The Old North End

I am a native New Yorker. I am Italian and I approve this restaurant!The pizza reminds me of home and the employees and the owner are extremely nice!Only thing is they don't have a proper sign. It is way too small.

Even though they're practically within walking distance, we got another reminder last night as to why coming here once a year is about the limit for us. Not wanting to drive far, given the bad weather, we gave them another chance. This will likely be the last time for a long time.They're rarely busy when we come, and yet, service is always ridiculously slow and inattentive. We showed up right around 5:00. There were a few people at the bar, one table of two finishing up, and one large table of around eight just starting to fill in. That's it. Not greeted when we walk in, we walk to a table in the middle and basically seat ourselves at the same time someone comes over and gives us menus. 10-15 minutes later, we've figured out what we want and are past antsy since nobody has come by to even take our drink order. Getting somewhat miffed, I walk up to the counter and ask a question I already know the answer to..."I can't remember. Are we supposed to order here at the window or will somebody be coming by to take our order?". While not apologizing, the woman says someone will indeed come to our table.Soon after, a woman comes to take our entire order. Then we get our waters and drinks. My wife and I split the large Caesar salad, which is indeed huge, and we immediately remember we usually split the small one. This thing is gigantic. Even though it's not a typical Caesar, and it's a pain you have to mix in your own dressing, which is really thick and hard to mix, it may have been the highlight of the meal.The complimentary sliced bread is still cold, doesn't seem fresh, and is not particularly good. Note also I got the salad because there actually wasn't a 'soup of the day' by 5:00. "We haven't actually gotten around to making soup yet today.", I was told when trying to ask about the soup. For the record, I guess they made it soon after, as we saw someone later getting a takeout order that appeared to include soup. But I digress.Following the bread and salad, we wait and wait. I guess we should've expected to wait 30-45 mins for our food to come when we ordered and were asked if we had a showtime we were trying to get to at the theater next door. Thinking back on it, we probably should've lied and said we were. Or maybe they would've confided they couldn't actually get us food in much less than an hour. In all the time we were waiting, we only saw two pizzas come out of the kitchen. No idea what was going on back there, but it didn't seem like any food was being made.Our food eventually comes out, and to their credit, portions are big and it looks good. My wife always gets the four cheese lasagna, and it's big enough for two meals. I got the large Mediterranean pizza, also with the plan to take half home. My daughter builds her own pasta and adds meatballs to it.While the pizza has never been one of my favorites, this version seems more off than others I've had here in the past. It's not very Mediterranean...more just veggie with a lot of black olives and green peppers. The thin crust is more cracker consistency than usual. It's hard to hold without crumbling. My wife noted her lasagna was bland, having less flavor than usual, and my daughter said the same about her pasta.Once we got our food, service was somewhat better during the meal, but then slow again after while waiting for our check. Since nobody ever apologizes for the painfully slow service, I don't know if they try to have slow service on purpose, pitching this as a relaxing Italian dinner, but that's never how it comes across to us when we're there. 1:45 after walking in, we were quite happy to finally get the bill and leave. Leaving a restaurant with a frustrated, irritated feeling is never a good thing.Note to self...read this review before being in a big hurry to come back again anytime soon. If it helps others as well, even better. While not as close to our house, there are other Italian and pizza options in Castle Rock that are better.

I first want to say that I hope for the best for this place. The person who helped me was very nice. I got a good homey feeling being there.Unfortunately, the remainder of the experience just wasn't that great. The interior of the restaurant had a bunch of shelves or something stacked up against the bar. I guess they were in the process of redoing something but it didn't look good.My meatball sub was fairly tasteless, and ketchup was served in packets instead of a bottle or something more easy to dispense. There's nothing fun about tearing open six ketchup packets just to get enough to use on your French fries.Finally, I will echo another commenter's remark that the lack of signage is a real problem. I drove around and drove around trying to find this place until I finally realized that the only signage was on the door, there is no actual large sign up on the front wall of the place like there is with every other establishment in that strip center. And it didn't help that GPS didn't seem to want to guide me to where the restaurant actually was.I hope these guys are able to ramp up some business and get things up to snuff.

Always want to love this place and always realize that low expectations are best. When there's no one in the restaurant it has to be better. The young adults who work here are just meh. The host was great. He tried to problem solve but the young server was not great. Poor guy got chewed out for separating tables and finding seats for two parties. Once you sit down the wait never ends. Patience is number one requirement for this place. They are overwhelmed when the main portion of the restaurant is full. He finally loses patience and flags a server. She did make our experience better. Personable and friendly. I grabbed his beer for him as it sat there waiting to be delivered. Had to combine a mussels appetizer with a linguine self select dish. He had lasagna as usual. If portion size if what you're after this place has it. My linguine was fine. Mussels were good. We will come back as there's not much choice of good restaurants in Castle Rock. If you come, be prepared to wait.

This was a gem to find! We shared a Caesar and Pizza, with a glass of wine. We had small cannolis they made fresh with a very good cream (larger was also available). The pizza was very good (as so few are in this town). Caesar also tasted fresh and authentic. We will definitely be returning to try the pasta.

I ate dinner here last night. So glad I decided to eat here rather than go to an Italian restaurant in downtown Denver. Besides the short commute from home, I was pleasantly surprised with the quality of the food from this place, again!I ordered a house salad. It comes with their homemade house dressing. For my entree, I ordered the Chicken Parmigiana. It comes with homemade Fettuccini rather than your traditional spaghetti. I was very impressed with the quality of Fettuccini. Bring an appetite because their portions are very generous! You may be bringing leftovers home.I like that this place isn't stingy with portions. This was my first time dining in. Previous visits have been takeout. I love the modern contemporary jukebox in the corner of the bar area. My server, Eric, was pleasant and personable. Always a plus!I don't eat dessert at the restaurant. However, I purchased several homemade cookies to take home. They have a generous bakery case of assorted cookies, pastries and brownies (large or bite-size). They will provide you with a nice size container or bakery box. Don't pass up on the Hershey kiss cookies! Overall, very pleasant experience at the Old North End. Looking forward to my next visit!

Unfortunately, the experience wasn't the greatest. It wasn't very busy for a Friday night but it took probably an hour for our pizza to come out and had to ask multiple times for one of our beers to come out. The pizza was just "okay". The first half of the pizza is very floppy and soggy but the second half is pretty good since it's just more crispy. The staff was extremely nice but everything seemed to take an extended period of time to be brought out. We were also out on the patio and two chairs broke so I guess not the safest environment? Sadly to say we will not be coming back due to the wait time and just not being a fan of the pizza. It might be someone's favorite but not ours.

This place rocks !! Food is authentic Italian and if you are familiar with the old north end in Boston, you need to be here !! Definitely try the Calzone

I have given this place numerous tries and last night was the last. Probably the worst pizza pie I ever had in my life. The sad part is I like the owner but I see no trying into making things better. The pizza was thinner than a piece of paper and most of the bottom was black due to the lack of sweeping out the oven ( first hand knowledge as I used to work in a pizza store). I really pray that this wakes up the owner and he makes this a winning restaurant.

Great family dinner at The Old North End!We wanted a place close to our hotel for our first night in town and found it at The Old North End. Service was great and the food was excellent; the giant portion sizes would have allowed for another meal if we had room in our hotel fridge. The chicken Marsala was nice but I wanted more mushrooms (never enough in my opinion). The kids had vodka pasta and chicken Parmesan and they were happy campers. Thankful to have found this place and we'll be back soon!