Matchbox – Chinatown

This place is so solid for dinner. Not only are the pizzas and mini burgers delicious, they have a small patio area perfect for sharing one or more of their cocktails on warm summer nights! I’ve been to this location many times and I’ve never been disappointed.

We had a reservation for 5 for brunch on a Sunday morning. We were seated immediately on their outdoor patio. Our waitress was very attentive and brought us our waters right away, and even brought us coffee before we asked when she overheard us talking about wanting to order some coffee. I had the matchbox mimosa to start and the crabcake benedict. The crabcake benedict looked small on the plate at first but it was very filling. The crabcake was wrapped in bacon which was the delicious, the egg was poached perfectly, and the potatoes on the side were very tasty. Overall, great experience and I’d love to try the pizza here when I come back.

For a great thin crust pizza with very inspired toppings in a quirky, lively but casual setting, eat here!
Enjoyed my pizza — all meat with a zesty tomato sauce, mozzarella and the perfectly thin (but not too thin!), bubbly, crackly crust from the wood fired oven!

Known for their wood fired pizzas. Fair amount of options and quick in and out. One item of note was their lamb sandwich. Really different and tasty option.

I used to not like Matchbox, because I’m not a huge fan of brick oven pizza (no black on my crust!) Things have changed in my book– still no burn on my pizza crust, though! Not sure overwhelmingly that this is a 5 star establishment, but in my last 3 visits I’ve had exceptional service and food. I’m a total fan now.
Can’t wait to try brunch– and the other DC locations!

Came for a quick midnight pizza treat after a concert at Verizon. Had half pepperoni and banana pepper, half meat lover. I love the meat lover a lot! But banana pepper may be too spicy for me. The dough is very crisp and yummy!
The service is very fast!

Totally forgotten at upper — no server to start, no drink refills, dry & burned pizzas, slimy salad, and not a singe server or busser to be found on our entire floor (well that was after they finished watching TV and chatting with their back to us) :-(
And at a $ 70 lunch without tax (two individual pizzas, two salads, a kids plate, and one cocktail,) we felt pretty ripped off. With so many really great restaurants in the area, we have no desire to return.

Despite having so many great options in the area, lunch time can sometimes be a hit or a miss. When my friend told me she would be visiting town on the same day that I would be flying out of DC, we decided to squeeze in a quick lunch to catch up. Matchbox is close to my office so I made reservations at noon and that was the end of our search.
At noon the following day, we arrived and were promptly seated on the third floor. There was plenty of sunlight coming through the glass rooftop which light up the whole place nicely and made me feel like it was a Sunday brunch outing instead of workday lunch break. Our server, Samuel, informed us of the plate of the day and then left to grab us water. Although he was a newbie (his words) he was very helpful and accommodating when one of my friends wanted to substitute a couple of ingredients in her capitol hill club. I went ahead with the capitol hill as well and my second friend decided to go with the wood-​oven mussels. A few minutes after we had placed our order, my friend decided she wanted a salad instead of her mussels and called our server over. He patiently scratch out her order and brought her a menu (again) to check out the salad selections. 5 minutes later she was ready with her salad order.
My capitol hill club was light yet filling. I don’t really like bacon but the combination of bacon and avocado made it hard to resist. Next time I’ll skip the Dijon mustard though. The fries were average and oily but they didn’t make me feel lethargy after the meal or throughout the day. A solid meal with exceptional service and that’s why I gave it a 4 instead of a 3.

I was introduced to Matchbox Chinatown a few years ago by a former co worker & always return every time I’m staying in the area. I like the exposed brick & cute little matchboxes displayed within the table tops but the tasty, well-​priced food & drinks with friendly, efficient service is always consistent. I visited most recently on 5.22.16 with my boyfriend & my cousin (local Washingtonian) & our party of 3 were quickly seated upon arrival.
Two of us ordered cocktails (patio pounder lemonade for me, made with house infused watermelon vodka) which was refreshing & bf ordered the jalepeno cucumber margarita which he said had a bit of heat for flavor but wasn’t too spicy.
We usually order the mini burgers with onion strings (available in an order of 3, 6 or 9 burgers). The burgers are perfectly cooked and are juicy & tender and seasoned perfectly. I have these every visit.
We had the apple & pear salad over mixed greens, Gorgonzola cheese in a honey balsamic dressing which nice & refreshing.
Our last savory dish was prosciutto white pizza with garlic & kalamata olives which was pretty good, thin crust pizza. I usually get the prosciutto & fig pizza.
We had the trio of desserts to end our meal, which was the perfect sized sampler of mini doughnuts & coffee sauce, moist brownies with vanilla gelato & mini sorbets.

Matchbox was the perfect place to celebrate my husband’s birthday over lunch in the Chinatown neighborhood. When we walked in and requested a table for two, the waitress led us through a beautiful space that was 100% lit by natural light, then up a stairs, and around a couple corners — I was impressed by how many varieties of seating environments this places boasts.
I ordered a ginger ale, and our energetic waitress never let me see the bottom of my glass (I love my ginger ale!). Hubs picked the Prosciutto and Black Mission Fig pizza for us to split. It came piled high with arugula, gorgonzola, and black pepper honey… and holy wow it was perfection! The sweet meaty figs blended the prosciutto and arugula perfectly and that black pepper honey? Absolute perfection. I’d order that pizza again and again.
Our waitress surprised my husband with a birthday dessert, and brought enough for me to indulge too. Fried brownies drizzled in heavenly chocolate sauce, topped with vanilla ice cream. Needless to say, it was stupid good.

Delicious pizza! I ordered the prosciutto white pizza and my wife had the oven dried tomato. The pies came out quick and hot. Both were very tasty and just the right amount of ingredients. The restaurant was tastefully done and clean. Great attentive service, but a little pushy. We realize it’s Saturday night and they were expecting more customers, but we felt a little rushed to leave.
Overall, will go there agin if we bust DC again.

Oh man. I didn’t have particularly high expectations for Matchbox but I was so pleasantly surprised. So I will say that the people who worked at this location were a little standoffish. Not rude, but not quite friendly. Not a con but an observation.
We got the Italian salami pizza and the crispy chicken and shared them both. The pizza was good. Ours had fresh arugula on top which adds a crunch and freshness that I really enjoy. I wouldn’t say this was the best pizza I have ever had but it was pretty good. It did the trick. But the pizza is not why I have given this place 4 stars.
The crispy chicken was so fantastic. This is not just some deep fried chicken breast. As disgusting as this sounds, crispy chicken skin is one of my favorite foods and Matchbox sure delivered. The chicken was moist on the inside and basically fell of the bone. The skin was really flavorful and did not have a breaded crunch that crispy chicken usually has. The skin was light, seasoned, browned, and and very crispy. The sides of roasted asparagus and mashed potatoes were great as well. I especially enjoyed the chili vinegar that was served on the side.
If you are a chicken skin enthusiast also, get the crispy chicken. Seriously.

March 2016
So, I’ve been to 3 of the 5 Matchbox restaurants, in DC and MD. I am a fan of this small chain, however, I usually am not a supporter of chain restaurants. Each time I have visited Matchbox I find both drinks and food to be appetizing and hearty. However, on my most recent visit although the food was enjoyable, I experienced mild stomach discomfort afterwards to include one more of the patrons in my party. This could happen any time so I’m not blaming the restaurant in an insurmountable manner in which I will not return but it must be noted.
Happy Hour
The tuna tartare tasted fresh and infused with sesame seeds and plated wasabi and spicy dipping sauce which provided extra flavors to enhance the tartare.
Reduced price for cocktails and I had a bourbon drink which was smooth & yummy.
Enjoy Matchbox restaurants & will return during my next visit to the DMV in the future for appetizers & cocktails…

I took some family who were visiting from out-​of-​town here last night, and we all really enjoyed it.
They don’t take reservations anymore, but you can call ahead and put your name on the list. We got there around 6:15 and there wasn’t a wait.
We shared the ginormous meatball and the arancini for appetizers. We’re Italian so a bit spoiled when it comes to meatballs, but Matchbox’s is pretty good. The arancini were phenomenal, though — I definitely recommend those.
For our entrees, I got the lamb sandwich with chickpea fries and they split the large chicken pesto pizza. The sandwich had a lovely presentation (the fries are stacked like Lincoln logs) but was otherwise a pretty ordinary sandwich. The fries had an interesting flavor and texture (meatier than potato fries) and I’m glad I tried them, but they tasted a little too salty for me (though most people would probably love that). My family really liked the pizza though I didn’t try any of it. It’s definitely the right size for two people to split.
For dessert, we shared the chocolate chip bread pudding. It was delicious and definitely enough for three people to nosh on after a filling meal. It didn’t taste that chocolatey, but the banana and caramel sauce made up for that.
Our waitress was really friendly and attentive, and the waitstaff kept our glasses filled. No complaints on the service at all.

Came here for lunch, it was decent. We ordered a couple of salads, however we didn’t get what we ordered.
We also had two large pizzas, and you can choose to have two different kinds on each pie.
Vegetarian pizza was a bit bland, but the salami and mushroom pizza was amazing! The chicken pesto was good, well, the pesto was good, I can’t talk about the chicken since my slice had zero chicken on it.

Wow… seriously, how does this place get such a high rating? The service alone turned me off from getting a delicious late oyster happy hour at Ebbitt Grill =(
Came in around 9 for dinner on a Sunday. I ordered the crab soup but got the night special, which was a sausage soup. I ordered the ribeye medium rare and got it medium well. No one checked up on us after we got our food. I had to flag someone down to explain to him that my items were wrong. He seemed very apologetic and took my food to get corrected.
The soup came fairly quickly. It was okay, not great, not bad. We asked for a bowl and a small cup with our soup. That may have been the tipping point for our server. It seemed that after that, she just didn’t want to deal with us. We had to flag bus boys to get her to our table when we needed anything. Like a coke that came after half of our food got to the table.
The first ribeye, though overcooked tasted DELICIOUS! That porcini rub was so good! But the meat was much too hard for me to enjoy, otherwise I would’ve just kept it. The second ribeye had NO seasoning on it. Took forever to flag her down to let her know. She told me that it WAS seasoned and that it’s not a steak that’s seasoned all over. It’s rubbed on the outside and marinated and then cut. Um… it’s a RUB. You don’t marinate with a rub. You rub it on and grill it! She offered me salt and pepper, if her bs explanation wasn’t enough. I just told her no, that was fine. Though honestly, I should’ve just asked to talk to the manager… but it was late and the rest of my friends were tired and wanted to go back to the hotel. So, I left it at that.
ps…did you know that the Old Ebbitt Grill has a ribeye for $ 29.95 vs the $ 31 it was here? It doesn’t have a porcini rub on but… the ribeye from here might not either o. o;;

I’m not always a huge brunch fan but this place does it right. They have lots of Bloody Mary choices and the hot one has some kick with a Sriracha rim. The waffles with fruit are worth a try too, especially if you’re like me and don’t like eggs. The bacon side is tasty and a decent portion. I enjoyed the breakfast potatoes but the portion was pretty microscopic for sharing so plan to eat those alone. Oh and don’t even think about skipping the cinnamon roll, it’s a giant roll served fresh and hot in a cast iron skillet. A few people can easily share this but be warned you might want to eat more than your share.
If you’re looking for brunch in the area you can’t go wrong here.

Came here with a group of friends when I was
visiting DC and had a fun and tasty night here.
Pros:
–Diverse menu with pizza, sandwiches, salads, a variety of appetizers. Everyone of us was able to order something they liked and the pizzas come in 2 sizes so you can order one for yourself or split with a friend.
–My rum thyme cocktail. Good balance of flavors and elderflower liquor is the best.
–The server was friendly and attentive.
–The food was very well plated, my chickpea fries came in an awesome jenga tower stack. My friend’s salad was also gorgeous.
–They have cool matchbooks for you.
Cons:
–They only have two bathrooms for quite a large place. Had to wait a long time just to wash my hands.
–Cocktails were 11 dollars so I only enjoyed one.
–It was rather hot on the third floor.
If I lived in the area I’d definitely be back to try more dishes. It’s conveniently located across from the Chinatown metro stop.

Their pizzas taste really good. I’m not usually a fan of thin-​crust pizzas (after having lived in Chicago for 6 years I have the occasional cravings for a deep dish) but I liked the pizzas at Matchbox. There’s a variety of topping combinations available to please a wide range of palettes and preferences. For example, our group had a friend who doesn’t eat a lot of meat normally so we got a veggie pizza. And I like lots of meat, so we also got the meatball pizza, which also has bacon in it.
Just a tip: you can ask for two different topping types on one pizza, so half and half. It’s a great way to try all the different toppings.

The pizza and salad were 5 star. The wait staff weren’t the friendliest but were generally attentive. We had the pepperoni and chicken pesto pizzas. Both were excellent.
The pepperoni were the small spicy kind that that curl at the edges a bit. Yum! The chicken on the pesto pizza was all white meat roasted breast. It could’ve use a touch more pesto sauce.
Love the crust and the crispness that comes from a wood fired oven.
The simple salad was good, but as described… simple.

Two words: BRUNCH PIZZA. Holy moly it was probably one of the best things that I ever put into my mouth (that’s what she said). Seriously I ate half of it and a couple hours later I ate the rest. It was beyond delicious. The chipotle sour cream was kinda sweet which paired nicely with the eggs and the sausage and the pico. I hear their cinnamon rolls are also to die for but I went to eat there by myself so I couldn’t ordered that. I mean I would have but I didn’t want to be judged nor did I want to carry it around with me every where I went that day. My waitress Kristen was also beyond gorgeous. Sorry is that appropriate? Just saying. Anyways… go here… now!

A west-​coast friend was in town and we decided to meet at this convenient location which has received very good reviews. I’ve had their pizza but never eaten here. We ordered the sublime prosciutto and fig (half) and spicy sorprasetta (other half). The simple salad was both simple and delicious with a light dressing. The local rolling draft included a blond ale from my fave local brewery, Port City, but had an overly strong flavor for a blond ale which was disappointing.
They seated us at the very top of the three floors. Going up the three flights, the server was kind enough to carry my rolling briefcase but upon departing for the evening no one offered to help unfortunately. Service could have been more attentive to that point when placing customers with «luggage» at the very top of the restaurant.

The best pizza I have had in a very very VERY long time. The interior design and décor is amazing. The booth seating is plush, spacious, and warm. I fell in love with the place immediately, and the wafting smell of a woodoven made my senses go wild. The service here was very kind, courteous, and fairly prompt. What was awesome is that the pizza came out quickly.
I will not lie to you, this pizza was
like I have never had pizza so tasty. I can’t wait to go back. It was a bit pricey, but worth every nickle and dime.

I like this chain, but this outlet had pretty indifferent service on the weekend we gave it a try. Decent burger though. Raspberry tea is painfully sweet.

The service here is attentive, the food is delicious, and the décor is trendy but relaxing. A great place to grab a few drinks and talk with friends. Had the spicy meatball pizza ($ 23 for large). It was tasty and could feed 3 – 4 people. Also had the calamari which had an interesting spicy jelly served with it. The drinks were mixed good and were reasonable prices. Would definitely return!

Great service, AWESOME fig and prosciutto pizza. Omg, the only reason that I didn’t finish it, is because I HAD to let my husband try it. My friend had the spicy meatball pizza and that was delicious as well. So much so, that I had 3 slices (we ate from each other’s plates). The brownie and ice cream was pretty generic. The bartender needs to step his drink game up. I had them remake my drink twice and it was still horrible. We had a party of 16 and the service was awesome, quick, and our glasses were never empty. Oh, and a major plus, CLEAN BATHROOMS!

Lovely lunch house with many choices of great food ! Delicious pizzas with an amazing thin crust that makes it easy to eat an entire pizza !
Cocktails are pretty good too and finish off with the doughnuts

I’ve NEVER left less than a 20% tip… until now, so after tonight I feel compelled to review this location. My boyfriend and I love matchbox and have been to several locations with great service and food at all locations across Nova, MD, and DC.
Tonight we went to the Chinatown location prior to the Caps game and were seated by 7:10. We planned our meals out earlier in the day and were ready to order/​ordered our food and drinks by 7:15. Our drinks came promptly but there was no sign of our food until after 7:45 when we began begging for it. Even after dropping the food off our server promised to bring the sauces «paired with our food» momentarily as he said he had just left them in the kitchen.
We waited. Sadly, the sauces never came despite trying to get his attention for the next 10 – 15 minutes. Ultimately we gave up and ate our then cold and very dry meals sans ketchup/​remoulade.
By 8:10 we were late for the game. We finally managed to flag him down and asked for our check and left as quickly as possible.
Really nice server, really terrible meal and service. Not sure if it was because the game was coming up, but we watched a new table get seated and served dinner and after-​dinner tea in the time we were hoping for our meals to finally arrive.
Just a real bummer considering how hungry we were and how much we usually love matchbox.

Have been a patron at Matchbox Chinatown since it opened so many years ago (at least it feels like it’s been so many years). This was the flagship store before all the other stores opened around the DC area (and the U.S.!) Pizzas are always solid – you can count on a good pie here. And the rest of the menu, the «bistro menu» is solid as well. we had our annual office holiday lunch here and the restaurant was happy to accommodate all 11 of us upstairs, above the pizza oven in the ‘new’ wing. Great service, great food, and great afternoon cocktails and beer. Everyone in our party, including me, was satisfied. I’ve had the opportunity to sample the menu over the years and there are not many items I would not have again. Good job Matchbox. Keep it up.

Great pizza! Ate there 3 meals in a row, due to #SnowMageddon2016! The meat pizza and spicy meatball were so good. Definitely worth a visit.

Sorry to say this but this was the worst pizza I’ve ever had. Ordered the meatball & white prosciutto. Both lacked cohesion. Looks they they threw some olives and prosciutto on it and called it a day. Not worth $ 25 a pop.

Great pizza, really great. Go for the Spicy Meatball Pizza.
Check the specials, last time we were in they had a stuffed fried chicken, ridiculously good.
Solid beer selection, they usually have two rotating handles that are pretty good.
Lastly it’s a great location, check out a Caps game and walk to/​from this place for drinks and food.

Great food, great service
Came to lunch and had such a wonderful experience. Our server Allie was so delightful, and knowledgable about the menu, we had a million questions and she was able to lead us in the right direction.
We started with the crab avocado tower– SO good, definitely good for sharing. Then we got the ahi tuna salad and the gig and prosciutto pizza at the recommendation of our server. Both were delicious, so many favors and so much food for your money.
We were also visited by a manager, Dave, who checked in how everything was going, and he was a delight too! He recommended the special brownie which came with pumpkin gelato and candied pecans. Oh man. He was so right. So good.
Thanks matchbox! Will definitely be back soon!

We continue to love this place. We cannot go to DC without going to a Matchbox!
TIP: They open at 10 on the weekends and we have never had a problem getting in before noon. Best part is they serve their full menu as well as the brunch menu… choices, choices!
This time they sat us upstairs in a new area. Nice to see that they care to upgrade.
EVERYthing we’ve ever had is good, and this time was no exception. We started by sharing three sliders with smoked gouda. All the times we’ve been and our Server Gal managed to tell us something we didn’t know: you can get half fries and half onion straws. Well, okay then! The presentation doesn’t have the wow factor of all onion straws, but it was nice to have the extra variety. Our tiny sliders were exactly medium as requested, and quite juicy.
Next, we had to have a pizza, so we shared a small one with half spicy meatball and half pepperoni with banana peppers.
sigh, the perfect breakfast! :)
TIP: Don’t forget to grab a chocolate mint and matchbox on the way out.

Location: oh how I hate the parking in gallery place… you can drive around forever looking for parking. But it’s a love hate relationship because you are also close to bowling, a movie theater, and the Verizon Center.
Service: It’s always and I mean ALWAYS busy at this location, but I’ve always had good service.
Food: My favorite are the pizzas. And the bartender, I cannot remember the name at the moment, is always very nice and keeps the drinks flowing, even water, lol.

Came here with a friend today for brunch… but didn’t realize that they only have brunch food on the weekends. Settled instead for a bloody mary burger with comes with a fried egg on top — was sort of filling my brunch craving. It comes with a delicious greens salad with a tangy dressing I loved.
We also ordered a 10 inch spicy pepper pizza. If you’re a real spice fanatic don’t worry, this isn’t crazy hot hot but just enough kick to satisfy you.
The other thing I would say was kind of cool was that when I asked for a cocktail recommendation my waiter suggested some type of pomegranate martini that is no longer on the menu. He was able to serve it anyways —- delicious! A must get!!!
I’ve been to matchbox many times and its a good repeat offender. Great service, great food, great atmosphere. Not to mention, it’s super easy to make reservations online.

This is my first Matchbox experience even though the one in Merrifield is much closer. I would rate this experience as a 3.5 if Unilocal allowed that rating.
I arrived earlier than my party as my friends were taking the silver line into DC and I was on the orange line. I killed some time over at Starbucks before heading to finally meet up with them at Matchbox.
My friend had made reservations on the way to Matchbox on her train. I would highly recommend this since this place was slammed. When we arrived it was very busy and somehow they had lost the reservations. Ugh not a good start but they managed to make it work and we were seated within 5 minutes.
We started off with a round of beers as Stella and Devil’s Backbone were part of their happy hour and it was just about to end at 6.
Our table decided to order 6 mini burger to start off with. This was described as hand-​pattied certified angus beef | toasted brioche | pickles | onion straws | gouda, mozzarella or gorgonzola. We ordered all of the mini burgers with gorgonzola except one. The one without cheese was for me since I have dairy issues and already knew we were ordering a pizza with cheese. The burgers were cooked to order and we decided on medium. The burgers were juicy and hit the spot. There was a mass of onion straws on top of our mini burgers. Honestly nothing special but my friends ate them up.
We also had ordered a large prosciutto + black fig pizza that had roasted garlic | mozzarella | gorgonzola | black pepper honey | arugula. Now, this pizza was very unique in flavor and honestly was a hit at our table. The large pizza yielded about 2 slices for 4 people. I think if you have 2 people you could get away with a small pizza and 1 – 2 appetizers (depending on what you order). I believe not everyone would like the chef’s pic pizza selection but for the foodie out there I would give it a try.
I would like to note that our table didn’t have a lightbulb in the light fixture above. We had asked for a lightbulb or more lighting since half the table was quite dark. The waitress said that she wouldn’t be able to give a lightbulb but placed a few candles in front of us. It worked but the light above the table would have been nicer to be honest.

My hubby and I went to Matchbox on a Friday night. We made the mistake of driving there and spent a decent amount of time looking for parking. Our fault. We should have known better. So after parking what seemed like 473 838 blocks away we finally made it to Matchbox.
It was busy but we were sat quickly and in a nice comfy booth. Our server did take a while to great us but was nice enough. She made a few recommendations and then let us go over the menu. I was impressed with the size of their menu. There are lots of choices. And it is kind of hard to figure out what niche they are trying to fit into. There are burgers and mussels and tuna and ribs and sandwiches and pizza. All a bit upscale.
You can find something to everyone but if your like them then your a little overwhelmed with all the choices. We decided to get the fire and smoke pizza, something out server recommended.
My husband is from Texas and can handled the fire of just about anything. I like hot and spicy but to an extent. I don’t want to have to put my mouth out with a fire extinguisher or all the water in the place so I was wary but agreed.
So we got our pizza and it looked great. It had red peppers, onions that were well hidden, chipotle pepper sauce, smoked Gouda. It was hard to cut into and eat without a making a mess. Definitely not a first date kind of pizza if you know what I mean. It was on my upper limits on the fire sides of things — 3
glasses of water was consumed in the eating of the pizza — but the smoke … I’m not sure where it was. I didn’t taste it. So it didn’t deliver on that aspect. But over all it was good.
Staff was nice, pricing was pretty good and things ran smoothly. We will return and trying other things on that big ‘ol menu.

This joint is jumping. It’s really jumping.. I found this place through my dedicated Unilocal.If l haven’t told you that l love you Unilocal my friend l really do! Make no mistake about it. Now this is one of the Popular Restaurants/​Bar/​Family oriented /​cool pizza joints.
That has a lot more on the menu then pizza. Which l didn’t get a chance to try but next time I will. We came here on a Saturday evening. We had made reservations for 4:15pm. Which l highly recommend because when we arrived it wasn’t crowded at all but around 5pm or so this place was pretty much jumping.
When l say that it’s in a good way now. We were seated about three minutes later. They gave us the pager which pretty much went off immediately. So off to our table. We were seated on the upper level which is also nice. Our Server immediately came and introduced herself and now the fun begins…
They were on point from the water to the food and drinks right down to the meal itself. We started off with an appetizer which was the Mussels. .OMGG!!! I loved it.
It had the perfect sauce. It had bacon inside whadddd
Don’t you people know that is my desire, my weakness yes it’s what I loveee. Trust me my fiancé was with me on that one.. Just say if you enjoy Mussels and you’re not a vegetarian this one will definitely deliver, all the way down to every bit of seasoning we wanted it all.
So on to the drinks and entrée. I ordered the Bourbon Crisp. Yessss that drink was refreshing and perfect!
So perfect that I ordered another one and l’m not really a big bourbon drinker but that drink right there. Yummy
to my tummy! ! Now moving on l decided to check out the Mini Trio which is on the appetizer menu as my Entrée with a side order of the crab soup which again was very delicious. It was filled with lump crab meat and was so good and fulfilling. It included two Mini burgers, 2 scallops, two mini crabcakes and straw onion rings. I definitely will be back to this place whenever traveling Downtown to one of the Museum’s because it’s also a a great location and the Gallery Place Metro stop is only about 3 blocks away. So I also had a chance to do some people watching and let someone do the guiding. What fun!

3.5 stars overall. We came for brunch and ordered the following:
Cinnamon buns– very doughy and soft. I wish it was crispier on the outside (like Ann Sathers in Chicago) and thought that I can achieve similar or better with pillsbury.
Shrimp and grits app– sauce was very good. Buttery and savory with bacon bits, tomato and 3 large shrimp. Grits were tasty but the portion was small. I wish they gave you more grits!
Pizza– got the half smoke/​fire and half prosciutto white. Smoke and fire was good and had a nice heat to it. The prosciutto was dried out and the black olives did not help the overall saltiness already.
Try to sit in the outdoor patio or the floor with the glass ceiling! Ambiance is nice and service was attentive and friendly.

Lower your expectations.
I saw 4 stars on Unilocal with 2,300+ reviews and my soul soared with excitement. Most Unilocalers were boasting about the 3−6−9 mini burgers (sliders) and after seeing pictures of the onion string mountains, I was sold.
The mini burgers were good, but they were just burgers. I did add the extra onion strings to my pizza and felt oh so clever and proud as it added just the perfect touch to my meal.
Was good food, but I was expecting a mind blowing meal.

This place can be deceiving from the outside, but once inside, they have 4 floors of dining plus a bar area and a patio area.
And even with all that dining space, this place still gets packed and I recommend getting reservations ahead of time. The wait time around the dinner rush was about 30 minutes. And even with my reservation, I wasn’t seated until after 15 minutes past my reservation time.
And it’s worth coming here for their pizza. I figured going all out with one whole pie for myself and no other entrees would be sufficient for me. Challenge completed. And it was pretty damn good too.
I still had room for dessert and went with their Ice cream Apple crisp. This time, this was an individual serving and finished it with little or no resistance.
Again, the pizza here is pretty awesome.

Saturday night pizza and drinks with my sister. No wait for a table, thanks to an Open Table reservation before we left home.
Drinks: Tried the sweet tea vodka and lemonade. Summer time in a glass!
Pizza: There aren’t many options without pork. They make pizzas split down the middle so if you can’t make up your mind just order half and half. We ordered half marguerite and half prosciutto with figs. But what we got was prosciutto with olives. I alerted the server and he apologized and brought me an individual pizza of the right type. No charge. I appreciated that. It was surprisingly tasty! Had a drizzle of honey and fresh arugula or something on top. Mmm!

I love Matchbox! Since it was a Friday and I wasn’t sure about the crowd, I decided to make reservations for lunch with a friend. We were greeted instantly and seated. Our server was efficient, friendly and very eager to please. She even knew we were saving room for dessert and brought us to-​go containers early in the meal. Smart lady!
I heard plenty about the pizza here, so I tried the chicken and mushroom pizza. Amaze-​Balls! So flavorful and it had plenty of toppings. I also heard the donuts were great! Wrong… they’re excellent! On the menu they’re called donuts and coffee (donuts with a dipping sauce) and they were beyond what I could’ve expected. They were a bit dense, but they weren’t cakey, kind of hard to explain, but delicious!
The décor was very modern and stylish. I loved the see through ceiling and the high table/​chairs on the main level. I am without a doubt coming back to this restaurant to try other items on the menu.