Helen’s Roast Beef & Pizzeria

This place is awful! The food is decent but the service is terrible! Totally unreliable delivery and the people are the meanest people I have encountered in this industry. I ordered from them twice and both times it was an experience that left me wanting to strangle someone. Talking to these people is like trying to communicate with aliens — actually aliens might comprehend English a bit better. I tried to call the manager and ask them to address my issues with the order and she HUNG ON ME 6 times– stating she was just too busy to deal with any issues! I hope this place goes out of business. they are beyond horrible! hate them!

This place is terrible. Unreliable and delivery guys who are unfriendly. Food is average. I wouldn’t order from here if you could help it.

Helen’s satisfies my inner late night fat kid. Blue zone hurts in the morning but in the moment is always a good decision. Cheesesteaks are the best around. The food is basically fatty crack. Would avoid the pizza to get to the calzones. The only warning is the post-Helen’s morning bathroom ritual, which you need to see to believe. After the last crime against humanity I swore off Helen’s only to order again the next night.

I used to love this place and went here at least once a week. I tried ordering from them tonight and will never make that mistake again.
When I placed my order, I received my normal GrubHub confirmations and sat down to watch TV and wait for my food. About 15 minutes after my food was supposed to arrive, I received the following text message, «Delivery Helens???». I responded «Yes» and asked who it was, thinking maybe they had delivered to my neighbor by mistake. Instead of a response, I got a message that said, «So are you coming to pick it up or no?» I responded that I had ordered delivery and no delivery driver had come by yet. At this point, they responded that they were right outside. I went to my door and looked out onto my porch — no driver. After a few more messages back and forth, I realize that the driver has been sitting about half a block away and hasn’t left his car yet. When he finally sees me and comes up to the porch, all he says is, «Was that so hard to come outside?».
When I called Helen’s to complain about their driver, the owner came on and told me that their driver had been standing on my porch and calling me for 10 minutes. Given I have a good view of the porch from my room, I was able to assure him this wasn’t the case. That was before he started laying into me for not picking up my phone when his driver called.
I have never had to deal with rude delivery drivers before, but this one was just ridiculous. When it comes to the owner’s reaction, I’m torn. On the one hand, I have to applaud him standing up for his employee. Unfortunately, the other side of the equation is that his employee was downright wrong.

If there were negative stars I would give Helen’s that. The restaurant messed up our delivery of half buffalo chicken and half cheese pizza by delivering just buffalo chicken. We asked for a refund or a small cheese pizza and the manager was so uncooperative saying that we ordered just buffalo chicken… The manager constantly tried to dodge the fact that he/​his restaurant made a mistake… He was unbelievably rude. Even if the delivery man said a half and half should’ve been there. Not only that but the cheese on the pizza isn’t even melted… One of the worst run restaurants ever. I would recommend going to Nicks, Lazy Days, Papa Johns, etc instead.

Great calzones and subs, everything else is pretty sub-​par though, and the calzones are a bit expensive. Service is also lacking, and this is coming from someone who’s been going there for 2 years. The best thing it has going for it is that it’s open until 2:45am.

Helen’s is the best for a late night drunken snack (especially since they deliver after 1 am). Their pastas are greasy, cheesey, and delicious in a gross but good way. Probably the best pizza/​delivery option near Tufts.

The go to late night delivery food option. The blue zone calzone has become a necessary part of the tufts experience.

Excellent roach beef sandwich! To our delight, without even asking, the generous pizza men at Helen’s added a side of roaches to the bottom of our pizza crust. I couldn’t believe the amazing service.
If you like your pizza with an extra crunch, this is the place for you.
PS: if you’re lucky, you may get extra bugs during the night time.

I used to order from this place because it’s right down the street from me, but today I ordered from them for the last time. The food almost always comes wrong, but I’m usually too hungry to even bother. Lately the service has been unbelievably horrible. I work as a bartender so I know how customer service in the food industry should be. I always tip 20% to the drivers and they never deserve it. I always get an attitude from them. Today I was outside and away from my phone so I didn’t hear the driver call when he arrived 40 minutes before I was expecting him, so he had to walk up to ring my doorbell which isn’t a hard thing to do. He immediately gave me so much attitude about it which I don’t appreciate at all. I wish I didn’t tip on my card before the delivery was made because he certainly didn’t deserve one. So if you want shitty service and orders that don’t always come the way you want them and warm drinks, Helens is the place for you.

I got an anchovy pizza. The crust was crisp and savory. It came with plenty of cheese and they didn’t skimp on the anchovies. They brought it right over to my table, and also got me parmesan cheese and crushed red pepper shakers when I requested. I’d certainly return.

I went to Helens and got a large blue zone and I can say it was the best food I’ve eaten in my life. loved it. I definitely go there again and I would recommend this restaurant to everyone

Order the «Blue Zone» calzone. Hands down the best buffalo chicken calzones in the game. Have been ordering them for past 2 years and have never been let down.

I went to Helens for dinner after a two hour study sesh with the bae. A little about myself: I treat my body like a garbage can, so I typically like to consume 3 or 4 times the daily recommended serving of saturated fat per day. I ate grilled chicken and raw spinach earlier in the day for lunch, so my arteries were feeling uncomfortably unclogged and healthy and I was in desperate need of some greased up carbobomb to fulfill my nutritional requirements. If you’re anything like me, you know that in such times of hardship, then normal plan of action is to just guzzle an entire bottle of Hidden Valley and chase that with a shot of melted butter. However this time, I took a chance on the Bluezone from Helen’s Roast Beef and boy did it deliver.
Portions: Bae and I split a medium Bluezone calzone. Total cost was around $ 14.00, which comes out to around $ 7.00 a person. Not bad. Each bluezone comes with 6 slices. I was full after the 1^st, but finished all 3 of my slices because, as I mentioned above, I was suffering from low blood fat at the time and I treat my body like a trash can.
Flavor: Tasted like a calzone filled with small pieces of chicken drenched in mayonnaise, with a hint of blue cheese flavor. Texture of the outside of the bread was nice and crispy, and the bread lining the interior of the calzone was nice and spongy after having been saturated with soaked up grease: yum. Don’t forget to lick up the sauce when you’re done! The Bluezone WIlLL drip. While very fatty, I unfortunately wasn’t able to fall into a fat-​induced coma after eating the Bluezone. If you are reading this Helen, I hope you will consider including an option to deep fry it and then smother it in gravy. I’m not sure I mentioned it above, but I treat my body like a garbage bin, so obviously I found the Bluezone to be a delicious treat.
Update:
Prognosis: Just came back from the doctors, turns out the Bluezone gave me type II diabetes! Neat!
2 stars for flavor, –1 stars for health, 5 stars cause it’s bae’s favorite food, so I know if I’m here, I’m with her.

I’m gonna give this place a 4. It’s not as good as Bob’s Foods down the street, but for cheap sloppy Italian and Greek food, it is Very Satisfying. It’s a roast beef joint, but I’m a vegetarian. Assuming that 6 straight years of best roast beef in Medford is any indication… Eggplant sub was nice, though a bit oily. Service is competent, friendly, they handled the special orders of Mozzarella and easy on the sauce properly. And the fries were perfect.

My relationship with Helen’s Roast Beef can only be described as love-​hate. A friend once described this place as «a relationship that leaves you feeling exploited and emotionally exhausted, but you can’t bring yourself to leave because the sex is amazing.» Pretty much accurate.
2 stars (maybe 1 star) for the disappointing customer service. I usually don’t care about service because I’m all about the food but Helen’s has frustrated me so many times. I avoid getting delivery from this place at all costs. When you order delivery after 7pm they tell you the wait will be 45 mins-​1 hour. That would be fine if they ever made it before 1 hour was up. I think they deliver on-​time about 25% of the time. You often need to call them again and check on your order. And they’ll tell you that there are a lot of orders so they’re running late. But I’m 90% sure they just keep forgetting the orders. Ordering in a person is less of a nightmare because you can wait there and nag them about your order when you’ve been waiting for 20 – 30 minutes.
4 stars for the calzones but 3 for everything else I’ve tried. The only reason I can’t leave Helen’s and her terrible service is the Bluezone calzone. It’s the stuff of Tufts University legend. Buffalo chicken and tons of cheese in a hot shell of carb. I thought I hated bleu cheese until I had the bluezone. The small serves 1 – 2 people. Not enough to fill two people but if you ate it alone you’d feel guilty. Medium is enough for 2 – 3 people. Large is by far the best deal. It’s the size of a large pizza and can easily feed 4 – 6 hungry people. Eating two slices of the large can leave you with a food coma, though. For some reason the small just doesn’t taste as good as the medium and large. I think it’s because the small has a skewed cheese-​to-​crust ratio with too much crust while the two larger sizes aren’t as crust-​heavy.
A lot of people will say that the bluezone doesn’t taste good sober. I don’t agree. I have split a bluezone for dinner so many times and it takes just as good. Be careful though: when its late on the weekends the people are Helen’s just assume everyone is drunk and wont notice if the food is not fully cooked. I have had a calzone that still had raw dough before.
Chicken parm calzone is also good. But you can find it at most pizza places so i’s not as unique as the bluezone. I’ve had their «Super Beef» ($ 6) roast beef sandwich before. I had high expectations since the place is called «Helen’s Roast Beef.» I’m generally not a fan of roast beef but I thought it was decent. Price was alright since they gave a decent about of beef. They serve it on an onion roll. You can add your standard lettuce/​tomato/​mayo/​etc. My friend says its the best roast beef he has ever had, so maybe it’s actually amazing. I’ve had cheeseburgers here, too (~$ 4). No complaints. Tastes better than a burger I could grill on my own but isn’t nearly on the level of a Russell House Tavern burger or a Shake Shack burger. I’ve heard good things about their philly cheese steak, too. The only thing I would try to stay away from are the pizzas. I’ve never had one myself but people have unanimously warned me against it. Try Nicks down the street or Pizza Days if you’re desperate.
Be warned Helen’s is basically the designated post-​frat/​post-​party/​late-​night hunger pang place, so weekends will be very crowded and full of confused college students.

This place has a huge menu. I got some pretty delicious chicken fingers and some ok fries. They also have subs and pizza which I can’t vouch for, but overall nothing special. I’d almost definitely return if my friends were headed there for lunch again, but I probably won’t go out of my way for it!

This place is amazing! Fully stuffed subs that leave me pretty happy. I usually get the hot pastrami sub or the steak sub and both delicious. I just moved to Boston and this was my first meal so i felt lucky and had it twice in a 24 hour period. The spicey fries were not actually spicey to me which was a little underwhelming. Also i highly recommend pickup because the delivery experience was not pleasant. I was told 30 minutes and had to call them back an hour later just to see if they were still coming. Then the driver called me and he had the wrong address which sucked too. So it took an hour and 15 minutes for 2 hot subs to get delivered. So i would say i know its family owned but get someone to clearly communicate delivery orders to avoid long delivery times.

I ordered something from them and there was some confusion on the order. When I called 45 minutes later and asked what had happened to my order the person on the phone told me that I was wrong about the time I had ordered and hung up the phone on me TWICE. I will never order from them again.

Helen’s is actually pretty good.
Open until reasonable hours, and good with delivery.
The blue zone is way overrated here (see below comments) but overall everything is good. I would recommend the roast beef sub with cheese in particular.
The pizza here tends to be a little on the greasy side, so if that’s not your thing, don’t order pizza from Helen’s. Oh, and they also have baklava here. Overall a decent place