Frankie C’s Pizzeria

Closed — Opened under new management as Cannizzaro

They’re gone!!! Their food was awful!

We’ve been to Frankie C’s in Wake Forest three times over the last few weeks and while it has potential, we’ve found the food to be hit or miss and wildly inconsistent.
We eat mostly vegetarian, so we were thrilled to see all of the veggie options on the menu! On our first visit, my wife got The Godfather and I got the eggplant parm with whole wheat pasta.
My wife’s sandwich was bland and greasy and the bun was soggy. The fries were forgettable. She ate about half the sandwich and less than half of the fries and tossed the rest.
My whole wheat pasta was flavorless, which is to be expected. Whole wheat pasta needs a great sauce to salvage the experience. Sadly, this was not that sauce. Their pasta sauce has large chunks of tomato. I prefer a smoother gravy, but that’s just a matter of preference – I can’t fault them for that. Unfortunately, the sauce was also terribly bland. It contained what appeared to be large slices of garlic, but there was no significant garlic flavor, and the texture was somewhere between pasty and lumpy. The eggplant was ok (typical breaded fried eggplant), but the sauce did it no favors. I’m usually a member of the «Clean Plate Club», but I had to give up after about four bites.
We decided to give them another chance and got some pizza a few weeks later. We ordered a regular pizza (basically Neapolitan, what most would consider NY-​Style) and a Sicilian. Being from the Binghamton/​Endicott area, I grew up on sheet pizza (Nirchi’s, etc…) and have found that outside of the area, a good Sicilian is the best approximation.
Boy, did they deliver! The Sicilian had a perfect crust – crisp on the bottom without charring, soft throughout, and a nice yeasty flavor. The sauce, while a bit chunky for my tastes, was tangy and a perfect complement to the generous layer of mozzarella. We ordered extra sauce, and they actually put a dollop of extra sauce on top of each slice, which I thought was a novel approach. The Neapolitan was near perfect as well – solid crust, great sauce, good amount of cheese, and generous toppings. My wife thought the Sicilian nearly rivaled Casalinga’s (the gold standard in this area), which is really saying something!
So yesterday I decided to surprise the wife with pizza from FC’s. I placed the order for a Sicilian and was told to give it a half hour to make sure it had time to cook. I got there about 35 minutes later, picked up the pizza, and by the time I got home (about 2 – 3 minutes later), the pizza was lukewarm. It had clearly been sitting there for quite some time before I picked it up. Worse, there was charring on the bottom, but portions of the dough just under the sauce were uncooked.
We had again ordered extra sauce, but there was no dollop of sauce on each slice. In fact, there were parts of the pizza where the sauce was so sparse you could see the dough. Which means that the cheese was also very sparse. You shouldn’t see much red at all on a Sicilian, which usually has a very generous blanket of mozzarella, but on this pizza, cheese only covered about two-​thirds of the pie, and the quantity of sauce was less than what I would expect from a «regular» serving, much less a request for extra sauce.
We had asked for tomato on one half and onion on the other. The tomato toppings were fine, but the onions were very sparse and very inconsistently cut – some pieces were narrow strings, other pieces were large chunks of onion (from closer to the plant’s core) clumped together. Onions are not pricey, so for an additional $ 2 a topping, I would expect to see at least twice the amount of onion that I got.
It was quite clear that whomever made our pizza last night was not the same person that made the pizzas we got a few weeks ago. In fact, it didn’t even look or taste like it came from the same restaurant. My wife had one piece last night and wouldn’t eat anymore. I asked if she wanted some leftovers today, and she declined, suggesting we toss it.
I’m very sad to say that we probably won’t be back, because I think the place has the potential to offer an outstanding product, but we’ve been there three times and have thrown out the majority of our orders twice. It’s just not worth the risk.

I was so excited to try Frankie C’s food this week once I saw that they opened in the old Over the Falls location. I read an article in the Wake Weekly of how they used to be in Youngsville and had a following so of course, had to try them out.
Hubs and I were super busy last night and didn’t have time to make dinner, nor time to go out, and he reminded me that the new Frankie C’s delivers! Woo hoo! My kind of place! If you are not from Wake Forest, you should know that we are V ERY LIMITED on who delivers, especially mid-​week so this is a treat! Frankie C’s will probably get tons of business for that factor alone. We got online and looked at their menu, which was pretty standard Italian. I ordered the white pizza, hubs a calzone. We called it in, and it arrived within 30 minutes of the call. Speedy!
The food was super yum! Ingredients tasted fresh and the 14inch white pizza was so big that I can have it for 3 – 4 meals. Awesome!
I look forward to meeting Frankie C’s in person when we go in to dine, and as I make my way around their menu to try all of their items. Until we meet again Frankie C’s, and welcome to Wake Forest!