McLean Pizza

I’ve never understood the fascination with this place. Mediocre at best.

Love this place! The All American is my favorite. Customer service is excellent! Never disappointed.

The food is okay but not spectacular. They have food on the menu they no longer serve and the pasta they do have is not homemade but not too bad. It’s exactly what you’d expect in a cheap Italian food joint. I’ve both eaten in and ordered take out. Customer service is lacking quite a bit and they had some chick answering the phone taking orders that really needs a class in phone etiquette but then again, it’s a cheap Italian joint so you get what you pay for. This is my go to Italian place when I don’t wanna spend a lot and care about the quality of the food. This place won’t last at the rate their going so enjoy while it lasts…

Reminds me of home (Buffalo) you walk in to décor from a time before they cared about it. Noticed a weird smell however sat down anyway. I had the steak and cheese my friend had the chicken and cheese. Phenomenal food old school crinkle cut fries. I believe a true testament to how good the restaurant is the customers. We were there for lunch and I can say there wasn’t but 2 customers out of 15 in the place under 3 bills. Great food great servings size.

The best pizza in town hands down plus the gyro and steak & cheese are also deliscious… me and my work crew will definitely be back. Antonio

Know my sorrow as I write this — — the obituary of an iconic McLean social-​culinary fixture. I mean, this place, *THIS** place! I made a little fun of it (with LOVE) in 2009 because as much as I worshipped it, I always thought we’d have more time together. I thought it would be okay to jibe them a little on reaching too far and EPIC FAILING on seafood, but c’mon — just sisterly teasing! We have been together for so long! If the end was near, I thought I had time to say goodbye. But its death happened quickly, without any notice, in the form of a sale to new owners.
Luckily, it’s kind of comical, too.
I know what we’re getting. It’s what we always get; the American Favorite. But there is some unrest in my household and there is a debate on what the 2^nd pizza should be. Ok, some kind of customization. Kids! So I have to go online and consult the menu. And while there, look, super, you get a FREE 8 inch pizza when you order 2 large pizzas which is what we always get, so SCORE, an extra pizza for my ravenous hordes!
Call McLean Pizza. (And new owners, wish you all the best — — no hard feelings.)
MP: This is McLean Pizza (or whatever they say)
Me: Hi! I would like to order a large American Favorite and a large (whatever the kids concocted) Oh, and I have a coupon for a free 8 inch pizza with that.
MP: A coupon? Hold on. (She leaves the phone wide open and uncovered as she has the following conversation.) «This woman says she has a coupon.» Someone says to her, «Tell her that’s expired. That’s an old take-​out menu.» She repeats same to me.
Me: Oh, I don’t have one of the take out menus. It’s on your website.
MP: «She says it’s on our website» Someone says, «Tell her that’s not our website»
Yes, GOOD PLAN, Penguin and Joker, tell me that the website with your name, your menu, your picture, your address and the phone number I dialed to place my order is not yours. HAHAHAHAHA I mean, I HAD TO LAUGH!
But I didn’t say that. I said, hey, ok, that’s alright. I mean, give a brother a break.
So I pick up my 2 pizzas to the tune of $ 50, get home and they are BOTH soggy and BURNT. How do you do SOGGY and BURNT?
Anyway, MP, we spent about 40 lovely years together, so I will remember and cherish the good times together. RIP, McLean Pizza.

Drove here from DC for the Sicilian pie. Worth the trip. Excellent value, taste. What more can you ask for?

Service was fast and friendly. The pizza was okay, the crust was undercooked. Average flavor for the sauce. The chicken wings were small the hot sauce was gross and simply bad tasting. I would not recommend this place.

I usually come here for pizza b/​c I want to support a local, non chain business. I think there was a recent ownership change here.
I ordered a Sicilian pie with half snausage and half pepperoni. The box came out super heavy. After I got home, the box was half soaked with grease and the cheese slid off to one side of the pie.
This place just puts too much cheese on the pizza. I’m not sure it’s good cheese either since experts say that good cheese shouldn’t have this much grease.
Overall, it tasted OK, but I may have to consider other options next time. Service wasn’t that friendly from the cashier and when I called in the order, she didn’t have her act together as she was trying to straighten out something with the help while making me wait.

First time trying their pizza. Only took about 12 minutes from ordering a 13 inch meat lovers to getting my pizza to go. Pizza was really good! The crust could have been a little crisper, but that was probably from the travel time in the pizza box. All and all I’m sorry I hadn’t tried them sooner. Cost was $ 19 plus change, not bad for a freshly made pizza.

I love their pizza, gyro sandwiches and their very generous portions of French fries! The to-​go service is very quick and efficient too!

I’ve been to McLean Pizza about four times now. I want to imagine I enjoyed it more than other pizzas in the area, but I keep sensing that instead of pizza, I’m tasting faded greatness. They have the molded laminate seating, the oddly dark dining area, and the obtrusive cash register station of so many other great pizza places I remember.
I’m sure the current employees work hard (as do most restauranteurs) but I gather that this place was better in the past, when some mystical original owner was hard at work, somehow not needing to sleep like a normal human but able to remain friendly and alert. For example, I think that this mystical owner would have noticed that high-​school carwashes have websites, so now having one for a pizza place seems kind of short-​sighted. Still without any intimate knowledge of what has gone missing, I noticed the lack in the food.
The pizza is relatively inexpensive, comes in three sizes measured by inches rather than some ridiculously plastic definition of small, medium, and large… I’m looking at you soda cup manufacturers! It has enough cheese, and the toppings are okay. I think the sauce is a bit spicy — I prefer sauce not salsa. The dough, though, is somehow… bland. It looks good but I bite into the pizza and sense a recipe that has been used for decades, but with changes in suppliers and tastes now feels like a copy of a copy. I suspect the dough recipe may soon succumb to wild fluxuations and experimentation — as if we were watching a dying star, being kneaded around in the big Hobart mixer.
If you are not a pizza snob, or can’t afford to be a pizza snob, I think you’ll find the pizza good. They are fast, friendly without being obnoxious, and despite a lack of understanding of inflation or basic math by other reviewers, relatively inexpensive. Just save the postcard home for another topic, and don’t let anyone like me know you are going.

Tasty pizza by the slice for lunch. Indoor and outdoor seating (The outdoor seating is next to the parking lot, but hey, its outdoor seating.) You seat yourself in the cozy dining room. The wait staff is courteous and quick.

great service, fast delivery, we always get exactly what we order.

Food is ok, but service is the worst. I ordered takeout on a Friday. When I showed up I was told my order was not ready, even though I saw an order that looked like mine behind the cashier. I waited for a while and then asked if I could just pay for my order so I could leave when it was ready. I was told no, that they needed the ticket so I could pay. After waiting again the cashier finally asked what I ordered. He then turned around and picked up the food that had been sitting there since before I arrived and said «Oh this just came up, here is your order»
The food is not good enough to overcome the bad service. I will not go there again.

Good for delivery service. Never been there but their pizza tastes great at home!
I have tried some dishes too, but was not very satisfied with them; for example, the veal pasta comes with this frozen kind of breaded veal that tasted like frozen food… Hmmm you know what I mean?
Oh, lasagna was not bad.

This place is a health code nightmare.
I have tried for several years to like this place but it just never changes.
When you order they treat you like they are doing you a favor.
Reminiscent of the soup nazi from Seinfeld but not funny…
Food 1
Service 0
Cleanliness 0
Bathrooms smell like a sewer pipe broke in there.

I like this place. I especially like that it’s within walking distance of home, which got it an extra star!
I only had the Italian Pizza which comes with spinach and fresh tomatoes on top, and was surprised at how fresh the pizza tasted. Very good flavor, but the crust was a little soggy in the middle which is a shame.
The interior is like an aging roadside diner plopped into the center of Mclean which is cool. The customers seemed to be regulars by the way they interacted with the staff, and the local po-​po was in there having a pizza too. Seems to be a nice community atmosphere and I enjoy being in places like this.
Overall this is a hit for Mclean, I’ll be back.

Joining in the Fenny’s Fling (trying to help you find a name, James), I entered the restaurant that I’ve driven by on more than 1,000 trips to McLean since I’ve moved here. I entered the place not sure what to expect… and it’s good I wasn’t expecting much.
The restaurant is certainly homey — it’s characteristic of many of the McLean district businesses that have survived over time. Right up there with McLean family restaurant, you come here for the ability to just slip into something comfortable and not worry about overpriced food, stuff waiters, or douchey clientele.
I ordered some hot wings to take the edge off of my hunger before I had to take my dog to the vet (he ate a mouse and got the runs). Sauce came on the side. Plus? The wings were hot. Minus? Not quite what I like in a hot wing.
The only thing I can think of that would be a detracter from the place is that the bathrooms look horrible — I was afraid to take a crap there when the urge hit. Plus, I was able to hear Fenny through the walls of the place and the stall walls as well. Of course, to honor her, I promptly Twittered it for her enjoyment since she’s glued to that stuff like a frat boy to nattie light.
Not sure I’d do takeout from here, but if I’m looking for something low key to relax in and chat with a few friends away from the hustle and bustle, this would be a candidate.

It was one of those things. I was on Unilocal,innocently browsing through reviews, sending off compliments and clicking on UFCs, when I see a new review show up on the front page. It was for McLean Pizza. The reviews were all favorable, praising the relaxed «pizza parlor» feel, and the deliciousness of the food. Plus, they have wine (I don’t drink beer)! H’mm, I thought — I haven’t had pizza in quite a while, but I can’t possibly dine on pizza *alone*. I will gorge myself until I pass out! I pondered a bit more, and came up with the brilliant idea of holding an UYE here! If I can get fellow Unilocalers to show up, not only will it be hilariously fun, but being in a large group *always* keeps me from over-​eating (too busy talking!).
I arrive at McLean Pizza, which is off to the side of a strip mall. I almost missed it; it’s on the right side of Center Street right before the copse of trees/​bushes. After a terrible parking job (which I’m blaming on the SUV next to me that took up a space and a half), I go in and ask for a table of 10. The manager waves me towards the dining room and tells me to snag the «big table». Well, the big table is only a 6 top, but as the dining room was pretty empty, and there was a booth right next to us, with another table behind us, I figured that we could just scatter around and make it work somehow.
Unilocalers started to come in (for the full story go here:
), and I ordered a ½ carafe of white wine, while everyone else ordered beers or sodas. Jake ordered some buffalo wings — with extra sauce, and as the other Unilocalers showed up, we ordered the Hawaiian pizza, a Gyro pizza, the House pizza, and then a veggie pizza (or it looked like a half and half pizza). Knowing myself as well as I do, I knew that with this many people, I wouldn’t be able to eat more then 2 slices, as I’ll be too busy yammering my head off. My mom once said that I really didn’t need to ever diet to lose weight. I just needed to go out with a large group of people for every meal. I’ll be too busy to talk to ever eat. Unfortunately, this «diet» doesn’t really work, as I do like my booze with my yapping, and I easily consume twice the number of calories from my drinking then I ever will from eating.
The Hawaiian pizza was very tasty. The pineapple wasn’t over cooked to mushiness (which I hate), and the ham was just salty enough to combat the sweetness of the pineapple. The crust was medium thick, and there was a good layer of sauce. For me, it was a little too cheesy, but I like a bare minimum of dairy in my food, so please do take that in mind. The second slice I had was of the Gyro pizza. When Mike when to take a slice, the cheese was so long and stringy that he lifted it as high as his arm could go — and it was still connected! That is one *cheesy* and *melty* pizza! The Gyro was good, but I was a little disappointed. While there were slices of gyro meat scattered around the pizza, there wasn’t a tremendous amount of it. Also, there wasn’t anything else! I was expecting some onions at the very least — but all I had was about ½ inch of cheese and 4 pieces of gyro on my slice. Eh. Disappointing.
Although I didn’t have any of the buffalo wings, it was odd that the wings were served sans sauce. Or I should say, the sauce was served in little containers — on the side. Uh, doesn’t that just make it fried chicken with hot sauce on the side? Half the tastiness of wings is that it’s tossed in the sauce to have to properly coat the wing! However, everyone seemed to enjoy it, and I didn’t actually taste it — so I won’t let that affect this review — just a notice to anyone who is ready to order wings what to expect.
The service was fairly good. When we arrived, we were one of 3 other tables in the place. The waiter was friendly and nice and I really liked him, however he wasn’t *quite* as attentive as I would have liked. While he always responded when one of us called out for him, he didn’t check up on us when we didn’t, and when new members of our party showed up, he didn’t swing by to take their drink orders without us waving him down. However, in his defense, he was also the only person working the dining room — and shortly after 5:30, the placed filled up, so I can see that he was pretty busy and overwhelmed. It wasn’t as if he was sitting down on the job or chatting away with coworkers. The man was definitely working and working hard. It just would have been nice if he had some help.
I am definitely coming back! This is a nice low-​key hangout, and the food was tasty and I definitely want to try the House pizza as it looked scrumptious (only I will ask them to go light on the cheese).