Mercato’s Restaurant & Pizzeria

They don’t bring out bread, salad is ok, food is ok but service is EXTREMELY SLOW and I would recommend it but not for anything fancy or formal.

Thanks for sending me home with 2 uncooked hot torpedoes! GROSS… I will not ever order from here again, and will be calling this establishment tomorrow and demand my money back!

When frequenting a local establishment on a Saturday night, it’s usually a crap shoot. Some things are good, some things are bad. Mercato’s is no exception.
Two of us arrived around 7:30 pm, and we waited about five minutes to greeted by someone. At least the bar tender could have just said «someone will be right with you». Someone barely said hi and sat us. Not a good start.
I ordered seafood with marinara. He got the chicken parm. Both were actually pretty excellent. We ordered the fried calamari as an app… don’t do that. It was really terrible. The salads the served with dinner were really good.
The service could have been WAY better. Our waitress honestly seemed like she was missing a few candles on her cake. You know, forgetting to put the dressing on the side when requested, not filling up our water, things like that. I had to help myself to our silverware from another table… and this was AFTER our salads were served.
Tonight we got pizza to go. As always, their pizza is amazing. The crust is a little thick and soft, but not like a deep dish pizza. Toppings are always fresh. Cheese and sauce are so tangy.
I would give their food 5 stars and their service 1. Hence my final rating of 3 stars.

To start, I love their pizza, most of the time (more on that later). I frequently crave the slightly tangy cheese, fantastic sauce, and not-​too-​thin, not-​too-​thick crust. Their mozzarella triangles are delicious as well. Most of the other items are mediocre on a good day. The baked pasta dishes are not great, and the serving size is surprisingly small given the price and barely passable taste. I have had better stuffed shells and ravioli from the grocery store, and I don’t mean a fancy or imported brand.
Mercato’s II has issues with consistency. I usually place the exact same order and at least 25% of the time, they get something wrong. They either don’t give me the extra cheese or extra sauce I paid for and/​or the pizza is lukewarm when I pick it up, 15 minutes after calling it in, so I know it wasn’t made for me, and/​or the pizza is barely cooked.
I have had good service and bad service there, but my bigger complaints would be hygiene-​related. I have watched as a waitress cashes someone out, then uses the same hands that were just on money to grab and slice off some bread. No gloves, no tongs, no napkin. Given that the majority of money tests positive for fecal matter, I’m not loving that. The first time I ever got there pizza, there was a dead fly on the bottom of the pizza. No joke. I have eaten here easily a dozen times, and have gotten their pizza as takeout at least fifty times, so my desire to like them is stronger than my negative experiences.
I think their prices are too high for what you get, but I have tried every pizza place/​Italian restaurant in the area and I cannot find one with better pizza, so I pretend I don’t know it may not be sanitary and enjoy the pizza anyway. When they get it right, that is.

The pizza is excellent and the staff work incredibly hard to make sure you have a great meal.

We stopped in with a friend who’d been there many times before. Service was fine and the penne puttanesca was remarkably good.

Worst service we’ve ever experienced!
My family waited more than 10 minutes to so much as be offered drinks. Our waitress, Jenna (tall, blonde), finally rushed past and said, «I’ll be right with you» without pausing or even looking at us but, continued to ignore us for nearly another 5 minutes while she helped others, chatted with a coworker and fiddled with a dry-​erase board in the back, while my 1-​year-​old was quite fussy, wanting nothing more than some water (clearly not a difficult request).
Throughout our entire meal, she avoided eye contact, frowned continuously and ignored our table while other waitresses laughed and chatted with their tables, as good waitresses do. It was as if we were pulling teeth to eventually get another water (I ran out and waited twice for a refill).
When our bill was eventually dropped on the table, it was for more than what the menu quoted. Both my 1-​year-​olds meal and my own were billed for higher than what was printed on the menu.
My husband approached the bartender about this, as the waitress was clearly not interested in assisting our family and we’d had enough of her rude demeanor. The bartender attempted to be helpful but, the owner was rude, dismissive and MADE EXCUSES for the unprofessional waitress, including that «it’s a Friday night and busy» (Friday night, it was but, it was not especially busy, as they had plenty of waitresses present). He continued to try to make excuses about the menu being wrong, in regards to overcharging us, which is illegal. The owner was just as unprofessional as the waitress and made it clear that due to her having been there «3 years», the customer was wrong in his eyes, despite her behavior.
We will absolutely not return here and will not recommend it to anyone. The food itself was not bad but, certainly nothing to write home about. They also advertise burgers on the sign outside but, then list none in their menu. When we inquired about them, the waitress, seeming annoyed, reported that she thought they only had hamburgers and cheeseburgers and they had lettuce and tomato but, seemed unsure of accuracy and wasn’t positive what they cost. If you advertise a food, it really should be available in the menu!

It’s so hard to rate because we’ve had equally as many bad as good experiences. Anything but the pizza is crap. The clientele are rednecks and the waitresses are not attentive. However, their pizza is that good that we put up with it.
Tonight we got a pizza and ½ way through I notice a hair on it. I show it to the waitress, she looks at it and throws it on the floor and she takes the pizza away. A different waitress comes back out with our pizza and tells us it was most definitely not a hair it was cheese… um how would you know when I saw the previous waitress shluff it to the floor? I told her we would either like a new pizza or it taken off our bill. She stormed away with the remaining hair-​ridden pizza in a huffy. SHE WASNT EVEN OUR WAITRESS. Our waitress comes back and we make it clear that we either want a new pizza or it taken off the bill. She comes back with it off the bill and was very nice about it, however why should be have to argue this point? It’s hair, not cheese, and it’s clearly HAIR. You should be ashamed other waitress who butted her nose in unnecessarily and tried to get us to accept back our dirty pizza. How dare you!

I have eaten here many times and I always come back because the food is really good and the staff is super friendly! Great tortellini ala vodka, fried calamari, and linguine with clam sauce.

I arrived on a Sunday afternoon… it was quite, but I was greeted by a friendly hostess, who was also my server. Service was excellent: attentive, friendly and knowledgeable. I had the calamari a la mercato — it is calamari in a broth, which the server pointed out to me in advance. I could have eaten just that with a loaf of bread, as the sauce was good. I also had the veal piccata over ziti. It was perfectly cooked and seasoned, although could have used a bit more color (some diced tomato maybe??). Only complaint — the seats were too soft — I sunk so low I felt like an 8 year old. but I’d go back for sure.

Went here tonight with my family for my dad’s birthday. This was my very first visit but the rest of my family had been here many times before.
Aside from us, there was a party of 13 in the dining room that the waitress was taking care of. That’s it. And yet, the service was incredibly slow.
After we were seated, our waitress didn’t even take our drink orders immediately, she left for several minutes before returning to take the drink orders. After several more minutes she arrived with the drinks and finally took our dinner order (we must have been seated 15 minutes by now). Five more minutes later she returned with my mother’s coffee.
As for the food, I had the stuffed shells. I’ve had them many places and let me tell you, I am still hungry. Most place will give you a big portion of stuffed shells, this place gave three smaller sized shells. The sauce appeared watery, but it got an A+ for taste. The rest of my family didn’t either love or hate their meals, saying they didn’t taste the way they normally do, with watered down being a common phrase they said, as well.
Would I come back? Yes, but I might bring a book with me to read or else I might get rather bored waiting on the service.

For some reason my original review of Mercato’s from Jan 31, 2012 was filtered? Another review critical of them that was posted right around the same time by a repeat customer was also filtered.
We live locally & decided to give Mercato’s another try after two plus years without eating there because of dramatic inconsistencies with their food.
On a Saturday evening in early Jan. 2012, I ordered the «Special» Chicken Sorrento which cost somewhere between $ 17 & $ 19. The chicken had zero flavor, was overcooked, tough & dry, the eggplant was over-​breaded mush. My salad had wilted greens & the appearance it was prepared earlier & sat in a cooler for an extended period of time, it was very cold to the point it was almost frozen.
The children had a pizza which they appeared to enjoy & the waitress did get our order 100% correct but, wasn’t overly attentive. We left there remembering all too well why we don’t eat there any longer & feel we paid twice as much as, the food we were served was worth.
Prior to 2009 we had eaten at Mercato’s quite a few times & did have some good meals but, the bad began to exceed the good experiences to the point we were so disgusted, we decided we wouldn’t give them our business anymore. Perhaps it would have been wiser if I’d stuck to pizza & wings there.

Good little family restaurant. Not the place we would go for «date night», but if you need a place to take the family, it fits the bill.

Mercato’s (this is actually Mercato’s II) is some good workin’ man italian food… good food, good portions, good price. Located in the old Jimmie Casey’s next to the now closed old Burger King on Route 9&20, this place has good service a good bar to watch games and a separate dining room. The service was very good and you can get anything from a pizza to a subsandwich, calzone, or a full dinner.