Reilly’s Craft Pizza & Drinks is located on Pennington Street downtown in the old Reilly Funeral Home building across from one of our Top 3 Mexican Restaurants in Tucson.
The owners did a fine job of transforming the funeral home into a contemporary pizzeria while preserving the best features of this 1906 structure. When the Reilly building was completed, Tucson was still a half-dozen years from having its first street paved.
Given the exposed brick walls & century old wood floor, the ambiance is rustic with a bit of Europeans accents, such as vaulted ceiling & fluted columns. Unfortunately, the open spaciousness creates a visually attractive, yet endlessly reverberating echo chamber.
Ms. Karen, Ms. Sue, and I were on time for our Sunday 5:30 dinner reservation in mid-September 2014. The occasion: a show at the Fox Theater a few blocks west on Congress called Stand Up To Stop Violence IV. This was a fundraiser for EMERGE! Center Against Domestic Abuse with David Fitzsimmons, Arizona Daily Star editorial cartoonist, as MC. If you have never been to a “Fitz” performance, you have missed a genuine Tucson treasure … wickedly funny, often amazingly insightful.
Reilly’s Is Amazingly LOUD
The place was about one third full as we were seated. Immediately we realized there was a problem. We couldn’t make out what each of us were saying across our table without shouting, so overwhelming was the din from all the other diners and some noxious noise emanating from the speakers in the ceiling.
We decided to dine at Reilly’s at this particular time for two reasons. First, we wanted to complete our List of the Best Pizzas in Tucson, similar to last year’s Best Burger in Tucson. Given the generally positive so-called “customer” reviews online, it seemed reasonable to include Reilly’s in our evaluation.
Disreputable “Customer” Dining Reviews
(I say “so-called” because we have no idea who actually writes reviews on TripAdvisor, Yelp, and the others. If it’s a positive review, it could have been written by a PR firm working for the restaurant. If it’s a negative review, it could have been written by a competitor. Who really knows? There isn’t even any proof the reviewer actually dined at that particular restaurant.)
Secondly, like most of the new downtown restaurants, we expected Reilly’s to be noisy. We figured, wrongly, that if we went at an off-hour, we could deal with the decibel level. There are several good restaurants downtown, such as Janos Wilder’s Downtown Kitchen & Cocktails. It is located on Sixth Avenue in a fine re-purposed old building beneath one of our favorite art galleries, the Etherton. We have never dined at Downtown Kitchen without going upstairs to marvel at Terry Etherton’s latest exhibition. But unless we can dine there when there are very few customers, we simple don’t go.
I had read where others had a similar complaint about the noise at Reilly’s and management decided the solution was to affix sound-absorbing material to the underside of the chairs. I checked my chair. Yup! My chair had some material under the seat. Ms. Karen & Ms. Sue checked the undercarriage of their respective chairs. Nope! Nada!
Apparently Reilly’s management is not yet serious about dampening the noise level so their customers can engage in pleasant conversation while feasting on a “craft” pizza. For us, it would not matter if Reilly’s had the Best Pizza On Planet Earth, the noise level is just too intense to enjoy dining there.
However, the question before us is this. Is Reilly’s Craft Pizza the Best Pizza in Tucson? In a word, NO! It was OK. Our pizzas had their good points, but overall, Reilly’s pizza will not rank highest on our list. Why?
So, What’s The Problem?
Mainly the crust. Ms. Sue had the Marinara Pizza (not shown on their online menu). I had one topped with fennel sausage and roasted mushrooms. Ms. Karen ordered a Goat Cheese Mezzaluna that she thought was a pizza, but that’s another story.
Unlike the very tasty crust we experienced recently at Tavolino, Sue & I agreed this was not a great crust. While the outer edge was slightly burnt and crispy, the underlying crust was somewhat soggy and tasteless. As I was soon to discover, this was a problem that went beyond taste.
Our pizzas were served on a wood breadboard covered with a sheet of paper. Because the underlying crust was so soggy, it was almost impossible to lift a slice to our mouths without the pointy end sagging toward Middle Earth and sending toppings all over the table and/or floor.
To solve this problem, I used a knife to cut off the first two bites and a fork to transport said morsels to my eagerly awaiting palate. However, our Reilly pizza crusts turned out to be remarkably tough, which necessitated extra exertion. Thus, our knives not only cut through the tough crust but also the underlying paper. By the time I was half way through my pie, my “plate” looked like I had tried to a shred a top-secret NSA document. Would it be too much to serve pizzas on a real plate? It wouldn’t have to be expensive China. But even a plastic plate would be better than paper.
Both Ms. Sue and I rated Reilly’s tomato sauce “very good”. We think the cook included some olive oil in the sauce but not the crust … a mistake in our judgment. Nor did we have any complaint about the toppings … very good and generous.
Now about Ms. Karen’s pizza order that wasn’t. First, two comments about Reilly’s menu. The paper menu that our waitress gave us was not identical to their online menu. This was mainly important because I had reviewed their cocktail menu on line and made a choice before arriving, only to find my choice was no longer available. Oh well …
In the end, we all ordered the same wine, a Pinot Grigio that paired well.
Secondly, on the paper menu, it was not clear when the offerings under Pizzas ended and Pasta offerings began. Thus, Ms. Karen thought she had ordered a pizza, but instead got a pasta dish. When she brought this issue to the attention of our waitress, there was a sad apology and a remark that seemed to say that Ms. Karen was not the first customer to misinterpret the menu in this regard.
Nevertheless, I inquired as to how she liked her pasta dish. “Not so much”, was Ms. Karen’s reply. “Way too oily.” Judging from the pool of the olive oil in the bottom of her bowl, I’d say someone in the kitchen, trying desperately to make up for the lack of olive oil in the pizza crust, poured a bucket of olive oil over her pasta.
Our 3 meals, including one glass of wine each, came to $29 per person, not including tip. Was it worth it? No. However, Neighbor Mike told me that he recently had the same pizza that I ordered and had no problem with the crust.
So, I’ll try Reilly’s again in a year or so and see if they have solved the sound and crust issues. Reilly’s has real potential, and it is open on Sundays. We wish them well.
For more Pizza reviews, please visit our Top 10 Pizza List here.
Reilly Craft Pizza & Drink
101 E Pennington St, Tucson, AZ 85701
(520) 882-5550
