Bellacino's Pizza & Grinders

TLDR: Good submarine sandwiches, mediocre pizza; don't get the ice cream. MENU: Toasted submarine sandwiches (called grinders) along with pizza, classic sides like breadsticks and cheesy bread, salads, pastas, and lasagna. FOOD QUALITY: On the upside, Bellacino's is generous with toppings - you will get a good bang for your buck, no matter what you order. On the downside, overall quality is pretty low for some of the ingredients, IMO - especially meats, and the cheese that comes standard on pizza. If you do decide to get pizza, make sure to ask them to cut it in wedges; otherwise the default is squares, which means you wind up with a soggy bottom and an odd mix of sizes with an uneven distribution of crust and toppings. (I don't see any benefit to cutting a pizza in squares, but people do what they do - if you want to make a pizza "more shareable" just cut it into smaller wedges...) MENU FAVORITES: Skip the pizza and get a sandwich. (A whole grinder is 18", a half is 9", and a quarter is 4.5". A quarter is sufficient for one meal, for most folks.) The Club and the Italian are my go-to choices. MENU FAILS: The pizza here is mediocre at best. They don't have a thin crust option. The one-way-for-everyone crust is chewy to the point of being rubbery, and it tends to be a bit thick and stodgy on the bottom. I recently hosted a party of about twenty people and the ONLY reason I went with Bellacino's is because two of my friends don't eat gluten, and they have a gluten-free crust option - as far as I know, this is the only pizza shop in town that offers that courtesy. Otherwise, pretty much any other place has better pizza. Honestly, I'd rather have a thin crust Screaming Sicilian from Hy-Vee. The wings here are some of the worst I've ever had - to me, they looked like they were baked, and just barely cooked through, then slathered with bland, runny sauce. So far in life, the cinnamon sticks here are the worst dessert I have ever gotten at any restaurant - it amounts to bland, rubbery pizza crust covered with a powdered sugar icing. They have an ice cream bar inside the restaurant as well; the ice cream itself is fine, but they store the scoops in water so they cut through the ice cream more easily, and the result is that they slop water into the ice cream every time they dip, and you get little chips of ice in every bite. It's also expensive, for what it is. Don't get ice cream here. FRONT OF HOUSE SERVICE: I would say the delivery staff are some of the best you'll find anywhere. The three or four I have interacted with so far have been friendly, and they usually take a few seconds to share a joke or banter with me while they hand the food over. When they delivered the food for that party of twenty, I got the impression that the guy might have been a manager - he was very cordial and helpful, which I take as a sign that they strive to do the best they can for the customers. A+ from me. KITCHEN SERVICE: As far as I can tell, all the food preparation is automated, so there just isn't much to say about it. ATMOSPHERE: Typical fast-food joint; nothing to write home about. Clean and orderly. They have multiple screens playing sports, if you're into that. My main criticism is that the menu board is posted on a side wall, which you can't see until you're up to the register, so if there's a line and you aren't already familiar with the menu, you won't have a chance to decide what you want until you get to the front. On the few occasions I have dined in, the bathroom was very clean and well stocked.

Best gluten-free pizza! Greek salad was great also!