Candela’s Pizzeria & Ristorante Italiano

Whether we’re picking up or dining in, this is our favorite pizza place. We ate there last night, and our waitress went above and beyond. great service and great food. The cheese, pepperoni and special pizzas are all great, and I love the eggplant parm. The kids love playing the arcade games while we’re waiting. This is by far the best pizza and pasta around!

The first time I went to this place the service was way better. Today January 27^th, 2016 around 2pm, my boyfriend and I decided to try Candela’s for the second time. We walked in and were greeted and told to take a seat wherever. There were two other tables of customers besides us. The «waitress» walked over and took our drink order which was just water. When she came back, we ordered one large pepperoni pizza. How simple could that be? After 20 minutes of waiting we got extremely restless and by the time the restaurant cleared out, we STILL had not received our pizza, Mind you, when we walked in, every customer was ALREADY eating. My frustration got worse when I noticed the «waitresses» sitting down, eating while there were THREE dirty tables full of trash. This blew my mind! How can you sit down and eat lunch when you have customers waiting for their food and dirty tables! Unbelievable. Its as if they didn’t realize they were at work. Needless to say, my boyfriend and I got up and went to the register to just get the pizza and get out of there. At this point some other girl was bringing the pizza to our table. After a whopping 30 minutes (yes 30 minutes for 1 pizza) they had just taken it out of the oven. The girl apologized over and over and even gave us a discount and free soda. (oh boy) As we were standing there, I noticed the other girls still sitting and eating. They had not even bothered to get up and start cleaning the tables! Ridiculous. I’m not sure if the cooks were just slow and lazy or the waitresses were slow and lazy or maybe a combo of both. This place is just awful, so please do yourself a favor and don’t even bother going! I highly recommend Sergio’s in Midlothian.

I have been to Candela’s several times but never wrote a review. The five stars are only for the takeout cheese pizza pie. The XL cheese or pepperoni pizza are the closest to classic NYC pizza in Virginia. The restaurant is in a strip mall and looks like a suburban family run operation. I have had a their lunch sandwich specials and always leave happy. Good food for a good price. I think the owner should consider improving the salad bar or getting rid of it and serving a reasonably priced side salad.
The service has always been good. I gave the five because they can make a really good cheese pie and is so hard to find outside of NYC. I would visit more often if they sold cheese pizza by the slice as I usually with one other person. I mentioned this once and the person told me that they have a personal size which just made me angry because that would be changing the main reason I go there. THE CHEESE SLICE.

I’ve given patronage to this establishment on four separate occasions and have never eaten respectable pizza. Clumps of wet, drippy toppings that were obviously frozen or canned, pizzas with doughy and uncooked centers, takeout pizzas that no one bothered to cut, and weird cheese blends that have you asking yourself questions like «Is this American cheese on a pizza or did the mozzarella go bad?» Slow, inattentive service and a run down atmosphere are traits I can overlook if the food is still satisfying, but those undesirables just add fuel to the fire once you taste what Candela’s calls «food.» How this place stays in business is beyond me.

Avoid this place. The pizza is decent but the service is terrible. Tonight they lost my called-​in order and tried to convince me that I had never placed it, despite the record of the call on my phone. They were rude, insulting, and made no effort to resolve the situation. We’ve had slow, indifferent service there before, but tonight is the end of this relationship. Go to Angelo’s.

Food was decent. I wasn’t expecting anything other than an inexpensive family pizza joint, but wasn’t super happy with how they billed kids meals. With 3 little kids I was surprised when the waitress rang up 3 large drinks for my kids. Seemed like a dishonest way to bump up the total bill.
Pizza tasted pretty good. My wife said the Salad Bar was minimalist. I didn’t have any of the spaghetti, but 2 of my kids who usually destroy spaghetti didn’t seem to think it was great.
I will probably go back to try their hoagies and their hot wing prices were under 1 dollar a wing (which is rare these days).

So I had an antipasto salad, it was tasty and refreshing, with my veal saltinbocca alla romana, I ordered a Pinot Grigio the dish was served with a side of spaghetti covered with a marinara. To close it up a cannoli with an expresso. The food was excellent so the chef gets 5 stars, the presentation was so so, I give it 2.5 stars, the service was lacking halfway through my entrée, and got better towards the end, so I give it 1 star only. The service and presentation needs improvement which is too bad because the person in the kitchen is putting a lot of effort at making some excellent italian food. The cannoli was fresh and delicious, and the waitress who came out to save the day was wonderful.

Came in for lunch and found there are no slices only personal pizzas. What I was served resembled and undercooked and rubbery cheese tire rather than a pizza. Overpriced toppings looked raw and dumped on top from a can. On top of that the soda was flat. Not coming back. Maybe people in this area mistake it for pizza but I wouldn’t ever confuse the two.

Sal does a good pizza. Other pasta choices on menu are typically good. We often do take out pizza from here.

Never a bad experience.

Best pizza in Midlothian… which isn’t saying much, but it is, and will continue to be my go-​to pizza place locally.

Based solely on sandwiches and salads, I love this place. I’ve never had anything outside of the realm but I’ve had the Chicken Parm, Veal Parm, Steak and Cheese, Chicken and Cheese, and Italian Subs and all were great for quick lunches. The real hit though is the Grilled Chicken Salads. It’s the biggest salad you’ll ever eat, and the first one you probably can’t actually finish.
Service is friendly and attentive, atmosphere is clean and typical of the style restaurant, and lunch foods come quickly.

We tried Candela’s for the first time last night. It is a great place to take my kids, low-​key and simple. I would suggest taking your own crayons, doodle pads, etc., because none will be provided. Our pizza was OK, perfectly good for a night off from making dinner, but nothing special. My vegetarian pizza was kinda disappointing – overloaded with wet toppings and soggy in the middle. It had canned mushrooms on it, which is not terrible, but it’s a pet peeve of mine. The cheese pizza was actually really good, and we’ll get that again. The cannoli was delicious, a huge hit with the kids. The only thing that really bothered me was the long wait with hungry kids and how they brought out one of the kids’ meals a good 15 minutes before the pizza, which means the other kid was whining about how hungry she was. Kinda odd to bring one meal out before the others. Overall, it cost more than it was worth, in my opinion, but it’s close by and we’d go back again for a family night out once in a while.

The restaurant is hit or miss. Mostly when we’ve eaten there we’ve done the take-​out pizza. The toppings are very fresh, so that’s a plus. But the pizza is nothing super-​special. I expected better for a restaurant. And the attitude of the staff makes it seem like they are doing me a favor by taking my order. That does not impress me.

After years of loving candelas I have officially changed my mind. The food and pizza have down hill along with the service.
Sal the owner is terrific but has taken his eye of providing a great experience and food.
The pizza is now better at Jo Jo’s and the other Candelas.

This place is AWESOME. Very family friendly. My kids love it, and my husband and I both love it as well. The owner and the servers make it a point to say hello once they get to know you. The pizza is awesome, and their subs are great too! We probably go once every 1 – 2 weeks, and have for quite some time. Try it out!

Love this place — we go there at least once every two weeks. The pizza is great, atmosphere and comfy and family friendly and after you’ve been there a few times the owner is always saying «Hi!». Their pizza rocks!
They can get quite busy though on Friday & Saturday nights — but even when their busy the waitstaff is busting their tail to make sure you’re taken care of!