Cafe Europa

on a desperate search for a sports-ish bar in new hope that's not triumph, we ended up here for dinner on monday to catch the flyers game. the place was empty, except for the regulars at the bar. going into a little bar filled with regulars can feel a little weird sometimes, like you're sitting in somebody else's basement. it was like that - but only at first.  (note: they don't get local sports games, since they have satellite.)

the sandwiches are pretty tasty. i recommend the chicken cacciatore sandwich, with chopped chicken, mozzarella, mushrooms, onions, peppers, and red sauce. the chicken cheese steak is nice as well. prices are very reasonable. we ate at the bar but the restaurant side seemed more like a pizzeria than a cafe. apparently they have poker on tuesdays, and there is a pasta special (read: all you can eat) on thursdays.

This place definitely has potential. For take-out, I'd probably rate it a star higher.

The service was friendly and fast, but we were the first customers of the day. I went with family and most of us got a pizza, which turned out to be huge. At around $12 for a medium pie and $2 per topping, it's not the cheapest stuff and the quality certainly reflected that. My cheeseless (too much cheese makes me feel sick) pizza with mushrooms and olives was great-- since it's essentially dough, sauce and toppings, all of these needed to be quality ingredients, and they were. I highly recommend the brick oven-style, and my sister really enjoyed her "bar" personal-sized margharita pizza. My boyfriend got a huge Sicilian (they were out of the smaller size, and upgraded him at no charge). I had a bite, but didn't really care for it...something was off about the dough, but he liked it. Another member of our party had the plain white pizza, which was pretty tasty as well. Anyway, you get the point: the pizza is decent and accommodations were easily made.

The atmosphere, however, is where this place loses stars. I didn't enjoy sitting next to a humming refrigeration unit, and the floors and bathrooms looked a little cheap and dirty. The tables and benches were also off-putting and I couldn't think of a good way to explain it, until my boyfriend said "this reminds me of a pizza place at the shore." The cheap long table and "wooden" plastic benches have their time and place, and that time and place is (and can only ever be) the Jersey shore. The plates fit right in with the dirty shore corner pizza parlor feel. The artwork was somewhat amusing, a combination of Pink Floyd-inspired canvas paintings mounted on the wall, some plastic plaques featuring names of Italian cities, and a creepy fat Italian guy statue looming in the corner amidst some fake plants.

I feel bad bashing the setting, but the pizza is actually good. And I might actually go back if it was a nice sit-down place. But even for takeout, Buckingham Pizza still wins in my book. We went here because my dad had a <a href="/redir?url=http%3A%2F%2Frestaurant.com&s=c5fe485af4df376130bee54f875814d79c4d7913e1258123b1206d2bdbf4873b" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">http://restaurant.com</a> coupon, so if you have one of those, it's no big loss. Overall: meh, but tasty leftovers!

The name of the place is very misleading.  It's not really a cafe.  It's more a beer garden, an inside one.  Europa implies to me something broader than Italian, even though it's Italian.  

Food was pretty good, some nice menu options and some interesting specials.  Unfortunately my white fish wrapped around crab meat wasn't sufficiently cooked on one side, and I didn't have time to complain.  Actually, the portions were generous enough that I didn't mind leaving a bit on my plate.

Very friendly service, a bit hard to find when the place got a bit busy.