Captains Galley Pizza & Pipes

PIZZA AND PIPES IS CLOSED FOR THE FORESEEABLE FUTURE due to downtown Redwood City construction.
It will re-​open when downtown Redwood City’s major construction projects subside, hopefully sometime in 2014.

I think it’s under new ownership. In any case the pizza here is really good the pieces are huge and the salads are really big and fresh. We held a little birthday party there and the staff was super helpful and everyone really enjoyed the pizza. Kinda bummed the pipes aren’t there anymore, but people should definitely give this place a try!

I’ve been going here since I was a little kid at summer camps and I’ve always loved it. Came back for the first time in years with my boyfriend and we got a pizza– half hawaiian and half hawaiian plus jalapenos and tomatoes. It was SO good! Didn’t seem like it took too long to make either. Great for birthday parties or any large group.

Great pizza, even better pastas. Try the chicken parmesan.
The place is huge, and so is interesting. Lots of TV to watch. The manager is very friendly, so you won’t be short on someone to talk to.
Location is nice, close to the Redwood City CalTrain station.
What more could you want? Good pizza, beer, arcade games, sports on TV, friendly staff, clean place. Crowds fill in toward evening.
The 1-​star people are stupid. Come at me 1-​star people. Give this place a shot.

Great space for a large group to hang out watch sports (there are at least 4~5 tvs?) or play arcade, air hockey (love the air hockey table)…etc. Pizzas are huge and solid with good price. The crust can be improved on. Overall the place was surprisingly decent.

Don’t believe the negative hype and nostalgia. Here are several great things about Pizza & Pipes and More.
(1) Draft beer in pitchers, including Shock Top and Sierra Nevada
(2) Air hockey and pool tables in great condition
(3) Old School video games (Ms Pac-​Man, Cuisin’ 2049, and several others)
(4) Hot water, soap, and paper towels in the restrooms (which are very clean)
(5) Several big screen TVs all showing different sporting events
And of course — decent pizza with lots of gourmet options. We had a vegetarian called the «Sunrise Special» with artichokes and sun-​dried tomatoes, as well as a meat pizza aptly named «The Heart Stopper».
If you like clean, spacious, and unpretentious dining options — you need to try Pizza & Pipes at least once in your life. You will be a convert.

Don’t let all the nostalgic people get you down. This place may not be what they remember growing up as a kid, but this place has a lot of promise. It’s generally lacking large crowds these days, but as far as I can tell, that’s mostly because of the negative reviews here on Unilocal from people who remember it from a previous time. It’s certainly not because of the food.
I was there for a meetup event. For those of you planning meetups, it’s a fantastic venue. Large space and good food. It’s also right next to the Caltrain station which made it super convenient for me coming from San Francisco.

Serving very decent pizza; most of the stars are for the food quality. I highly recommend the chicken and onion pizza.
Service was fine. However, the restaurant does not give the impression that it is particularly used to traffic. Theoretically, they’re serving ~6 beers; in practice, they’re out of half that. I came with a large group (~15 people), but I got the impression that this was uncommon; there were only a couple other people in the place.

I loved Pizza & Pipes as a kid. I was happy to see there was one location left near me in SF. Too bad I never actually got to eat their pizza.
We walked in and the place was trashed. Yes, there was the festival happening right outside but you could tell there was something else going on here. After ordering and cleaning our own table, I had to go change my son. What restaurant has no changing table in the women’s restroom? Luckily there as a bench or else I would have had to stripped him down at the table.
I watched the other customers and realized pretty quickly no one was eating. Then I looked around and saw only two employees. I quickly followed the other patrons to get a refund. Poor young girl at the register… apparently the owner was a no show and they were running out of food. We told her to close and go enjoy the festival! Absolutely no point continuing to take orders.

Just went here to watch the NFC Championship Niners Giants game. We heard that the place was under new ownership and they put in a bunch of new big flat screens. Well, there are a ton of big screens, and that’s about the only positive thing I have to say about the place, sadly.
They have no heat, so everyone was freezing. Hoods up, scarves on, and I even saw some people wearing snuggies. The bathrooms don’t have signs for girls or guys, so most people went in the wrong one and embarassingly walked out into the correct one. The change machine was broken and the cashier said she had no change, so we couldn’t play any games. Not that we’d want to play pool because the table had new stains on it, like the roof was leaking on it (at least we hoped it was water). The menus are priced wrong and the food was not that great.
All in all, I don’t think I’ll be back anytime soon. It’s almost like they bought the new TV’s and they gave up trying.

Sad, Sad, Sad. Used to come here when visiting family. That was the early-​mid 70’s and this place was great. Soo many funny stories. I liked asking for the theme to Rollerball. The long low note made your pitcher of soda sloosh around and move.
I marked «quiet» on the sound level question because the place had no customers in it. Can I mark (-) stars?

I walked in to take a peek based on all these reviews while i was in downtown Redwood City… basically the pizza cook and the only waiter/​cashier were playing the motorcycle arcade game and 90% of the restaurant had the lights off (to save power).
Suffice to say, I’m not brave enough to eat here.
I miss the Pizza & Pipes experience of the 80s as a kid. There was just something about arcade games, cheezy organ music, and pizza that was a good combo.
R.I.P

Disappointing. Not like what we remembered from childhood. How does this place stay in business? We walked in and walked right out.

A few of us went here before going to see Hot Tub Time Machine at the Century 20. It couldn’t have been a more fitting first chapter to the evening.
Pipes is in a cavernous, deserted building that presumably bears little resemblance to its heyday.
To be fair, the extra large supreme pizza we order was quite tasty and the beer was fine. The chicken wings were awful – soggy and tasteless.
We had the place to ourselves before two homeless guys came in and started wandering around. I decided to take my tip to the register rather than leaving it exposed on the table.
Oh, by the way, this was Friday night. Not really sure how they generate revenue. Perhaps parents host parties for their children here or something.

We went here looking for foosball, as it’s listed on the Foosball Pro website, and found the place where sadness took a shit on loneliness. This place was not only empty, but the barkeep didn’t speak english, and everytime we asked if they had foosball, making the familiar foosball shot gesture with our hands, she would only say «ok», and ask us if we wanted beer.
Even the allure of the drinkability of Bud Light could not keep us here. Sad.

Walking into this place is like walking through the cancer ward at a children’s hospital.
It’s depressing and leaves you wondering how God could let such a bad thing happen to mankind.

This place is mere remnant of its heyday in the 80s. Let me rephrase, it’s more like a chewed up moldy splinter of its heyday.
Seriously, going into this place almost made me cry. Back in the 80s I came here a couple of times and the atmosphere was a lively place with lots of activity and enthusiastic wait staff. Back then, the pizza was good, video games were abundant and fun, and there really WAS a genuine pipe organ, and an organ player who would take requests and play things for tips… sometimes accompanied by a percussionist.
No more, though. I remember going back here in the 90s, once, just to see if the place still packed the same punch. At the time, the organ was still there but behind a velvet rope, looking rather non-​functional, and it turned out was only played for private party reservations, and the atmosphere was considerably more subdued (keep in mind this was prime dinner period on a Saturday), and it looked more like a quick fast food place than a hoppin’ party joint.
Now…I honestly don’t see how the place stays open any more. Walking in nowadays is like walking into a graveyard. There is no organ, no brightness, the video games are mostly dark and silent, the menus are dingy, and the few staff on duty are not very friendly at all. I did check their menu and found their prices less than appealing, rather pricey for such a dank place. In the end, I decided not to even try their food and just leave, as remaining in the place long enough for me to eat would just have made me more depressed, even if the pizza tasted the same as I remember 20 years ago… which I doubt it would have.
Ah, the good old days… at least I’ll always have the memories. But there are plenty of better places to go for pizza or another quick meal.

Picture it Sicily, 1947… OK, picture it Redwood City 2008 around 6 p.m. and we walk into the Pizza and Pipes and there is one guy playing pool and nobody else in the place and the MLS soccer game was on the old big screen.
My husband and I waited a little bit and then someone came out and gave us a menu and we ordered our pizza (classic combination) and asked for no salami on it. We ordered two sodas and when we got them they were extremely flat so we asked if we could order two beers instead. They were out of Bud Light and Tecate so we got a couple Heineken’s, and the beer was just a little bit better then the flat soda. As we waited for our pizza we discussed how this must be a place where people bring their kids after soccer games and little league type games for parties and we both decided that it’s never a good place to go eat if it’s where they bring a bunch of kids for a party after a sporting event (with the exception of Happy Joe’s Pizza-​a midwest thing).
Our pizza came out and it had salami on it which we weren’t thrilled about but we ate it anyways. The pizza was ok but the atmosphere was craptastic.
When we walked in there was one customer and while we were there his friend came in so there were a total of four customers, including my husband and I in this place from like 6 p.m.-7 p.m. on a Thursday night, not a good sign. The arcade games were all shut off except for one or two of the games. I mean come on if you have a Miss Pac Man game and don’t have it on what type of person are you? Yes Miss Pac Man is not as good as Pac Man but still a decent arcade game from the glorious 80’s.
The soda was warm and flat, the beer was alright and the pizza was ok. The guy manning the counter (when he was up front which wasn’t often) was friendly and gave us a deal on our pizza and kindly switched our drinks for us when we asked (except he didn’t give us our soda free he just charged us $ 4 for a Heineken and gave us one free Heineken. Overall the pizza was overpriced but OK but I won’t be returning to this place.
If you need to take a group of hungry kids after a game for pizza this is the place to take them. If you are just going out for some pizza go someplace else. Even if you think you will stop by before the movie don’t do it just go to New York Pizza or whatever the name of that place is near the movie theater.

Word about the sex analogy, Mike O. I could be even harsher and list all the festering details she would have, but I think that’s enough said already!
I have fond memories of coming here as an eating out with my parents (history lesson: eating out used to be a lot less common). We’d find newspaper/​ad coupons, cut them out, maybe come here after grade school and get a pizza. The pipes were a classic addition, and that unique atmosphere made an impression that I still remember today. So I swung by Pizza & Pipes.
When I went in there, I almost thought the restaurant had closed. Or maybe all the workers were on break. Or turned into ghosts. There were 0 patrons and 0 waiters around. Spooky. I checked out the dirty menus for a while. Sixteen dollars for a small pizza? Ok. Finally someone lumbers out, but was pretty rude when I tried to talk to her. They also didn’t have takeout menus, probably because they ran out since this place is so popular.
O Pizza and Pipes of yore, wherefore art thou?

I’m not sure why it’s called pizza and PIPES, since there is no organ music, at least not anymore. Basically, it’s a barn with a big screen TV, arcade (for the kids), and a bar (for the kids with fake ids). I love this place.
I go there with a few friends, grab an XL pizza and a pitcher and sit back and enjoy some Mexican soccer. It’s close to downtown Redwood City, so you can get food before a movie or concert.
I love the pizza, the service is waiting whenever you want something, and the prices are average.