Sunday, March 30, 2008

Red's Savoy Inn

Visited on Wednesday, March 26th with Dad K. and Liz

Savoy Inn

Ben's Review
We made a quick impulse decision to go to Red's Savoy Inn last Wednesday. Erin and I came home from work and saw the roofers who were putting a new roof on our house still hard at work, and the yard was a disaster. I looked at Erin as we pulled up and said "I don't want to go in there or deal with this in any way, lets go out to dinner." We sat in the car, thinking of a place on our list, and came up with Red's Savoy Inn.

We arrived around 6pm, I was amazed that the parking lot out back was completely full. I dropped Erin off at the door so we could get a table, while I drove a couple blocks away to find a parking spot on the street.

Walking into Red's on a sunny day is a little disorienting. There are zero windows in the entire restaurant, and the lighting is low. It took me a good thirty seconds before I could actually see anything. Like the parking lot, the restaurant itself was full, but Erin had gotten a table for us, her sister, and her dad. Again, it was weird to see a full restaurant on a Wednesday night, but apparently Red's is a popular place to go after work, there are lots of offices nearby.

Inside

The waitstaff at Red's reminds me of Nye's; all the servers appear to be lifers and nobody looked younger than 55. I get the impression they've been there awhile. If you look at the ceiling you can see the artifacts from when smoking was allowed in restaurants - there's a nasty yellow color over everything.

We had a couple pitchers of beer while we waited for our pizzas, the only relatively interesting beer they have is Amber Bock, other than that its the standard dive bar lineup: Bud, Bud Light,MGD , etc. (but no Miller Lite??). We ordered a regular pepperoni pizza and a large special pizza (pepperoni, sausage, onions, green peppers, we took off the mushrooms and olives). I think the pizza took about 30 minutes to arrive, no big deal when you've got beer.

The pizza is incredible. The crust isn't thin, but has just the right amount of crispiness. It's loaded with cheese. The sausage pieces are practically golf ball sized. My mouth is watering now just thinking about it. My co-worker Scott doesn't even like pizza, but he likes Red's. When we go next time, I'm going to try the pizza with pickles, I'm a huge fan of the pickle pizza at Dulonos, so I bet this one is good as well.

The special
(Large special pizza)

We had about half a pizza left over when we were done, which I had for dinner on Friday. It's good the second time around, but nothing like the first. I will most definitely be going back to Red's.

Red's Ratings:

  • Service: The service was satisfactory, the elder waitress seemed to warm up to us after Erin's dad arrived, it must have been his gray hair.
  • Food: I wish I could think of a better adjective to describe how good the pizza is, but I can't. It's just really f-ing good pizza.
  • Drinks: Standard taps, no Summit though which was disappointing. They do have a full bar though, if that's your thing.
  • Ambiance: It was pretty active on a Wednesday night, I bet its even more so on the weekends. It feels like a VFW inside, a real casual atmosphere.
  • Price: The total was $44 I think. The "special" was $19, the pepperoni was $11, which means the pitchers of beer were $7. NOT BAD :)
  • Convenience: They have a parking lot, but the damn thing was full on a Wednesday. I had to find a spot a couple blocks away.
Savoy Inn

Erin's Review
For some reason, I thought Savoy was a fancy place. I have no idea why, Savoy to me has a fancy connotation. Boy, was I wrong! This place is definitely NOT fancy, for those who had the same idea I did. It wasn't really dirty or anything, except for the previously mentioned yellow ceilings. The booths were all in one piece, and there were some cool murals on the wall too.

Mural on the wall

The service was a little snide - for example, we asked how many people a large pizza fed, and the server rolled her eyes and seemed annoyed at the question. I'm sure that is a pretty common question, I mean, come on. All it says on the menu is "large" and "regular" - I didn't see any mention of how many inches the sizes represented on the menu. For everyone else out there - a regular is plenty for 2, a large would probably serve 3-4. Now you won't have to ask anyone if you go, heaven forbid.

Again, disappointment at the lack of Miller Lite - but my Dad prefers Bud anyway, so it was probably best that we had that since he paid :) And let's be honest - I can't tell the difference anyway.

Bud Light (no Miller here, sad)

The pizza was amazing. Just amazing. I actually didn't really like the huge hunks of sausage, I preferred the pepperoni pizza to the special - but I'm a simpleton when it comes to pizza (and apparently, most everything) I like just pepperoni and nothing else.

Pepperoni
(regular pepperoni pizza)

I'd definitely go back to Red's Savoy Inn - it's really cheap and has a fun atmosphere.

Deets
Red's Savoy Inn (no website that I could find)
421 Seventh St E
St Paul, MN

Highly Recommended