Native New Yorker

Note: I actually wrote this a few months ago when the Surprise location had just re-opened.  We've been there several times since and my review stands as is.

I used to love the Native New Yorker years ago because I didn't used to live in Phoenix.  Going there meant flying out to Phoenix from San Diego with a friend of mine, picking up his girlfriend and her roommate (who eventually became "The Wife") for a double date of cheap wings and ribs and pitcher after pitcher of cold beer.  I guess you could say I have kind of an emotional attachment to the place because of all the good times I had there while dating The Wife.

Fast forward 13 years.  The Wife and I have eaten there off and on at various locations and always recall the fun times we had there before hitting the bars and clubs on Saturday nights.  Since then we've tried just about everything on the menu and always had a good time.

With all that said, you can imagine my disappointment with the last 3 visits to the Surprise location.  The food was still good, but the service was horrible.  So much so, that the last time we went, we ended up walking out completely unnoticed by the staff. We sat for nearly 20 minutes with only glasses of water, waiting for someone to take our orders.  We had been seated by the hostess and she said "Your server will be right with you" and that was it.  We never saw him/her.  We asked 2 other servers for help and the both said "Sure, I'll be right with you" and it never happened. We were actually glad when it closed.  I thought they deserved it for the decline in their service and the horrible treatment we had there.

So last week I found myself at the Surprise location once again, just 1 day after the grand Re-Opening with new management.  I was leery, but The Wife wanted to give it one more chance "For old times' sake"
The place was about  1/2 full and we were greeted at the door and seated promptly.  The hostess said "Your server will be right with you" and I thought "Uh oh, Déjà Vu all over again!" but lo and behold!  She came right over.  She seemed a little nervous so I asked her if she had been working there long (trying to see if she was with the previous staff) and she said no, this was her second day and that the staff was all new, except one server (who I recognized) from the old management.
The food is still the same.  The pizza is good (I tried a slice from The Boys plate) and The Wife said the chicken pesto was excellent. I had the linguine with meat sauce which had plenty of seasoned ground beef, fresh carrots, onions and celery with an order of meatballs on the side.  For some reason the kitchen doubled my meatball order and our server brought out 4 instead of 2.  Our server was already aware of the mistake and said "Keep them, on the house!" and I had lunch for the next day free of charge.
I have to say I was really impressed with the service.  Our server was quick, attentive and very friendly.  She earned a huge tip and deservedly so.  As much as I was glad to see the place close I'm really glad we have our "old" place back.

We ordered takeout pizza and wings from Native New Yorker the other night.  I know it's a national chain but I've been to other locations with family a few times and it wasn't a bad experience.  They're chicken wings are actually quite good especially the oriental garlic.

So we ordered about 24 wings a buffalo beast pizza which is if I remember correctly, sausage, pepperoni, salami and meatballs, (pretty much lots of meat) what apparently the girl who took my order heard was buffalo chicken.

I picked up the food about 10 minutes away from my house, got home to find we had the wrong pizza.  I was initially upset so I called the restaurant and aftering being put on hold for a minute or two, I was in touch with a manager.  The manager after clarifying my order, offered to remake the pizza, I explained I really didn't feel like driving back and was quite hungry.  instead he took down my name and phone number and asked me to ask for a manager and to give my name and number the next time I call and they would credit me a free pizza.

Nontheless we we're hungry so we picked off the offending ingredients from the pizza we got and ate some of it, and the wings actually turned out pretty decent for take out.

A solid 3 for the manager acting accordingly in this situation.

I should have read reviews before heading here. I had heard from several folks that this was a good place to eat, and we had heard that the wings were out of this world. Yeah, not quite.

First of all, the ambiance is not that great. Lots of small, loud children.

The service was very average. We had three servers ask us if we had been helped yet, which I suppose is a good thing, but they all seemed very confused and not sure if we were their table. But good that they asked. Our actual server took quite a while to greet us, and of course he forgot my water. Brought the beer though!

We started with wings and we wanted to split them...two flavors. At first he told us we couldn't do that, even though it says right on the menu that you can. He made it seem as though he was doing us a favor by splitting them for us! They tasted more like chicken fingers and not wings. Way too much breading.

I had the California burger, hubby had the fish and chips. The burger was overdone, but I expected it would be so I ordered it medium to get it to medium well. It was well done. Thankfully I didn't order well done! Otherwise it wasn't bad for this kind of place. I also order the potato chips as a side since they make them there. The chips were burnt.  The fish was seriously over breaded (apparently they like doing that here) and way too big. The baked potato and cole slaw...very average.

Now all that being said.....our bill was very cheap ($33) and that included two beers, wings, and two entrees.

Want cheap food and average service? Go here! Otherwise, try somewhere else.