Filippi’s Pizza Grotto

By Far the BEST Filippis in San Diego! Servers are always informative and very well accommodating. Love this place I drive every week from North County 45 mins away just to eat here! Must go to place if you are craving Amazing Pizza and other Authentic Italian Food

Consistently great pizza, and the service is good too.

I love Italian food and this does it for me here in Poway. I love a rich hardy sweet tangy sauce chunky. I got the lasagna and it was awesome nice touch with the FG fresh rolls.

Went simple just got a cheese pizza Togo. Omg it was amazing. So much cheese and in the good way not the gooey creamy way but the thick chewy way!

If you want pizza and are set on Filippi’s, do yourself a favor and drive to the Mira Mesa/​Scripps Ranch location. In a moment of weakness, we settled for the Poway Filippi’s, as our dog groomer is across the street. What. A. Mess. In addition to omitting mushrooms on half of our medium pizza, the amount of cheese on each pie was grotesque. I literally pulled the oily, cheesy layer off before I could attempt to eat it. To add insult to injury, their crust is practically deep dish style. Unlike the other Filippi’s location, they don’t offer a small pizza, so you are stuck with a medium, thick crust mess. The salad floated in a pool of water and for the $ 63 dollar price tag for two medium pies and two salads, I felt compelled to Unilocal them, as I’ve now wasted money and food. Two words– never again.

I have had tons of different pastas and pizzas over the years and this place is okay, not the best. Definitely took too long for our food to arrive as well as our waitress taking a long time to come to take our order for food/​drinks. We also got a salad and they messed it up a couple of times. How do you mess up a salad?
The place also has a weird smell to it as well which does turn your stomach after awhile.

Very poor customer service from natasha… extremely rude and uninviting for a restaurant asst. Manager… she elected to lose a long time customer than to simply take a phone request… strongly recommend that she never answers you business phone again… looks like bucca. de peppo now has my family and friends loyalty for pizza and pasta…

I think of Filippi’s as a suburban favorite. Locals come here (with an appetite) & know what they want as soon as they walk in the door. My go-​to is always the Antipasto Salad, a mountain of greens, deli meats & absolute goodness! Top it off with any of their heavenly pizzas, doesn’t matter which one because it’ll be drowning in a myriad of melted cheese. Always expect to take home leftovers & don’t forget to order a toasted Torpedo sandwich to-​go!

You will never find a pizza with more cheese! There is barely any sauce under the cheese and toppings. The meatballs are huge and are pretty good. The lasagna is a messy plate, so much sauce on top the layers just kinda slide apart. The portion size was good. The parking is terrible on a Friday or Saturday, the girls at the counter taking orders and paying the table tabs from the restaurant are so busy they can’t even look at you. The décor is dated and dusty.

Been coming here for years but never checked in or even wrote a review?! Shame on me… This mom and pop restaurant is old and cute and very much Poway.
This location is a mile from the freeway and well worth the visit. The food is delicious and the service is great!
Parking is limited, I’ve had to park on the street a few times but no biggie.
They have to go prices for those that don’t care to dine in. I suggest dining in so you can have your own bottle, put your name on it and return again, similar to the Japanese Style of saving sake for future visits.
This go around I enjoyed their family dinner which comes with pasta, meat ravioli and meat lasagna. This came with a salad, fresh Parmesan cheese bread and a milestone soup.
My wife also added the Works Pizza, medium sized, which was perfect for the two of us and left enough for lunch.
There are a few TVs not big screen but decent to watch sports.
Whether you have a party of two or party of twenty, this place can handle it.
If you’re craving pasta or pizza, come by and visit. You’ll have a good meal and time and will definitely return.

Not only did we wait an eternity for our pizza to get done, but we had to pay for our drink refills. And when the pizza did come out it was undercooked. Not a fan. Never going back.

While the pizza was great here, the service a bit slow and the prices a bit high.
We ordered a large specialty as well as a salad and it took about half an hour, considering it was pretty empty that was a bit slow.
Atmosphere is dark and a bit dated, but the food is really what you come here for.
I really love their marinara, simple but great flavors, best thing here and makes any noodle dish well worth getting.
Not many great dining options in the area so this is a great stop while passing through!

Let me first start by saying that I can’t stand apathy, complacency and a total lack of customer service.
With that being said, I’ve been frequenting this restaurant for nearly 15(?) years. Tonight was the last.
My wife and I visited tonight and there were probably no more than 6 other tables with patrons at them. As I was forking the spaghetti over to my plate (we got a combo dinner), I commented to her that it was overdone. It’s pretty bad when you can tell that spaghetti is overdone when you’re simply transferring it between plates. it didn’t end there (I wish it had).
The ravioli’s were even worse. Gummy. You know what I’m talking about.
The lasagna was better, but only because it had enough other stuff on it to make it palatable.
i asked the manager to come over and I immediately recognized her as someone I’ve seen there for the past couple of years, and figured she’d do the same (recognize me). I said to her, «Forgive me, my wife and I have been coming here for 12 – 15 years, but I have to say that all this food tonight is really just crap. Everything is severely over cooked and it was the last time we were here as well, but I didn’t say anything because I figured it was an anomaly.»
I ‘splained about the spaghetti and the raviolis. She said that they recently changed the raviolis that they use…“change them back”, I said. I asked her to go and try it herself as everything was overcooked and she said she would, but the «cooks are really good; they cook everything fresh». (Except tonight, apparently.)
She asked if I’d like another order of lasagna instead (we hardly touched anything else and it was all still on our plates). I politely declined.
She then said, «You got the combo, right? (yes)…okay, how about I take half off». I guess that meant that since the salad, garlic bread and soup were okay, I should be happy. (I wasn’t). Did I mention 15 YEARS I’ve been coming to this restaurant? I did, didn’t I? (yes, yes, I did).
(sidebar) My wife and I made a conscious decision to spend the night out, away from our 3 lovely children, spend some quality time together and have a nice, comfortable, relaxing dinner. This will happen again, I assure you. It’s YOUR job, as a restaurant, to make sure that I’m happy with my choice. You get that, right? Apparently not. (/​sidebar)
I pay the (half)-bill and we begin to leave. The manager is standing at the counter by the register, chatting with 2 other employees (It’s nice, they’re obviously having a nice time, that’s good; but it’s clear that she isn’t doing any «managing» at that point)…so I ask her…“Did you try the pasta?”.
«No, but I had it last night». (Really)
«So I guess it wasn’t important enough for you to try the pasta and see if it was overcooked?», I asked…
«I’m going to eat here tonight at the end of my shift». (She actually said this to me)
«I suggest you do what I’m going to do from here on out… and find another restaurant».
Sad, very sad.
On the way home, I said to my wife that we’re going to have to find another Filippi’s to eat at, apparently.

While I only had salad on this trip the rest of the party ordered 4 pizzas and they looked totally AMAZEBALLS!!! This place is great I will eventually have pizza from here but being a Weight Watchers member you can’t do that very often.

I’m a fan of Filippi’s, but unfortunately not the Poway location.
Came in around 7pm with a party of four. There were few tables filled, but the service was still slow. We were pretty hungry so decided on the the family combo as well as a large pizza.
The family combo is a dinner plate size of ravioli, lasagna, and spaghetti. There’s a dinner option for the family combo (in addition to the trio: soup, salad, and a piece of garlic bread) but our server talked us out of it. She let us know that we would get garlic bread anyway and ordering the dinner meal is way too much food – even after we expressed our undying love for bread and how hungry we were. We decided to go with what she suggested and not order the dinner option.
Our family combo came out and we didn’t receive garlic bread as she told us we would. The family combo is a dinner plate size of lasagna, spaghetti and ravioli all mixed in with each other sloppily. It was enough to feed 2 at max. The meat sauce at this location is extremely sour, and I only enjoyed the lasagna which was very sparse on the plate. I suppose it is our fault for ordering a $ 13.99 family combo and expecting to be full. We ordered one of the meat lover pizzas which was pretty good but a little wet.
We were bummed about not receiving garlic bread as the table bread was burnt and stale. Since we didn’t receive garlic bread like she said we would, we simply asked for a fresh basket of the table bread, but declined once she let us know it costs extra. Sorry, but I refuse to pay extra for stale bread.
Slow service and less than mediocre food. Sorry Filippi’s Poway, but you’re not up to par with other Filippi’s locations I’ve been to.

Please start putting the antipasto in a bowl. It’s very slippery when serving. I love the food here.

There are several pizza options in the Poway area. If those weren’t there, Filippi’s might be a decent pizza stop. Sadly, their pies have wayyyy too much oil and grease to be able to enjoy. The taste might be decent but I can never stomach more than a slice or two.
Their sandwiches are another story. The chicken parmesan and meatball sub are two pieces of comfort food that are essential, and this place does them almost well enough to make up for the pizza.
I recommend getting sandwiches to go as a lazy option after a tough day.

Again, another place I really wanted to like! When I was in school, I went to the one in PB all the time and I was excited to try out the one in Poway. But this pizza is so greasy and so cheesy, it made me sick to my stomach. Literally. I was sick all night. The pizza was much better cold.
And the ravioli tasted like it was previously frozen. No flavor whatsoever! Don’t go to Filippi’s expecting fine Italian cuisine!

You can immediately smell the pizza, marinara, pasta, cheese aroma as you walk into the restaurant.
I’ve been wanting to try this place because I see Filippi’s everywhere! Came here on a Friday night at around 5:30pm and it was already quite crowded. Tables were filled with families and local residents and regular customers. A couple tables around us know the staffs and the staffs already know what they want to order.
I like atmosphere like that where the customers and staffs have a good relationship.
We ordered the Fit for A King (large) pizza for two of us. And oh my I didn’t expect to see the amount of cheese on the pizza. It was overflowing with gooey goodness. But in my opinion it was a bit TOO much cheese. The pizza however tasted great; love the crust.
The pizza was plenty of food for two ppl. As we were checking out what other tables ordered, I can’t wait to visit Filippi’s again so I can order their sandwiches, lasagna and pasta. their antipasto salad looks really good too! and the portions were huge!
I recommend Filippi’s for big parties so you can order different items to share.

We had a less happy experience here the last time we went.
The Lasagna with meat ball was good as usual,
but when we wanted to order something different from our usual pizza, the kitchen was not accomodating.
Basically, my hubby doesn’t enjoy spaghetti pasta. He likes fettuccine. We wanted to try the Chicken Parmesan which comes with spaghetti. We politely asked to switch the noodle to fettuccine –which they have on the menu since they offer a Fettuccine Alfredo– but they said no. We were willing to pay extra for the substitution, but they simply won’t do it. HUH? why not, we asked. We were told «they just won’t do it.»
Anyway, talk about perplexing and short-​sighted management.
We ended up trying nothing new, and are not inclined to come back.
Such a contrast to the wonderful customer service we had at the Mira Mesa Filippi’s location –which has a bigger menu (prime rib and BBQ rib bones!) and WAAY better garlic bread anyway.
We will just head to Mira Mesa next time.
On a side note, this location does need to invest in a deep clean. My 4 year son noticed the conspicuous dusty cobwebs on the light fixtures and overhead décor; he kept pointing to them and saying «where are the spiders?»