Applewood Pizzeria

I am not surprised to see this restaurant shutting down. Their pizza was mediocre at its best and service was terrible. I had lunch there once and I promised not to come back. I contacted the owner by email and he did not reply. Then I called him and left him and message and again, no reply at all. He simply did not care about the restaurant guests and now they are closed for good. Honestly, I won’t miss this place. There are much better restaurants down the road; indeed, I could simply drive 2 miles to Pizza My Heart and get better food. Bye Applewood, please do not come back!

Guess the bad customer service caught up to them the place is now closed
San Remo is much better

Service is TERRIBLE, SO SLOW! Went there with a few people the other day and had to wait to be seated, no big deal. Once seated an additional 20 minutes go by before someone comes to ask if we want water. We know its going to a while before they come by again so we order our dinner.
We sit and wait… and wait… and wait. An hour goes by and no one comes by to even check on us. We see that others are getting annoyed by the terrible service and some even get up and leave. We take notice and do the same.
So an hour and 30 minutes later no service, no food, waste of time.

Their pizza is ok but they have HORRIBLY HORRIBLY SLOW SERVICE at this location. My coworkers and I made reservations for a party of 12, and our table was ready when we arrived. However, things went downhill quickly from there. We had to flag the waitress down to place our order. Then we waited. And waited. And waited some more. Smaller tables that were sat after us received their food. After about 40 minutes I was finally able to flag down someone to ask about our order, and he told us the pizza maker got a little behind, but he was working on our food now and it would come out shortly. Like, SERIOUSLY!!! Another 15 minutes later we finally got our food, but they only came out with ¹⁄₅ pizzas at first, so my group had to either let our pizza get cold or feel guilty while we ate. We tried:
-#13, Scandinavian Pizza (Smoked Salmon, Red Onion, Sour Cream, Capers, Parsley, Dill (Large/​14″ $ 23.75): This pizza wasn’t bad, but it was a little too strange for me. I still prefer my smoked salmon and accoutrements on my bagel versus pizza, and wouldn’t order this again.
-#19, San Carlos Combo Pizza (Hungarian Sausage, Skirt Steak, Southwestern Chicken, Onions, Jalapenos, Avocado (XLarge/​16″, $ 28.25): I liked the toppings on this pizza a lot more, but the chicken was on the dry side. However, the steak was flavorful and cooked well and I liked the sausage. Recommended!
–Langosch (Hungarian Garlic Bread, $ 2): Interesting, and I liked the chewiness of the flatbread although there wasn’t much garlic taste. However, worth trying once.
At least they were nice enough to give us a discount on our order, but taking an hour for pizza to arrive AT the restaurant is just unacceptable. Especially for lunch! I was trying to get out of the office early that day since it was before Labor Day weekend, and those plans were completely destroyed thanks to the epic lunch here. Although the pizza here wasn’t bad, with the super slow service and prices on the high side, I doubt I will be back. If you must come, there is a parking lot behind the restaurant so you don’t have to look for street parking.

Thoroughly average pizza at a relatively high price point. With so many other pizza options in San Carlos I wouldn’t recommend Applewood on the merits of its pizza alone (this was a delivery order).

I don’t always write reviews but felt the need to write one after going to lunch today. This Resturant had only one waitress and one cook. I was with friends and colleges for lunch that took us almost two hours, and one friend’s burger was not ready until after everyone was already finished their meals… So she took it in a to go box only to get back to work to cut into it and find it was not all the way cooked.
The waitress and chef got many orders incorrect and complained about wanting to go home, and talked bad management, and did not seem to make an effort towards good customer service. At first I felt badly that this girl had to do all this work on her own, however based on how many wrong orders and under cooked burgers I just left annoyed.
I would not recommend this Resturant and most likely will not get back again.

I rarely review places on Unilocal however the lunch I had today I felt warranted a review.
Today my co-​workers and I went to have a staff lunch and decided to try applewood pizza in San Carlos. There were 10 of us all together and usually I try to be more paitient in restaurants in a larger party but today we all had an exceptionally poor time. We came in around 1:15 in the afternoon on a Thursday and there was only one other party in the restaurant. There was only one server and one cook.
During our meal some ordered pizzas to share and salads and a few of us, including myself ordered burgers. The salads arrived in short amount of time however we had to all wait a long time for our food. Once the food started to come out it came out one item at a time. The dishes were also all about 5 minutes apart as the came out. So the meal almost took 2 hours.
6 of us had ordered burgers, 4 of which were supposed to come with avocado which was forgotten on all the burgers. The waitress did bring us avocados to put on our burgers when we asked. Many of the dishes were also put in front of the wrong person, I received 2 burgers which were not mine.
I was the last person to receive my food and since everyone else had finished before I got my burger and we had to go back to work I asked the waitress if my burger could just be in a to go container since we all needed to return to work. When my burger arrived it was also missing avocado which I asked the waitress for and she did bring it out in a to go container. We then paid and left. When I finally was able to eat my burger I cut it in half (after I put on my avocado) and realized it was almost completely raw on the inside. Im very relieved that I didn’t just bite into it since you can get very sick from eating rare ground beef. I had asked for my burger medium and was extremely disappointed. I do not think I will be returning to applewood.
I would have only given one star however I did get to taste some of my coworkers pizza since they had felt bad that I was waiting for so long and the pizza was fairly tasty. But it was not worth the wait or the pink hamburger.

I have been here a few times for lunch and it’s been good. On Wednesday 17^th I came here with a few friends for dinner Usually a waitress brings the menu, take orders, bring drinks and serve. Now you have to go up to the counter, order your food, get your drinks get your own silverware and they bring the food. The employees said they had a new ordering system, they were lost while taking orders. When I ordered 2 bread puddings she said, let me make 2 orders since one of them is to go. A few minutes later she is bringing 2 plates with bread pudding we look at her like WTF and she says ohh right it was to go… Food was good that’s why they get the 2 stars, but I don’t think I will be coming back.

I am a big fan of the Menlo Park Applewood location (
). Recently, I visited the renovated San Carlos restaurant. They were still working on the rear/​outside seating, but they look to have done fine work on the interior. In fact, Menlo Park needs to step up their décor game!
Same friendly service & great pizza.
Will be back.

I am in love with there pizza. Best pizza around. I aways order pizza with italian sausage, mushrooms, and pesto. The cheese is hot and gooey, all the toppings spread out evenly (and generously) throughout the pizza, with a crispy yet soft crust.
They have TV’s that are usually playing sports. Good for groups if you and friends want to share a pizza and grab a beer! Staff is young and very friendly, attentive.

If you are in the mood for pizza— this is the place. Lots of choices (Los Altos is our favorite), and it is always with fresh quality ingredients.
The rest if the menu is inconsistent. Ordered eggplant Parmesan once and it was amazing. Ordered it two more times (giving the benefit of he doubt) and it was just «meh».
If you are getting stuff delivered or to go, I suggest to stick with the pizza– other items on the menu just don’t travel well.
Customer service is always good. So– if you are craving pizza– give them a try.

Their pizza is amazing. Hands down: it’s the best pizza crust in the peninsula. We order pick up from them, and the only change we hope they make some day is to expand their delivery area to San Mateo!
We have also eaten in the establishment twice. The first time about 1.5 years ago when they first opened, the service was a bit bumpy and the order took a while to appear. However the waiter was always friendly. The second time, they seemed to have ironed out the kinks, and we had an overall great experience.

Came here for another meal because my birthday boy wanted to celebrate his special day here. To make the long story short — everything was made slightly wrong here. My pasta dish was missing the chicken, and my husband’s «spicy» fish sandwich was the blandest thing he’s tasted. Kid was happy though because it was a good basic pasta with marinara and cheese. The lava cake — although I knew it was microwaved — was divine.
So it is 2.5 stars — as least the service here was not bad.

Last time we visited was brutal and the only thing that keeps it from 1 star is when it first opened we had several good experiences. Service and food have been sliding.
Issues with our last visit:
very slow being acknowledged
food taking much longer than expected to arrive (restaurant was not busy)
food ordered but missing
food very average
no follow up to allow us to order another round of drinks or check on food
waitress MIA when we wanted check with kids losing it
items incorrectly billed on check
I would probably wait for them to get there act together again.

We began going here since they first opened and have watched them go downhill progressively. They have taken some really good dishes off the menu because the new cooks obviously don’t know how to make them.
At lunch one day, a lady at the next table ordered a pasta salad and the pasta was brought to the table UNCOOKED! That tells me that both the cook and the server no NOTHING of commercial kitchen protocols or food in general. What other protocols are lacking — hygiene? After that the place scares me.
Much of their competent staff they used to have is gone, which tells me that the management must be intolerable to work for. Applewood has blown a great opportunity to be a standout restaurant in a town that requires repeat business. I think if they were on an interstate exit they could continue to get away with it, but it isn’t working here. You have to have alot more than a good crust to make it.

This is probably not a place I normally would have chosen, but the in-​laws invited us to have dinner with them here last Friday.
I was pleasantly surprised by how delicious the crust was, (I’m generally not a fan of thicker crusts.)
The sauce was tasty, but the cheese was completely bland. The Canadian bacon was basically ham, but a good choice if you want some protein on your pizza that’s not greasy.
If i went back, (which is possibility since the family likes it) i would ask for less cheese, and more sauce.
We also had pretty good Manhattans.
Service was fine, not great, but totally acceptable.
If i could give this place another half star i would.

Despite the average rating I was convinced by the locals (my sister & her hubby) that this would be better than average. We ordered take-​out style; calamari, salad and 2 pizzas.
The calamari was amazing! The rings and tentacles are breaded and seasoned with red pepper and chili flakes and accompanied with slices of jalapeño treated the same way. It was spicy and delicious and so so good. We order a Mediterranean salad made of mixed greens, feta, tomato, cucumber, onion, pine nuts & a balsamic vinaigrette on the side. For 5 adults it was just enough for everyone to have a little. Nothing mind blowing, just salad.
The two pizzas we went with were the Milano (spinach, portabella mushroom, goat cheese, red pepper & basil) and the Budapest (onion, bell pepper, tomato ricotta cheese & Hungarian sausage). The Milano was my favorite, all the toppings together created a very unique pizza. The Budapest reminded me of lasagna in pizza form… and I’m not a big fan of lasagna so it was just okay. The sausage provided lots of flavor. The pizza crust was really good, soft yet crunchy where it should be. And clean, not at all greasy. I love this kind of crust, a true fresh hand-​tossed crust.

Came for a weeknight family dinner with the missus, the munchkins, and the father-​in-​law. Have enjoyed Applewood pizza many times in MP but was intimidated a bit by the negative reviews regarding the slow service at the SC location, especially with two little kids at dinnertime. Happy to report that it all worked out great for us.
Ordered a mini cheese pizza for the kids as soon as we sat down because I was not going to have my pizza night ruined by (my own) cantankerous children. I consider that proof that I listen to fellow Unilocalers’ feedback even if I don’t always agree with it. Being warned about potentially slow service plus kids equals dumb parent. Not me, dude. Anyway, kids dug the cheese pizza and actually ate the whole thing. High praise in my book.
Ordered a couple rounds of beers — decent selection on tap, but they were out of Green Flash IPA, which was a shame. One of my faves, for sure. Settled for Mirror Pond and made my peace with it. My father-​in-​law had a Scrimshaw Pilsener (North Coast Brewing Co) and the missus, well, she opted for a light-​beer-​that-​shall-​not-​be-​named. But she was happy, so yay for her.
Pizza was very good — the usual Applewood quality, which made me quite happy. We had a large pie with salami, italian sausage, spinach-​ricotta, and sun-​dried tomatoes. Not a crumb was left to take home (though they were a bit aggressive withe the sun-​dried tomatoes, so there were some of those left behind for sure). High praise yet again in what I have always defined as, with few exceptions, a pizza-​challenged area.
It is a bit pricey as other Unilocalers have reported. But when you think about it, feeding 3 adults and 2 children, including 2 rounds of drinks for ~$ 85 (includes tip) was well worth it to me. Maybe I’m just an example of the «guy code of eating,» i.e. If the beer’s cold and the pizza’s good, then most sins are easily forgiven.
I’m not in a hurry to try anything else on the menu because I like Applewood’s pizza, but I must admit that the pastas that I saw coming out of the kitchen looked quite good. They also have a full bar (huge drink menu, too) that looks pretty comfy, and would definitely be worth making a stop on the way home via Caltrain from a Giants day game or something. I am equally thrilled that this Applewood location delivers to the Are-​dub-​see. Bring it!

Came for lunch, found parking right out front on the street (YAY!). Not that it matters since I am here to eat a pizza and not eat a parking spot.
Inside the place was completely empty, except for one person at a table. And it’s noon. Not a good sign? Truth be told, I have seen this place plenty a’busy during dinner service and the reality is there aren’t too many people who do business lunches around here it seems.
Sat at the bar, obviously my eyes gravitate toward the beer and liquor selection (oh yeah, do note — full bar here). Beer selection is kinda more geared toward IPA’s and Belgian-​style ales (YAY!). Very nice selection of whisky’s and Bourbon’s as well, along with all these new-​fangled concoctions you young people drink (Chipolte vodka??)
The Menlo Combo (minus the mushrooms and olives) was freaking superb. Personal size ($ 10.75) was just the right size for one person to eat. Didn’t think I’d eat the whole thing but I did. The crust was pretty phenomenal, not too think not too thin — no burnt underside — with that perfect crusty crunch on the outside and soft (but not doughy) on the inside. Toppings, all high quality and tasty.
Major win, and I might have perhaps found a new place to order pizza. Oh they deliver too.

The worst part about writing this is that i want to LOVE this place. I want to make nasty face sex to its prosciutto pizza. Instead though. I am left high and dry. This at best seems to be a distant cousin to the one in Menlo Park, only sharing a name at most.
I have now ordered from here three times. And every time I have had the chance to complaint and I didn’t. From forgetting ranch, to pizza that has slid all to one side, there has been a few reasons to not make this into my pizza rotation. I will say what they do have going for it though. Is that they have pizzas that no other places have. Cilantro pesto, their southwest pizza, scandanavian and so forth.
Maybe if I’m in the mood and need to shake things up a bit I’ll order from here… Get it together peeps!!!