Original Italian Cafe

Great pizza at awesome prices. Need to return and try a pasta dish. Very impressed. Ready for more.

If you’re a New Yorker, it’s the closest thing you can get to a real slice in downtown Dallas. It has a familiarity to it that will remind you of home. During lunch, you’ll walk in to chow line decorated with a layout of slices, each with no more than two toppings. Asking for a slice results in a cheese only triangle that demands to be folded in half, and eaten at the proper angle to prevent spillage on your work appropriate clothing. Overall… it’s exactly what I expected.

Horrible pizza! I squeezed out an ounce of GREASE when I bit out of a slice of pepperoni and sausages pizza. Grosd! The salad had fake cheese on it. Tge pizza crust was generic, not authentic NYC pizza like someone else commented, it was good the only thing I likr about the pizza but the rest of the slice was too soggy outside of the end crust. I won’t be back!

Best pizza in Dallas. The husband is from NY and he says this pizza is better! Very friendly staff and they know me by name.

I’m only giving 2 stars, and that’s for the location. I was looking for a quick by the slice pizza eatery so I thought I’d check this place out. As some have said, the food is bland. If you add enough Parmesan, red pepper flakes and Italian herbs then it might taste like
something. It’s too bad because the location is great! I would not suggest stopping here, sorry;-(

Great service every visit. Staff get to know their regulars and go out of their way to make them feel welcome. Some of the best pizza in DFW!

I had to pee and this non descript pizza joint downtown served it’s purpose. It smelled a little strange, like a basement, and with a similar feeling of cleanliness.
I had to buy a slice and a drink to use the restroom (minimum $ 5 purchase w credit card.). I had already eaten lunch so I debated wether I should gobble up the slice of gloop and bust my diet, as it looked more and more satisfying in a personal 80’s flashback mall arcade kid kind of way.
Waiting for the train outside a handsome amputeed homeless man in a wheelchair was asking me how to pronounce words out of the bible he had underlined.
«Undesirable» I read for him.
His pure shiny eyes stared at me.
«You hungry?» I asked.
«Why?»
«I have a slice of pizza if you want it.»
«Sure.»
Almost good enough to crash a pre summer beach body diet, but good enough to gift.
As he later got off the train he had the bagged sliced precariously sandwiched between his leg and the wheelchair arm.
I hoped it wouldn’t fall out.

Went last night with my wife and while the service (from the waitress anyway) was excellent, the food was about as bland as I’ve ever had. No seasoning in the breading for the calamari, none whatsoever.
The marinara was very watery and flavorless. My wife ordered the chicken carbonara and again, just a flavorless and bland bowl of noodles, some egg and a pool of water. I got the lasagna, which was okay, but nothing to write home about or even properly heated all the way through.
Garlic bread smelled garlicky but again, just tasted like a roll. Now, we NEVER complain at restaurants but we at least let the waitress know that our food had absolutely no flavor and my wife couldn’t even eat any of hers it was so bad. She took literally two bites and gave up. The waitress went back and told the cooks and all they did was snarl and give us the stink eye the rest of the time we were there.
To my surprise, the waitress brought our check and didn’t even ask if we wanted my wife’s meal comped since she ate none of it, or the fact that there was ¾ of our calamari left over from being inedible. Had she at least offered we probably would have said «don’t worry about it» but alas, full price for everything. We politely asked if there was a manager on duty and she told us there was none, not even an assistant manager and had to call him at his home.
After waiting for that conversation to end, they ended up comping my wife’s entrée, we tipped on the full original amount because the waitress was at least nice. I watched as we left as the butt-​hurt glare of the crappy cooks followed us out. Definitely won’t be going back and won’t recommend this place to anyone I know.

Pizza was awesome and regular cheese cake was to die for!!!

When you need some grease in your life this is the place to be. Best NY style pizza I’ve found in Dallas, hands down. Would give 5 stars but it’s more expensive than most other pizza places… Can’t beat the location for a quick lunch — especially when you just want a slab of unhealthy deliciousness! Order a slice however you want it and enjoy!

Slid in for a quick slice on a busy weekday and left with a full belly but empty taste.
The pizzas at the cafeteria style window look good, but I didn’t find mine to be cooked right or to have much taste.
The house made red Italian dressing for the salad was lively and good.
Price was right.

Agh this is the place I went to Friday night.
Yes! Just like Rays in fact I want more now!
The pictures are not helpful looks cold ;(

This place has really good pizza. You can purchase it by the slice or if your really hungry you can buy a whole pie. This is the 1^st one of these I’ve been to downtown only to find out they have several of them spread through out the downtown area. They serve strombolies. lasagna, pizza oh my and much more. This location is over near the dart train, so when you get in to downtown, hop off the train, run in grab a slice and enjoy, it’s worth your time.

I had lasagna and tiramisu. Both were fine. Service was fast and I paid $ 13 for my meal and a drink. The kind of place sbarro is modeled after.

When I’m really craving pizza for lunch, I stop by this place just because it’s very close to me.
The pizza is very greasy, thin, chewy, and bland. It’s not awful, it’s just not good.
I tried their baked ziti one day and there was a hair in it.
The prices are ok though, and I’ve never had an issue with the service.
It’s kind of like the pizza places at the mall where they make pizzas ahead of time and heat up however many slices you want in the oven for a few minutes.
If you have other options, I don’t recommend choosing this place for Italian food.

The pizza is precooked and greasy. My main concern is that they charge way too much for their slices. I would only go there if you are out of other options or are craving greasy pizza.

Dallas pizza tends to blow. Having lived in NY, STL, and LA. Dallas is a pretty bad pizza town. These guys come through with a standard to fit a craving.

The best thing I can say about this place is that it’s not the worst place in the world to get lunch.
The pizza is greasy and kind of bland. I get the impression that they make all the pizza right before lunch hour, and that’s what they reheat and serve throughout the rest of the day. I had a slice around 3 p.m., and it looked and tasted several hours old, which corroborates my theory.
On the plus side, since the pizza has already been made, it only takes a minute to reheat it, so this might be a desirable option if you’re in a hurry for lunch and are not particularly concerned with the taste of the food or its nutritional value.

Love this place. I’ve tried the various downtown Italian places, and this takes the cake. In particular, Campisi’s probably has better pizza, but for twice the cost. Carmine’s is a conversation ender for me.
I’ll stop by The Original Italian Café on the way back to the hotel, but you gotta go early, as it closes before 7. I almost always order the pasta (meat sauce, marinara, whatever… the alfredo also gets rave reviews). The pizza always looks good and is solid, if not spectacular.
If you’re looking for cheap Italian downtown, this is the place.

If you’re looking for some good greasy, cheesy & tasty pizza then this is your place. All the pizza is pre-​cooked so they just pop into their pizza ovens, heat it and serve it up.
I’ve the tried the majority of all their pizza, but my favorite has got to be the stuffed pizza. Mmmm, what you have is a essentially a double layer pizza. The bottom portion contains meat (ham, sausage & pepperoni, sauce and cheese. On top of that is a thin crust with cheese and some pepperoni. In regards to the pasta I’ve only tried the manicotti and it was purty darn good. if there are any requests maybe I’ll order the dish and tell you how it is.
You’ll notice some pictures of owner Victor Osmani with various celebrities such as Chuck Norris, Jay Leno & Muhammad Ali… although the pic with Ali looks as if he jumped next to him on the street and someone snapped a pic. However most pics seem a bit dated such as one with the Big Tuna, Bill Parcels, and no this was not a pic during his tenure with the Cowboys, because he’s smiling and looks too happy. I’m not sure that I ever saw him look that happy… eh must’ve been a pic while he was coaching for the Jets.