Stellar Pizza & Ale

Great pizza! Great service! Dollar pbrs on Tuesdays? Yes! And a cute girl making pizzas? Check. I'm in a great place.

While visiting Seattle recently (staying at the Georgetown Inn) we decided to visit Stellar Pizza.  The "Vegan Vale" pizza caught my eye, along with the list of drinks.  The pizza was decent and the drinks were good - but what really pleased us, and what ultimately garnered the 5-star review from a tourist point of view, was the atmosphere and staff.

It's a funky, retro restaurant with colors and lights and pictures that create a fantastic vibe (especially while seated in rainbow-striped booths).  The entire staff was incredibly friendly and attentive.  They were happy to let us make modifications to our pizza and we received our food in a relatively timely manner for how busy it became around dinnertime.  I felt welcome and cared for, which is sometimes a rarity in small, popular restaurants with plenty of other guests.  

I will absolutely return to Stellar Pizza (and make sure I'm in Seattle any day other than Monday when they are closed) and highly recommend it as a wonderful local eatery that represents the culture of the Georgetown neighborhood.

Let me start by saying that this place used to be a 4-5 star place and now it has definitely slipped into the 2 star range. I have been to this place around a dozen times over the past few years and it has gotten progressively worse each time I go. The last time we went will be my last.

We came into the place and the sign said to seat ourselves (depending on how busy sometimes it asks you to wait to be seated). Upon selecting the only open booth (needed back support), we sat down and immediately noticed a peculiar smell. Since this is an older building we decided it wasn't bad enough to warrant complaint or moving. We sat for about 5 minutes until we were greeted with water and menus. Since we had already eaten dinner previously we were interested in grabbing a drink and some snacks. I ordered a cup of the soup and my girlfriend ordered a sandwich. My girlfriend got a cocktail and I opted for only water. We received our drinks and began talking and waiting for our food. During the time we were waiting for our food to the time we left, there were several things that bothered us.

1. We saw one of the waitresses cough into here hands several times and then turn around and grab orders and extra plates for customers without ever washing her hands. While she didn't touch the food, she did touch the extra plates that people would be using.
2. After taking out order, the waitress never stopped by the table again until our food was ready. We both ran out of water in the first 5 minutes (it was a HOT day) and didn't get refills. Now we could have stopped the waitress and asked but I often like to see how much they are paying attention and will put my empty glass at the edge of the table in clear view. We saw our waitress stopping to chat with her friends at a nearby booth for 7-10 minute periods at a time. She never once stopped by out table to see if we wanted to order more drinks or needed refills.
3. We heard our waitress complain several times that  she didn't want to be there and would much rather be at home. Trust me, we could tell.
4.The food took about and hour to arrive. Again we ordered soup and a sandwich. They were slightly busy but didn't seem to warrant the long wait. Once we got the food the disappointment continued. A different server than our original waitress brought the sandwich (which was good) and then asked if we had already eaten the soup (out waitress was again at her friends table and seemed oblivious our order was ready). We informed her we had not yet gotten it and she went into the kitchen to grab it. We watched as they put frozen cheese on the soup just prior to serving it. The soup was only luke warm and the cheese was still hard and partially frozen.
4. We finished our food rather fast as we were pretty hungry at this point. Once we finished we piled all the dishes together at the edge of the table along with our napkins and waited. It took about 15 minutes for our original waitress to come over and clear the table and we asked for the check. At this point in time she offered refills and we kindly declined.
5. The overall experience took about 2 hours!

While the pizza is still above average, the service has declined rapidly causing this place to be less than desirable. Even though we live less than a mile away, we will not be back.