The Red Onion Restaurant

The pizza (Mediterranean) is okay, nothing to write home about. A little bland. The Caesar salad was borderline inedible. Good service. Nice people.

At best a 3 star. Now I know it’s an icon of the area… But they need to update and get with the times. A little too grungy dark and mediocre pizza for me. Its always open, a definite plus and they certainly put their years of work and effort into the town. I understand some of their dinners are very good but I’ve only had very average food. Services friendly, above average prices —
Now it’s time to put some money into your place.

A local hangout for tourists and AT hikers alike. We ordered custom pizzas and they were tasty. Service seemed good on a busy Saturday night.

Normally fantastic food and service. Today must have been an off day. Tables weren’t bussed, at least five tables left before being served.
Staff was rude, not normal for them. Very disappointed. Waited about twenty minutes and other tables were served who arrived after us, we ended up leaving.
Hope next time is better, pretty sad :(

We have been coming back to Rangeley for 20 years now. The Red Onion is a favorite. Their pizza is thin and very flavorful. The main dishes aren’t as amazing, typical pasta, meat, and fish dishes, but their chili is to die for. The waiters are a hit or miss usually in terms of service because some are more watchful than others (especially based on what time of day you go) but they are always friendly to us.

Good pizza for a small town. Nothing amazing, but their combo of spices is pretty tasty.

Sad to say this place just can’t get pizza right. Should be great but falls flat. We orders mushroom pesto pizza and my kids could and would not eat it. They are pizza fans. We did get some decent sandwiches to go. On a second visit. But will not go back. It’s not clean and the food lacks.

Came here on my camping trip when everyone said it was a must. It was off-​season, so there were not many people eating. However, our service was quick. Food was good. It was nothing amazing or fancy; but for basically a diner on a mountain, it was pretty solid.

Incredible slow service. Waited over 40 minutes for pizza and a pasta dish. The server did not follow through with refills as requested. That bring said the wait staff was severely understaffed.
The pesto pizza was very tasty but on the oily side. The spinach and garlic ravioli had a thick sauce and very tasty.
Food quality good. Price reasonable. Service bad.

Came here when on vacation, It was a solid eating. We were the only people there and waited a solid amount of time. But the service was nice, friendly, and honest at that. I would come back.

For Anyone who knows Rangeley Maine they will undoubtably know about the Red Onion. I have so many fond memories of this place as a child when I lived in Rangeley for a short time. My family has been vacationing in this town since the 60’s! every time I come I almost always order a pie from the red onion. My advice to you is to stick with the plain cheese pizza. Don’t be afraid to ask for the pizza to be prepared a certain way. I always ask for extra sauce and well done. I also usually order French fries with a side of gravy, my family has been doing this as long as I can remember. Sure it isn’t the best pizza on earth and the service can be slow but for me it’s all part of the Rangeley experience. I find joy in coming back year after year and seeing that some things never change. Rangeley is a town where time doesn’t seem to matter so much, so just kick back relax and enjoy the fact that your in one of the most beautiful places in the world with your friends and family and you are truly blessed and the pizza will taste amazing!

Review based on our tipping system —
It wasn’t that busy when we arrived. There were 3 of us, and we sat outside.
Max score is 7 per item:
ATTENTIVENESS: 1
The server was inattentive, and was extremely hard to find when needed. I had to wander inside to find her.
TIMELINESS: 2
Our food came AFTER several people who arrived before us. Drink refills were slow. Requests took 10 minutes to satisfy.
FOOD QUALITY: 3
The food wasn’t good, but it wasn’t bad either. Typical Sysco food cooked like everyone else does it.
The total score was 6 out of a possible 21.

The Red Onion is a Rangeley icon, having been in business since 1970. The restaurant serves basic fare; pizza, sandwiches, pasta, salads.
I ordered the eggplant parmesan sub. The eggplant is a breaded cutlet, with spaghetti sauce and mozzarella cheese, on a bulkie roll. The eggplant was bland, the sauce nothing special, and the roll so soggy that it basically broke apart and wasn’t edible. The sandwich comes with chips and a pickle and you can add fries for an additional charge.
The dining room seemed dated and threadbare. The service, uninspired.
The Red Onion is obviously a hit with snowmobilers, as the dining room was full, as was the stairwell, where they are asked to set their helmets.
Rangeley has better options for lunch.

I travel a lot and to many parts of the country, and I have been to many different restaurants. I have to say that I had one of the worst customer service experiences I have ever had while dining at this establishment.
My family and I decided to try the Red Onion while vacationing in Rangeley. We ordered 3 pizzas, ham & pineapple, pepperoni, and ½ loaded and ½ meat lovers. The first pizza showed up about 15 minutes later without the other two. About 5 minutes after the first pizza arrived, the next one showed up along with the announcement that the cook messed up our order and never made the 3^rd pizza. It happens. We were assured that it was coming right up. 20 minutes later after everyone was done eating (except me, because I was having the 3^rd pizza) it arrived. I was a little upset at this point, but not overly so. I expected an apology for the mistake and perhaps a discount for the inconvenience. Boy was I wrong. Instead of anything like that, our bill had a charge for 5 pizzas. I thought it must be a mistake and waited for the waitress to come back. Much like some of the other reviews, I soon realized that she was not coming back (she hadn’t filled our drinks anyway without being chased down, so I don’t know why I was expecting her to come back). I finally got up to talk to someone and found out that the bill was not a mistake but that they double charge if you split a pizza into two different styles. So now our $ 15 pizza cost over $ 27 (believe me, it was not that good). I couldn’t believe it and combined with no apology for the mistake or discount for the error, I was upset. The person I was talking to told me to calm down. Unbelievable. She asked me what I wanted her to do, so I told her to show me anywhere on the menu where I should expect that type of charge and handed her the menu. She could not, and then snootily asked what I wanted her to do again. Being a public place, I couldn’t really tell her.
Needless to say, I would avoid this place. Service was poor, and the problems seem to run deep into the management. It seems malicious to me how the pricing is done, and perhaps they hope people won’t notice or won’t be coming back anyway since this is a tourist driven area. There are other choices in the area, and I highly recommend you choose one of them.

This is short and definitely not sweet. My parents have been coming to this place for years. Slow service at 1:30pm so having a lunch boom isn’t an excuse. By slow I mean painfully slow, 30 minutes to order apps, another 30 – 40 min to get em. The pizza was by no means NY style and took another 30 – 45 minutes. If there was a category for crap pizza, this would be on it. 1 point for taking a shot at homemade dough, minus 2 points for the server and prices not being on point.

Eh.
That’s about all I can say about this place.
Went here while on vacation. My boyfriend’s parents have been going here for a while, and it is (or was) their favorite place to get pizza in Maine.
I guess the day we went was an off day.
We arrived around 11:30 on a Thursday. It was a bit crowded, but not too much so. We were seated right away but that was just about the only thing that happened quickly.
It took about 15 minutes for the waitress to get our drink orders. Another 20 minutes for her to take our appetizer order. 15 minutes later we told her we were ready to order our main course, and she said that she hadn’t even put in our appetizers.
Ugh.
The pizza was okay. The crust was flat and cardboard like. Pretty flavorless. The rest of the pizza had pretty good flavor, but without a good crust it is not a good pizza.
Anyway, if this is the best pizza Maine has to offer, I don’t wanna try any other pizza in Maine. I will just stick to the lobsters!

My parents live in rangeley and I have been eating Red Onion pizza for over 25 years! It has always been the best in the area (not that there is a whole lot more pizza joints) Their quality has always been high. Good Pizza and a good environment. What more can you want? They are Very child friendly. Even the other customers seemed happy to see (and entertain) a 2 year old boy!
Thank you Red Onion Restaurant, another 5 star meal!

The Red Onion was okay. We stopped for lunch during a day of looking at the shops and walking around.
Food-​wise it was okay. I had the chicken strips and onion rings and some of my Dad’s Buffalo Chicken salad. All were fine, standard casual dining food. Not too greasy but nothing too memorable. Not many healthy options on the menu.
The thing that got me was the service. All the servers working in there seem to be young people and our server was pretty bad. She couldn’t answer simple questions about the menu like what came with the chicken strips and whether or not there would be an extra charge.
My Mom ordered a Cobb salad and was served a salad that did not resemble a Cobb at all with completely different ingredients than are normal for a Cobb. She asked the server about this and she did not have much to say in response. She didn’t offer to sub out any of the ingredients so it more resembled a classic Cobb salad and did not apologize or offer to make it better. Strange.
There aren’t too many choices when in the small town of Rangeley but I would imagine there have to be better options. If they took their service up a notch to pleasantly friendly and helpful it would be much better.

I’ve only ordered take-​out pizza from here twice while staying Rangeley so I don’t have too much to go on, but I agree with many of the other reviews here that the pizza is really just mediocre. My guess is that things at the Red Onion have been the same for a while – the menu, ingredients, recipes, etc… I really think Red Onion should first and foremost revisit their dough recipe. I don’t know what changes they can make as the tap water coming into the restaurant is a crucial part, but they need to do something to improve it. The place certainly seems to have decent business, but I think there’s room for improvement in almost every area.