’t go. Ignore the group on offer.

2 ½ stars? I took my little fam here the other night to try out their «Showstopper» special. It seemed like a good deal for $ 12.95: cup of soup, side salad, warm bread, an entrée plus dessert. All the entrees are pasta dishes of one sort or another though. Large portions, but nothing exceptional.
It’s a good deal if you happen to be in the area, but nothing worth going out of your way for. I’ve had better early-​bird meals at a good Jersey diner for less money. Not that the food was terrible, just not «showstopping». I really would have given this place 3 stars except for the fact that we were never offered our dessert. And it’s not very nice inside. Think pizza place with a glorified dining room tacked onto the side.
FYI: if you are using a Groupon (etc) the meal deal will cost you $ 15.95.

I took my two teenage daughters here for dinner. We shared pizza and pasta.
Atmosphere leaves a lot to be desired. The food was nothing special. Service was slow because «waitress is running late».
Would not return.

We stopped in to this local favorite for lunch and it was excellent. We ordered a lunch special, the personal-​sized panzarotti (FYI: lunch specials are great deals, they range from about 5 to 6 bucks and include a drink and chips). We were unfamiliar with this item, but it seems like a cousin of the cheese calzone, except it is fried, not baked. The panzarotti had a great cheese to sauce ratio (the sauce is very good, by the way) and the dough was light and not at all greasy. We also got slices of white pizza – garlicky, cheesy goodness, and the dough is great, crisp and chewy. We will go back again and again and again…
Note: evidently Pitman is a dry town, but you are welcome to bring your own.

While walking down Broadway, in Pitman, NJ, we found ourselves standing in front of this «small-​town Pizza restaurant» (in South Jersey — Who Knew? ;)). In looking at the menu in the window we saw a sign advertising «The Original Venice Show Stopper Dinner Menu… Choose from 16 different entrées – served every day from open to close. » Dinner includes a bowl of soup, house salad, entrée and dessert — with bread and dipping sauce — $ 11.99.
We love a bargain and decided to try it — and what a pleasant surprise. It’s a:
Pizza restaurant — both take out and eat-​in;
Hot and cold sandwiches — both take out and eat in, and
A full scale Italian Restaurant!
The Venice Show Stopper was caught our eye so we were seated in their dining room and beverages were ordered. Terry ordered the Chicken Scallopini — Chunks of chicken breast, mushrooms and green peppers tossed in our homemade (gravy) red sauce served over spaghetti, while I went with my favorite, Lasagna.
The bread basket was a mixture of garlic bread and the dense bread made from pizza dough served with a side of spiced olive oil. It was a great starter and gave us hope that everything would be on-​point. The soups were Chicken vegetable and Escarole — and they were delicious: Hot and perfectly seasoned. Salads were next and they were generous portions of crisp and fresh iceberg lettuce with tomato wedges and sliced green peppers; Salad dressing choices were abundant and served on the side.
The entrees arrived and the portions were HUGE! The Lasagna was chock full of meats and cheeses with a very abundant surrounding of delicious red sauce; just a bare hint of sweetness in the red sauce. Terry’s Chicken Scallopini was served over a mound of perfectly cooked pasta; the chicken pieces were perfectly sized and cooked to a T. The mushrooms and green peppers added exactly the flavors required to make an outstanding dish.
We ended up doggy bagging half of our entrees and bringing them home as we were looking forward to the included desserts. We were offered Vanilla ice cream, vanilla fudge ice cream or bread pudding. We both selected the ice cream and were served several scoops in a bowl. A perfect finish to an outstanding dinner.
With beverages and tax, the bill was just shy of $ 30.00 — but we have enough leftovers to make another meal for the week.
This restaurant is just across the street from The Broadway Theater and it will be our dinner spot before seeing a show.
This is the second great find we’ve made on Broadway, in Pittman, NJ. It’s definitely worth the trip!