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| - I first discovered Al's for lunchtime drop-in using my smartphone app, and was very happy with my pasta lunch! So the wife and I later decided to order pizza from here for a special event: a gaggle of kids and a group of adults. Although delivery was a tad long (thanks to Skip the Dishes--see below), the food was excellent: Kids ate up their pizza with gusto, and adults were happy too!
So next I took my whole family to the restaurant for dinner one evening. Food was just okay: My baked ravioli was watery/greasy and kind of bland, the wife's chicken rubbery. But my kids practically inhaled their chicken strips and pizza, so we left fairly satisfied. (The servers were friendly when they could be, but busy and slightly overwhelmed--maybe an extra employee would have helped? I dunno...)
Act three came with a delivery ... but they only included 3/5ths of my order! And wanted to give me a store credit when I pointed it out on the phone! But I wanted my chicken donair and pop. So they made a special delivery, which arrived quickly, even as my kids were still working on their dinner. So I got to eat my donair alongside my kids' eating their meal after all. This really made a difference. Anyone can make a mistake (and everyone does), but these folks owned their oversight and made an effort to make our experience a good one--and succeeded.
And the food ... it was very good this time. Pasta was good, salad was excellent. Even something as simple as cheese toast was gobbled up by our young ones. The donair didn't last long, it was so tasty!
So this truly is a neighborhood establishment that is invested in serving their local customers and community, and being fair and open to their clientele. They get my recommendation.
PS: Not a criticism of Al's: They use _Skip the Dishes_ to deliver, and I'd say this is their Achilles' heel: StD doesn't seem to me to be the most efficient way to get food delivered, and StD's web-based GPS tracking system is a physics-defying knee-slapping hoot sometimes.
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