Caliente Pizza & Draft House

Review based on having food and drinks.
First Impression: Dark, very dark. The neon beer signs feel as if they are burning my retinas haha. Well it’s not that bad, from the outside it seems super dark inside. Very busy walls with all kinds of beer signs on the wall.
Service: Came in sat down, and decided what to drink. Had to ask for a food menu, no big deal. Ordered and the pizza came in a very reasonable time, quicker than I expected. Bar staff serves tables (at least on a weekday) so I guess sometimes you can get sort of forgotten or they get overwhelmed with other customers at the bar as well.
Atmosphere: Darker. Average to above average noise. The high tables nearer to where you walk in are quite close to each other which can be considered a little «cozy». Music is playing, not very loud which is nice.
Food: I have got pizza here twice. Both times stuck to a plain cheese pizza. It has not disappointed me yet. It’s just good pizza, and I raise my glass to that. Goes good with a beer and I can’t say I have any problem with it other than it’s a pretty good deal.
Drinks: Selection is very good. I always find their beer menu overwhelming rather than informative, as though there is no organization in terms of type of beer. It’s nice that they have the descriptions and prices though. Had a $ 3 bottle of Yards IPA (Yards bottle specials on Monday, changes daily). Definitely something for everyone here. They even have Arsenal cider in the speakeasy (downstairs, I believe only Thursday-​Saturdays).
Price: Large to XLarge pizza between $ 10-​$ 13 is an excellent deal. Craft beers are normal prices, average $ 6.50. (Note: Happy Hour Monday-​Friday 4:30pm-6:30pm all beers on tap are half off, that is definitely worth it.)
Restrooms: Nothing special, an average fairly clean one.
Overall: It’s good, I just feel really frazzled when I go here. The beer menu as well as the atmosphere seems all over the place. I will come back, but it won’t become my watering hole.

I was here for the Belgian Tap Takeover and had a few too many Fat Tires.
It’s a really small place, but it’s cozy and the staff is friendly. And while I can’t speak to the food, the fact that they had a fun, hip event makes Caliente’s a pretty awesome place.

Meh. It was recommended by a friend for great pizza, but I found it to be standard, no frills, so so, pizza sold by all the delivery shops along Penn and Liberty. OK, if not odd, craft beer selection offered at high prices ($ 8 – 9 for tulips or sniffers). Good cheerful service saved this place from two stars.

I feel compelled to give Caliente a glowing review, because this place has one of the best-​curated, most interesting draft beer lists in town. Perhaps the very best. It is a must-​stop location for Pgh beer lovers. Add to that they have half-​priced craft drafts from 4:30 — 6:30 on week nights, which makes a good thing ridiculously great.
Food-​wise, it has solid pizza and bar food. It wasn’t special, but it was satisfying. Did I mention the beer??? Go for that.

Whenever I go to a new city, beer and wine spots are the first things I look for. I happened to stumble across Caliente Pizza by accident while searching for a winery. It popped up on google maps and I was like pizza AND draft beers — hello heaven. I clicked on the link and was immediately drawn in by the draft list. It was beautiful. Then I saw a picture of the pizza and I was sold. I like to pride myself in being a self proclaimed pizza connoisseur and my husband loves beer so we knew we had to try this place. I sent them a tweet in my excitement and they replied to me a few hours later seeming equally as excited (I love when places interact with their customers on social media!)
So we show up on a Friday night and the place is packed, but we expected it. It’s Friday and they had a special flight night going on. We get seated within a few minutes in the downstairs basement area that has another bar and some TVs. It was great. I ordered a half cheese and half pepperoni pizza (I like to judge a pizza place by how well they can do a basic style) and my husband got a steak calzone. My pizza was pretty good, but the crust was a little lacking in flavor so I asked for a side of ranch dressing, which is house made and fantastic, and BAM that pizza was perfect. Now, pizza and ranch may not be your thing but seriously try it. My husband’s calzone took a little longer than we would have liked but again it was a busy Friday night and calzones take longer to cook by nature so he just kept chugging along with his flight of beer and stole a few bites of my pizza. All was well.
The best part is that one of the owners saw my check-​in/​tweet about being at Caliente and stopped by our table to ask how everything was. HOW IS THAT FOR SERVICE? Angie was a sweetheart and Caliente pizza will be a MUST STOP place for us anytime we are in Pittsburgh.

Their pizza is super delicious and reasonably price! A fun place to watch the pens game and to have some beer and pizza! Friendly staff, too! Check it out!

It’s sad to write this review because we are first timers here. My husband loves craft beer and I like cider. They only had two ciders, and one was out. Then I tried the other, after one glass that was out also.
Moving on to the food. We asked our waitress (who was nice but had friends at the next table so was less than attentive to us) what a good one would be. We were debating between fried zucchini and cheesy bread– well, we got both for some reason. We didn’t order both, but because of the waitress paying attention to her friends I don’t believe she was paying much attention to our order. Sadly, we didn’t try the pizza after two appetizers.
I watched the waitress serve the table in front of us (that she knew) free drink after free drink, but couldn’t remember to bring us napkins. It was mostly because she was socializing with her friends about getting high and reminiscing. I don’t mind if you know people, but please give others the same service.
I asked for wine, they only had two reds and a white. I took the white, and then we decided to leave after that. We still had no napkins, or refills on water. Overall, the atmosphere is hot, small, and personally good if you know the workers. If you don’t know the workers, you might be fucked.

I visited last night around 6pm with a friend to check Caliente out, since I’d never been before and had a City Dining Card. Our visit got off to a poor start when my friend and I went to order the winter sangria that was the daily special, and were told they were out (it’s not like it was super late). I eventually ended up ordering a sour peach lambic that was interesting, if pricey ($ 7.50 – I could have had a cocktail at that price), and my friend ordered nothing but water.
For our food, we ordered the following: Cajun fries ($ 5.99), cheesy bread sticks ($ 6.99), and 16″ chicken ranchero pizza ($ 16.99). Shortly after taking our order, our waiter returned to inform us that the kitchen was out of salsa for the fries (???). He told us the fries also come with nacho cheese, so I asked him to put it on the side for us. In my experience, Cajun fries are fries with a Cajun spice rub, and do not include salsa or nacho cheese (maybe these were Eastern Texan Cajun fries?). I was glad I ordered the nacho cheese on the side, because my friend and I agreed that it tasted weird with the Cajun rub. The Cajun rub itself was good, but the fries were pretty greasy, with some sticking together, so be forewarned of this.
As for the breadsticks and pizza, they were less than impressive. Since they both include crust and cheese, they tasted pretty similar, and the amount of bacon on the breadsticks was less than impressive. I didn’t find them particularly flavorful, and the marinara sauce that comes with them was watery. The pizza was a bit better on the flavor front due to the ranch dressing, but the amount of chicken was less than impressive. The crust of the pizza is thick, and the overall effect and flavor reminded me of Bites and Brews’ pizza, which I also find mediocre. The fact that we only finished about (and took) half of it is evidence that both of us found it unimpressive.
Needless to say, my friend and I were less than impressed with Caliente. Now that I’ve used my City Dining Card, I probably won’t return, given the number of better pizza places in PGH. One positive is that they do have good happy hour specials, so if you want cheap food and drinks, this may be your place. However, if you’re looking for quality, I suggest that you go elsewhere.

I can’t believe Caliente only has 3 stars! They have one of the best happy hours in Pittsburgh: half off craft drafts and $ 5 one-​topping personal pizzas from 4:30−630pm weekdays. They have also have daily beer specials. This is definitely a craft beer lover’s paradise. They have the most unique selection of brews in the Burgh. They support local breweries by keeping them in tap and collaborating on brews and events. They also serve beers that are seemingly nowhere else in town. The pizza and calzones are delicious, but that’s the extent of food that I’ve tried. One woman who works there is miserable (I’ve never seen her smile), but she is an exception to the rule.
With the great beer, pizza, and deals, I will keep coming back.

I ordered an Italian calzone and a buffalo chicken salad for delivery. They arrived in about 45 minutes, which given that it was a Saturday I thought was reasonable. The delivery guy was very nice and polite and called me as he got to the front door of my building.
The calzone was huge – imagine a medium sized pizza folded in half. It was actually delivered in a pizza box. It has lots of ricotta and mozzarella cheese, plus some Italian meats. The bread part of the calzone was very good.
The buffalo chicken salad was also a quite generous portion and was exactly as described: mixed greens (arugula, baby spinach, etc.), red onion, green bell pepper, french fries, grilled chicken tossed w/​buffalo hot sauce and cheddar cheese. I got the homemade ranch dressing and it was really good.
I thought given the portion size, the freshness of the ingredients, and the fact that the calzone was made from scratch (the dough, sauce, etc.) it was reasonable. It will easily be 3 meals for me.

I can’t speak for their famous pizza as I, nor anyone in my group had one.
I can speak for their fries, which are a bit of a mixed bag. Some were damn near perfect, deliciously golden brown.
Others were soggy and undercooked. Which I find odd, as the food took quite some time to reach out table.
Overall I would return, but I’m in no rush.

Atmosphere is very cool, great staff, great beer selection, decent Italian-​style bar food. Biggest hit here is the one to my wallet. Most of the beer selection was offered only in a tulip glass and ranged from $ 7 – 8.50 for a portion significantly smaller than a pint. BUT, the selection is extensive and has several local brews. Several televisions within a small place which is good for watching sports.
Would and should be a 4ish… I do recommend it though.

Great pizza! Crust was perfectly fine, not too hard, no burnt pieces. Large has 8 cuts, plenty for a family of 4. You knew its his when the table is quiet :-)
I had the Blues Brothers wings. I really liked them. It was hit sauce mixed with ranch and blue cheese.
The loaded French fries were tasty! Fresh cut with cheese and bacon. Will def come back!

Another dime a dozen Pittsburgh small pizza shop. Paid $ 6 for a slice of red velvet cake and received a tiny piece, was barely an inch wide at the widest spot. Paid $ 5.49 for an order of breaded zucchini and got maybe 8 thin strips, much less than most places I’ve gotten it from.
A big ripoff and does nothing to differentiate itself from the 80% of Pittsburgh Pizza shops that are on a similar level.

My coworkers and I order from here every once in a while. There are WAY better places, and from this last experience, I will be ordering elsewhere if ordering my lunch at work.
Their pizza is pretty good. They have a really great selection of different specialty pizzas too, so if you do order from here, I recommend pizza.
Today, I decided to order a burger. I swear it was not even edible. The meat is weird, the cheese was practically nonexistent, the bun was mushy, and the toppings were not fresh.
Their French fries are edible, but they’re always soggy.
They also give us a hard time about ordering separate orders, even if there is only two of us! They charge a delivery fee to each order, and their food is expensive to begin with.
I have never eaten inside or experienced their beer selection, but from my experiences, I will be ordering elsewhere, as this was never my favorite place to order anyways.

Hands down best beer selection in Pittsburgh. Can be pricy for drafts but from 430 – 630 all drafts ate half off making them more than reasonable. Also have at least one beer or brewery on special each day. The pizza here is pretty good but definitely not my favorite in the city. Haven’t tried much else on the food menu other than the burger which was decent. If you’re into craft beer though you HAVE to give callientes a try. They make it a point to carry the best selection of bottles and drafts including hard to find brews from across the country. I have come hear for several special tappings (Canadian breakfast stout, bourbon county stout, etc…) and the events have always been well run and gone smoothly. Also they have a recently renovated downstairs bar which is open on busy nights and is great!

Great place for pizza and beer on a Friday night! Caliente’s has a huge selection of draft and bottled beers. I was a little disappointed during my last visit as on draft they mostly had Dogfish Head which I believe was leftover from a special event they had. Also the bottled beer selection was pretty low. This is not typical though and I was still able to try 2 new bottled beers including the Deschutes summer ale which had a nice light flavor. Their pizza is delicious and we went with a medium sized pie with chicken, bacon, tomato, and ranch dressing as well as a small Hawaiian pizza. Both had lots of fresh toppings and even a few slices left to take home. The prices are right but the service is slow– I was surprised by how many waiters and waitresses they had on a Friday night and still it took over 15 – 20 minutes to order and a long waits in between beers.

I like their food inside only. Take-​out from this place is astoundingly bad. They forget everything the dish is supposed to come with. I know food is supposed to be eaten fresh made from kitchen to plate so that’s why I don’t judge too hard on takeout food, but the take-​out service is horrible. The old lady driver that needs to bath is very rude. Bill came and it wasn’t what grub hub had quoted so I told her and she could care less, even after I tipped over 20% before driver fee. If you are driving you still have to represent the company.
Best pepperoni rolls around.

Liz J. and I visited Caliente’s for the first time about a month ago. We were super hungry and wanted to try everything on the menu!
We ordered the loaded fries and breaded zucchini to start. They were both delicious! Although they were amazing, they weren’t anything out of the ordinary when it comes to bar appetizers.
Next, we ordered the buffalo chicken rolls and the jalapeño bacon rolls. I assumed we would be receiving two small orders, since they were only $ 7 each and I became adjusted to receiving small portions of rolls at restaurants.
No. There were six rolls in each order and they were HUGE. I was only able to finish one of each and I was completely stuffed. They were homemade and absolutely amazing. The flavors were awesome and they went deliciously with their homemade ranch.
I was pleasantly surprised with my visit to Caliente’s. I assumed it was going to be just another pizza bar, but it wasn’t at all. Awesome service, a great selection of drafts and OUT of this WORLD rolls! I also ordered pepperoni rolls to go and gave them to my cousin– she loved them too!

Not a fan…
I’ve ordered delivery from here (with coworkers) several times since I work late nights.
The food has never been anything to rave over in my opinion. The last time we ordered, we received half of a pizza that we didn’t order. It might have been fine if it was a whole pizza for free, but it was peculiar.
Additionally, they always forget the ranch… If you love hot wings with ranch, and don’t have any ranch… The wings become pointless.
Also, one of the ‘grubhub’ drivers isn’t very nice. Not sure of her name, but she drives a green car.
Bottom line– it’s open late, they have a lot of options on the menu, and they deliver. We only keep giving chances due to the above.