Il Padrino

Would love to try the food but phone is out of order?!

Holy crap! That was the best meatball sub I’ve ever had! Seriously!
We’d read ahead of time that this place had some nuances that set them ahead of the competition in the area… Such as their ‘signature pizzas’, their ‘ny style thin-​slice, and that they made their sauce ‘off-​site’ and brought it in daily to protect the recipe, but didn’t expect that any of that would make such a diffence for us… We were so wrong!
Gonna keep this review short, but after splitting the grinder, we ordered a «Chicken Parm SIgnature Pizza»… It was incredibly tasty and we devoured it.
***** This place is small, unassuming, and unpretentious… A true gem in Pacific Beach. So happy we went there… Just wish we had one closer to home!

I was surprised by how good this place was (I don’t have high expectations for PB food). Considering that they price themselves low, have drink specials, and late night cheap eats on Fri/​Sat, I really wasn’t expecting much walking in. I left thinking this would be my spot every other time I hit up PB.
Their’s a wide variety of pizza flavors. I ordered the fajita and gave them a funny look when they said it didn’t have sauce. A pizza with no sauce? Went for it anyways and split the meat as chicken and steak (instead of hamburger). I was happy with the whole slice. It’s a good slice of pizza and amazing considering it’s supposed to be drunk food.
The garlic bread knots are good as well. They don’t make them huge so it’s actually possible to eat an order along with your pizza.
Oh, and service is good. The guy was genuinely helpful in providing useful ordering information and was cheerful while helping. These guys help PB. Keep it up!

perfect place for drunchies! open pretty late and we got poker chips for a promo coupon for 99cent pizza slices! LOVE the buffalo chicken & bbq chicken! the pizza is thin crust and HOT (i hate when you get ur pizza & its not super hot…)
oh & i’ve been here sober too, so take my word, their pizza is amazing!

Heard about it from LivingSocial. It was just… ok. I wouldn’t go through the hassle of going to PB to get to it though. And if I was in the area… I’d probably go somewhere else.
It was good food but nothing to rave over. Besides, the service was slow, forgetful and spacey.
+/​-​Meatball slider $ 2.99: the meatball was good. The presentation made me feel like I wasn’t getting my money’s worth, but it’s pretty normal to get an appetizer this size for this price.
+/​-​Garlic knots $ 3.00: Also, presentation made it seem like we were getting less for our money. The knots were ok. Little, greasy balls of baked dough.
+/​-​Caesar salad $ 6.25: Hmm… the lettuce was fresh, the dressing was ok… the croutons weren’t soggy… but for some reason, it was just ok.
+ Boardwalk $ 17.99 for a 14″: white sauce, tomatoes, spinach, eggplant (breaded and deep fried to a crisp), chicken, bacon, roasted red peppers. Took the leftovers and grilled it over hardwood charcoal and it was awesome. The actual pizza was ok, but… needed garlic or some kind of aromatic flavor.

You should go here. I’m an east coaster and this is real pizza.
I’ve kinda slept on this place because I’m not on this side of PB that often. But I was with some friends on Saturday early evening and we needed some quick grub, so we decided to check it out.
Hollis was our server (at least according to the receipt) and she was super nice/​on it. Beer selection is solid and we had some custom slices made up based on what was in the counter and what two of our friends really wanted (egg plant!).
Food came out in the perfect amount of time for each of us to finish our beer and have a glass of water.
Meal for four, including beers and a shared app. came in at around $ 33.
If you don’t live in PB, there’s a huge parking lot across the street and depending on the day, probably ok street parking as well.
I’ll be back for sure!

Really good garlic knots!
This place delivers. I had the Chicken Parmesan and it was actually pretty good! It was with Ziti vice Spaghetti noodles which were OK but the Garlic Knots were REALLY GOOD.
It’s nice having a good Italian delivery service in PB, especially for those late nights. The wait was about 45 minutes so don’t order when you’re at that breaking point where you can eat just about anything, order when you’re feeling a little hungry!

Living Social Coupon
–My expectations were high–
My husband got 2 Budlights and I got 1 Stella. Apparently on thursday nights its $ 1 BL and $ 2 Stella… HELL YES.
Pizza was Half Of The Greek One and Half of the Sausage, Bacon, And something lol Anyways the pizza was Eh okay. However on my half there was a hair on it… my husband talked me out of fear but i didn’t eat that slice.
As i was about to finish my beer I found somethings floating in the bottom… come to find out my husbands’ first beer had something floating in it. GROSS!
The bill came and when I pulled out my coupon little did I know that you cannot use it with the beer specials. WELL F***. Here we are first time customers. realizing we came on a good night for beer. So between floaters… hair in the pizza… slow service… watching the employees check facebook… getting screwed on beer… we will not be back. Waste of time and money! Too bad… because as im right this there are alot of 5 star reviews next to this as I type and Im thinking oh well! Im all about first impressions…

The Meatball Grinder is fantastic!!! It’s so filling that you can share AND it’s only $ 7.50!
Last week I tried the Four Cheese pizza with red sauce for the first time and it was DE-​licious. The price was cheap for a 14″ and it filled up my girlfriend and me AND we still had leftovers. I highly recommend ordering your pizza with Garlic Knot crust; although there is a small up-​charge, it’s totally worth it if you like Garlic Knots in the first place! I always do it!
My go-​to pizza is without-​a-​doubt Chicken Parmesan! Soooo goood!

We had the caprese salad, grilled veggie calzone and the maximillian pizza. This would be my ratings for each category:
Service: 4
Caprese salad: 3
Calzone: 4
Pizza: 2
It is a small place in a nice location close to the beach in PB, but I was disappointed in the pizza. It was the worst I can remember in San Diego, as there wasn’t any sauce on it and it was extremely dry. It looked great on the menu and maybe it is our fault for assuming there would be a sauce on it. The salad and calzone were pretty good, but there has to be better pizza options in the surrounding area. I would probably have given this place a 2 if it weren’t for my girlfriend liking it a bit more than me.

Tastes like Red Baron and the only thing East Coast about this place is they had the Yankees game on TV.
Pizza joints nowadays use corn meal to keep their pizzas from sticking to the pan. It’s a practice I frown upon and this place uses so much corn meal that it’s like having pizza on top corn bread! The toppings weren’t that great either. Sausage that had little flavor and pepperoni that wasn’t very spicy.
This place feels more like a wine bar than a pizzeria and its «nook» size makes it hard to get in and out of. I went on a Friday so the few customers they did have were all crowding around the bar. Not very accommodating for ordering or picking up a pizza for carry out.
The owners sure took some liberties when they wrote the content for their web site. Just goes to prove my point that the best looking web sites don’t have the best tasting pizza. I paid $ 19 for a 14″ pizza with 2 toppings. I can definitely refuse that!

This place is DELICIOUS! I wish it wasn’t tucked away on Hornblend so it would get more foot traffic.
Pizza is good and the garlic knots are AMAZING! It’s pretty small but it never gets too crowded (my guess would be because of it’s location.)
Definitely worth checking out! I heard they added some new pastas to the menu so I will definitely be going in to check that out!
They have TV’s so it’s a good place to go chill, eat and watch a game.

Good service — small place but great spot to meet friends and watch games or just grab drinks. The pizza needs some work. I have only been here twice, but once was for just drinks which was great. The second time we decided to grab some pizza and a beer and watch a game. The pizza crust was really flimsy so when you grabbed the slice, the toppings would fall forward or off the slice or you would drip sauce onto yourself. I feel the crust across the bottom should be a little firmer to hold up not only the toppings, but provide you with a clean bite without a fight.
Overall though, I like the neighborhood pizza place concept. It is a hard one to embrace with all the different options that Pacific Beach has to offer, but their pricing is what beats out everyone else.

A great place to hang out & grab good food after a night of drinking because they’re open til 3AM on the weekends! The guys that work here are really friendly & they make a hell of a slice of pizza. 2 slices for $ 5.75 & they are a good size & toasted to perfection. The buffalo chicken was fantastic, a little spicy, just the way I like it. Pepperoni was yummy too.
There’s so many interesting toppings & signature pizzas that all sound pretty good, especially at 1am! I will definitely be making the trek off the beaten path of PB to this place again soon!

Had the meat lovers calzone. Made for a filling dinner and a nice snack later. Thing was «meaty» to say the least. It was really tasty with a good crust. It did seem like the delivery took awhile but I was late on a Friday night so, mehh. I would say that the price was decent also.
Have not tried the Pizza but if you look at the happy hours during the week on their site they have some SMOKING deals. Try IT!

Ok… pretty good pizza
Only thing that bugged me is the menu…
Lots of signature pizzas… but they dont tell you if they have red sauce or not. We order a pizza and to my surprise NO red sauce… If I knew it… I wouldnt have ordered it… I like red sauce.
So when you order a pizza there make sure you ask if it has red sauce or not… the description will not inform you of this most important fact.
Other than that it was good.

Stopped by on a Sunday to get a snack. I was impressed. Although the place is very small, they have four TVs and were showing all of the NFL games.
My wife and I tried the Steak Bomb grinder. They were really nice to split it for us in advance. It was on a very fresh roll with plenty of steak, cheese, onions and peppers. Awesome!
Pitcher of cold tasty domestic beer for $ 8.00. How can you beat that. We stayed and watched part of the Chargers game. I had to try a piece of pizza. Perfect. Crispy cracker like crust. Plenty of fresh tasting topping.
Great food. Excellent service. We will be back for dinner soon. Thank you very much!
Paul

Il Padrino is a great pizza place… definitely my replacement for Hoboken. They have good beer on tap, and lots of unique recipes.
This place is perfect for sports games as well… they have a bunch of TVs, and can put on multiple games. The staff is pretty cute too, I just don’t know if they’re all single… YET!
Btw, this place is open late night, so good to stumble to from Miller’s Field, Firehouse, PB Bar & Grill areas.

This tiny little pizza parlor is pretty darn good for PB. For the most part this neighborhood is underwhelming when it comes to food, but Il Padrino steps it up a notch.
No larger than a small coffee shop the joint has an itty bitty bar and about a total of 6 or so tables. They do slices for reasonable prices and have all sorts of different toppings when it comes to readymade options. On my visit I did a bbq chicken and garlic and eggplant both which I was really happy with. I think it’s the first slices of pizza in PB I was sober enough to give a non beer (taste)bud opinion of.
The location is a little off the main strip so that’s going to hinder them getting a lot of the main Garnet foot traffic, but in my personal opinion they are worth walking a block South. There’s about 3 other pizza places in the «danger zone» but Il Padrino will be the one for me if I need some post bar munchies. There I can relax without hammered college kids all up in my grill, so if that’s not your style take it from me and get there… but just keep in mind they close at midnight.

The atmosphere is really nice and I will have to go back and try their eggplant grinder sometime. Their large Godfather pizza was huge more like two slices, I should have just got the smaller piece as there was tons of cheese and it was filling. Pretty crispy crust but not quite light enough for me. Better than Hoboken, the Old Grille or the other 2 pizza joints on Mission though. Staff were super friendly.