Leucadia Pizzeria Italian Restaurant

Review #76

I don’t think it’s possible to live in San Diego and not know about Leucadia Pizza.  They send coupons out in all the local mailers, support numerous local community events and have drivers everywhere at all times.  In fact, I bet these delivery cars are just driving around town doing marketing as much as they are delivering pies.

A few small wonky details set us on our “off night”.  Their website under “About Us” says they have three locations, but under “Locations” it lists six.  None, ironically, are located in Leucadia.  When I called ahead of time to make a reservation for 13, I was asked if I wanted to sit inside or outside.  I have been there before.  There is no outside seating.  Weird.  We all arrived promptly at 6:00 and had a long table set up for us.  They brought out garlic bread right away.  Nice touch!

Unfortunately, the bread was drowning in butter and very sweet.  I didn’t care for it at all, but our group gobbled it up.  We were all hungry.

Bottomless Pit noticed that not all menus were the same.  Some had menu items listed on them that others didn’t.  Kind of weird to not have uniform menus, right?  We put in our order for drinks, some salads, a few pastas and some pizzas.

Our water and beers arrived promptly and as the sun was starting to set, we enjoyed this spacious, comfortable restaurant with beautiful ocean and sunset views.

After a while some of the food arrived.  Oldest and Girlfriend ordered the Santa Fe Chicken Pasta.  I took a bite and almost burned off my tongue. Spicy! Luckily those two didn’t have a problem with it.  I was surprised to taste something that hot without being advertised as spicy on the menu.  I would  have sent it back.

We ordered a full Greek Style Salad for the table to have with our pizzas.  The salad arrived, but no pizzas.  Here is the description of the Greek Salad:

Greek Style Salad

$8.49/Half

$13.19/Full

Mixed greens with sweet bell peppers, Greek olives, feta cheese, pepperoncinis, and sun-dried tomatoes. Served with a lemon-herb dressing

But what we got was a spinach salad, NO mixed greens and No feta.  This is nothing like a Greek salad.  And is this seriously a “full” size?  Wow.

We happened to have a very distinguished food critic with us tonight with the most discerning palate.  Luckily the Mac-N-Cheese passed Lily’s scrutiny.

Dee ordered the salmon which is a nice choice if you are dairy-free or just don’t want pizza for some reason.  Which I can’t imagine.  She said it was very good.

So you might think that our pizzas were coming soon, but oh, you would be wrong.  As everyone finished their entrees and we ate our Not-At-All-Greek-Salad, our waitress came to clear plates.

“Anything else I can get you guys?” she asked as if we were finished.

“Just waiting on those three large pizzas” I reminded her.

“Yep, just clearing out some space for them.” But it sure did seem strange that half our group who ordered entrees were finished, and our salad that I thought we would have with the pizzas was gone too.  This would have been a good time for her to actually check on those pizzas, no?

Now it was 7:15, we had been here since 6:00.  Hubby got up to go and ask where our pizzas were.  It wasn’t that crowded, and no other wait staff had been over to check on us for a very long time.  Hubby came back red in the face.

“Well, there’s no good news and the bad news is that no one ever put in our pizza order.  Do we want to leave or wait?”

We were all really hungry and didn’t see the point in going somewhere else now so we had them start our pizzas.  But half our group couldn’t wait.  They were mostly the ones who ordered pastas and salad so they paid for these and left.  I sent my boys with Girlfriend home in an Uber.

“At least the dinner will be comped” someone said bitterly.

The manager came over to our table overflowing with apologies and excuses.

“I would like to offer you half off of your meal tonight to make up for your wait.  Is there anything else I can do for you?” She asked apologetically.

“Actually there is.  You can also comp the other half.” said Rich.

“We’ve been waiting for our dinner for almost two hours and half of our group left hungry.” I said less friendly than Rich.  The manager looked at our now half empty table.

“I see.  Let me comp your entire dinner except for the beers.  I can’t comp alcohol by law.” We accepted.

We waited hungrily but we had our beers and were all happy to be in good company.  And our time wasn’t wasted because I learned something very important that I never knew before.  Did you know that squeezing your sphincter muscles can calm you down?  I know, how did the conversation just go there, right?  I mean, I can’t even remember ever having a conversation about my sphincter.  And at the dinner table?  I will admit that this is an area that gets very little mental or verbal attention.  Here’s how it went down:

I was asked how my flights were to and from my recent trip to New Zealand.  I commented on how much turbulence there was.  Dee, a very knowledgeable yoga instructor, explained that clenching one’s sphincter helps combat the feeling of falling when there is turbulence.  Who knew?  Then Minnie piped in that awhile back when she was having episodes of heart palpitations, her doctor recommended sphincter clenching as well!  Dee said that every part of our body needs to be acknowledged and loved.  So although kegeling may be for women only, sphincter clenching is for everyone.  Admit it, you’re doing it right now!

I glanced over to the men’s side of the table and was fairly certain that they were not talking about sphincter clenching.  I was glad the boys and Girlfriend weren’t here for this conversation.  They would have been mortified.

It still took 35 minutes to get our pizzas, but when they arrived, they were piping hot and delicious!

BBQ Chicken

The Delux

The Vegetarian

My only complaint on the pizza is that the crust is really sweet.  The BBQ Chicken Pizza had very sweet BBQ sauce, and the sweet on sweet wasn’t for me.  But everything else about the pizzas were terrific.  They were cheesy and loaded with fresh toppings.

Bottom Line:

Leucadia Pizza does 60% of their business through delivery and this is where they shine.  They knock it out of the park by having tons of drivers and valuable coupons which makes pizza delivery quick and affordable.  I don’t love the sweet crust, but that’s a taste preference.  Most people I know really love their pizzas.  And they deliver right to Moonlight Beach!  We have had exchange students from both Spain and Israel, and they were blown away to have pizza delivered to the sand.  It’s cool.

I’ve said it before, and I will say it again.  It’s not about having the perfect meal or perfect service.  It’s about how you handle things when something is “off”.  Even though someone forgot to put in our pizza orders, had the wait staff done a better job checking on our large group, it could have been caught faster.  But “Thank You” to the new manager (only been there one month) who felt terrible about our experience and ultimately did the right thing by comping our pizzas.

But my God Man!  Pull yourself together Leucadia Pizzeria!  You have been a pillar in the community for over 40 years, now act like it!  Update your website.  Have menu conformity.  Greekify your Greek Salad.  Train your staff.  Breath.  Clench!

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