Merchants Wood Fired Pizza & Bistro

Recently ate here with my boyfriend and his family. I had a pizza and it was delicious. My boyfriend, however, got food poisening from the short rib burger. I will say that the fries that came with the burger (I was able to snag a few) were the most incredible fries I’ve ever had in my life. Unfortunately I don’t think we will be back to try again after the first experience.

I have to agree with Anthony L., this restaurant has potential. Great service, nice interior, I really wanted to like this restaurant. The bar area looks nice also. Here are my disappointments and though they may seem small, are enough to give me pause in returning. No Neapolitan/​margherita type pizza on the menu. There’s a cheese pizza, but all meat otherwise. (I don’t eat red meat). And not a lot of options. We tried the clam pizza special without the bacon, and it just didn’t taste that good. The steak and salmon entrees we ordered were amazing, but for the price would have liked a side salad — like we could get for similar offerings at nearby Remingtons or Rizzis. They bring the bread out with the entrees? After sitting a few minutes with people eating around us — and our waitress, who was amazing btw, remarked that we must be hungry, saying our food would be up soon — we asked for it. She obliged, stated it was their policy to bring bread with entrees to soak up the sauce with??? It would be best to just give people bread immediately after ordering. So we were sitting for a bit with no sides, or bread, the latter we did get after requesting it. Also, this is a personal issue, but the music was 80’s pop. :(This neighborhood has some amazing restaurants — and Ninos pizza! Here the wood fire pizza IS unique, and the service exceptional, but for these reasons I’m just not feeling it.

My girlfriend & I ate there this Friday and as much as I wanted the experience to be amazing it unfortunately fell short. The mussels were delicious, the quantity could have been better but they were tasty and we were given bread to sop up the sauce. My girlfriend had the Asian salad, the white balsamic dressing was awesome, the rest of the salad was not so awesome. Mostly lettuce and cabbage with 4 pimentos with and some small pieces of chicken and nothing else for $ 13.00 and no roasted pine nuts like on the menu. I had the pig wings ($ 11.00) the sauce was great but the ribs were fatty and tough. At another table we saw people eating what looked like amazing dishes (waffles and fried chicken, Mediterranean style pasta) so maybe we ordered badly but I would say that if you cant prepare it well don’t put it on the menu. It is within walking distance so I may walk down for a pizza but if I am in my car I will drive by. They need a curtain in front of the door to keep the cold out also the décor was really cool and it looks like they have spent some money. The service was great so I do believe they have potential.

Went last night and had the mussels and chicken pizza– delicious! Great beers on tap too. Excellent service. Great value, check it out!

This place has potential. The friend who recommended we try this out said it’s owned by Napa Wood Fired Pizza owners… which means it will likely be great when everything has settled down.
We started at the bar while waiting for other friends to arrive. The martini glasses were half full… half. The bartender made some comments about our ages (being older than we are) and beyond that didn’t make much small talk. I may be wrong as I have never been a bartender but I thought part of their job is to «small talk» with guests to get the guests to walk to come back AND get larger tips? Anyways. we were seated for a table of 5 and ordered some apps because right when we were seated, we were told the kitchen was backed up by at least a half hour. They had just opened and were still working through things in the back. NBD. Apps were tasty and pizzas were delicious! Worth the wait!
All of us decided we want to check this place out again but we’ve got to give them some time to figure out which employees they want to keep and how they’re going to pick up the pace in the back. I know they’ll figure it out! Napa did :)

My boyfriend and I just ate here the first Saturday after they opened. The renovations are beautiful and you can certainly tell that they put a lot of hard work into it. It’s definitely a gourmet pizza place, much like Napa in South Wedge. We started with their Sriracha Honey Wings and had their Merchant’s Pizza, which had charboiled pepporoni, onions, and sausage. Overall, everything was delicious! The service was great too. We had to wait about 20 – 30 minutes for the food to come out, but our waitress had warned us that the kitchen was backed up so we just ordered another round of drinks while we waited. We also figured there would be a few kinks as the restaurant had only been open for about a week. After we finished up eating, the chef came out and apologized for the wait, which was very sweet. Had a great time and will definitely be back!