Exactly seven months after we first mentioned Garlic Jim’s was on its way to The Junction — it’s grand-opening day. Will it live up to hopes ‘n’ hype? Will it take a bite out of Pagliacci’s business? How far south will they deliver? How good is its “gourmet” pizza, anyway? Any and all comments/reviews, this thread is here for you. (P.S. Before you recycle today’s junk mail – check for GJ coupons/menu – we got some and plan to use ’em.)
How come the Founder of Garlic Jim’s is named Dwayne? ! :-)
http://garlicjims.com/franchise.asp
Good luck entrepreneur!
I absolutely love Pagliacci’s but more times than not, I’ve settled for less quality pie just so they will bring it to my doorstep. Even with their newly expanded delivery zone, I still fall TWO BLOCKS short.
I have really come to like the non-traditional pizza that Amante’s has to offer but since you can never have enough options, I look forward to trying Garlic Jim’s as well. Here’s to hoping they will offer another quality delivery option to those of us on the south side!
I went to highschool with the owner of GJ’s. He’s a real good guy. We are picking up a pizza on the way home from work.
There’s an idea. I’ll open up a huge salad bar with the works in the Junction. I’d bet it would be profitable. Gawd knows we need more healthy options in this part of the 206.
Just ordered for delivery. Super fast. Really, really yummers. The driver forgot our soda, but came back within ten minutes to get it to us. The pizza was great! Really flavorful & I love their thin crust. I will definitely order from GJ’s again.
yum! I’m going to try delivery tonight.
I second that salad bar idea – we def need one of those around here.
The House just fulfilled his promise to order on opening day…
Delivery=A+ Confirmed delivery to Westwood area and only took 30 minutes!
We ordered a plain cheese and their Chicken Ranch.
Pizza= B- The Chicken Ranch was good, but both pizza seem to have way too much crust and not enough of their respective sauce.
I hate to say it, but my pizza rankings remain unchanged:
1) Abbondanza
2) Pags
I love the fact that I have another delivery option, but can’t say their product WOW’d me. Will Gionnini’s live up to WS Blogs expectations??
The delivery down our way was prompt as well.
It’s a deeper dish style pizza than anything I’ve had in some time. As such I think comparing it to Pagliacci would be a case of apples and oranges.
It was a great pizza and the wings got an “OK but not spicy enough” from the wings fans in the house. Certainly we’ll be going back to GJ’s again.
Ordered the large “Ultimate”. Fast delivery. Good pizza. They forgot our soda. It wasnt a very big large.
We tried their pizza last nite. Pagliacci’s is still my fav. Very nice people tho’ – friendly and much less snobby than the Pags peeps I’ve run across when I’ve gone in… We will try again and see what shakes out. Still afriad they can’t beat the Verde Primo and the Pagliacci salad. And ooooh, how about Amante’s desserts???? YUM!!!
We ordered take-out, also a large Ultimate. Apparently there was a bit of a wait but it wasn’t the madhouse we were expecting :-). Fast ovens?
The large fed 4 people pretty well. We also ordered a ‘large’ salad – which only fed 3, that coulda been larger.
I liked the ‘za – spicier than any others I’ve had. Definitely more taste than Papa Johns or Pizza Hut. Sure thing we’ll order again.
We ordered tonight, too. We chose the thin crust, half chicken ranch, half ultimate. They were pretty tasty, but we’re spoiled by Pagliacci at my house. This tasted like an upscale Papa Murphy (maybe the chicken comparison?). Reminiscent of Round Table pizza. We ordered a medium, which, with a homemade salad, was plenty for two people with a couple of slices left for my lunch tomorrow. Service and delivery were great. We were charged $1.50 for delivery. All in all, when we can choose between Pagliacci and Garlic Jim’s, we’ll choose Pag’s.
Scottjay, I asked about slices in another thread and was told no, they don’t sell by the slice.
I still haven’t had a Pags Pizza or been into Trader Joe’s yet So, I don’t know what I’m missing. I’ve noticed since I’m getting older, I can’t eat too much pizza with a lot of Tomato sauce layered. I also need to eat pizza early like maybe 6pm or something in order to not get any type of heartburn overnight….lol Now were in the Junction can we put up the ultimate salad bar. I’d bet there’d be a line out the door if the salad bar menu was awesome. I could tolerate pizza more if I had a salad on the side. Oh it sucks getting older.
I’ve had it delivered from another store, and I have to say, the dine in option is very welcome! I like that they have Mac and Jack’s on tap!
Ahh…the salad bar. Why not offer an “early-bird-special” while we’re at it Jiggers? An FYI to all you lettuceheads…Garlic Jim’s does, in fact, offer salads on their menu. They simply don’t have an out-of-fashion, tired and trite salad bar which could become a breeding ground for your funky germs!
I ordered delivery last night too and they did come to Westwood with no extra charge! I went for a simple pie that they had on their coupons, “Pep & Pop” for $12.88. Large, thin crust pizza with red sauce (they also offer a basil/olive oil sauce that I would like to try)
The pizza was good but I agree with The House that I wasn’t at all WOW’d by it. Delivery was fast but I have two minor complaints. The delivery guy didn’t have a pen for me to sign the cc slip so I had to search all over for one while herding my shiba away from the pizza. And then, when I looked at the itemized reciept, I realized that they didn’t honor my coupon.
I’ll try almost anything twice so I’ll give them another chance to redeem themselves (It was opening night, after all)… but all in all, If I’m going to get a $20 pie, I’d rather drive to Pagliacci’s and get that yummy salad too.
Sorry to say, but their veggie better than Pagliacci’s! Roasted cashewnuts, mmmm…
Dispite open day “problems” I will give it another go. VERY dissapointed there aren’t slices for lunch hours, at least. Needs more sauce.
I never hear mention of SPIROS – that’s a good pizza place!
so to say–we are not impressed. our order last night was delivered well after the thirty-to-forty minute claim, the salad was missing advertised ingredients, and a pizza topping request was noted on the receipt, but not in evidence on the actual pie. too bad. we’ll stick with being spoiled by pagliacci from now on.
If I were you guys I would let Garlic Jims know right away what needs work on because if they can’t figure it out in due time, we’ll be stuck just another fas’ for a few years. You need to let them know so they can improve on their business. Last thing I want to do when I get lazy and want to order delivery is which shotty pizzaria to select from and that’s no fun. I want to be sure I get the best quality out of a business as a customer when I decide.
Ps; does anyone know if Tony’s produce on 35th accept credit or debit cards for payment?
Jiggers – Yes, I can confirm Tony’s does accept debit cards. I use mine there all the time.
Will have to try GJ’s… thanks for all the reviews.
I know that Tony’s accepts credit cards, assuming they will take debit too.
Just FYI – Tony’s they frown if your credit card purchase is under $5 so buy more than a bunch of bananas and an apple.
Margi— I’m going their to spend money rather than be a tightwad. I know the prices can’t be as expensive as Safeway or else I wouldn’t even bother trying them. If Safeway Banana’s are at 79cents a pound, Tony’s can’t be as high as that.
Tonight the family had a GJ’s pizza (hand tossed dough). The concensus was “better than the national pizza chain’s but not the best in West Seattle.” I agree with the comparison to Roundtable, but for my pizza, I’ll still go to Pegasus.
We gave the GJs menu a full workout tonight. We arrived at about 6:30, peak dinner time, but got a table for 2 in the highly visible window on the street. I told my husband it would be good for us, to be out of our comfort zone like that.
The garlic cheese toast came with marinara dipping sauce. The cheese was nicely browned – the bread could use more flavor, tho. We shared a chop salad with the Chipotle Ranch dressing, it was pretty good. We had a half/half Queen Margherita and Garlic Chicken pizza on the thin garlic dough. We were in Italy last winter and were impressed with the Margherita – preferred its simple but powerful flavors over the garlic chicken. We ordered dessert, I had an ice cream sundae, which was served with chocolate size and toasted almond slivers, my husband had the cheesecake, that had raspberry sauce drizzled over it before it was baked so the flavor soaked in.
Our server, Brian, was personable but needs more experience. We had to remind for water, napkins and silverware (just about stole the neighbors since they had just arrived and weren’t using them) and dessert was served with soup spoons. Not an easy way to eat cheesecake or ice cream. We made a suggesstion on the way out. Oh, and the almonds for the ice cream. Oh, yeah, and all the servers kinda hung around in the back for extended periods of time so my husband had to go and ask AGAIN for the napkins and silverware so we could eat our salad, and also took our bill back so someone could process the payment.
So, the food was good, the service needs work. We will try them again in a month or so and see if they have worked the bugs out.
Ordered the hand-tossed Garlic Gourmet last night. Delivery (to Delridge!!! — chew on that Pagliacci!) was timely and the pizza was pretty darn tasty (though rather irregularly and haphazardly sliced). Not familiar with Pags pizza enough to compare to that, but it is a distant second to our preferred pizza — Stellar. However, it was good enough that we’ll be ordering again, since delivery is such a plus now with our newborn.
We ordered Garlic Jim’s last night….. they delived to ALKI… (53rd) SWEET… delivery was about 30-40 mins… lost track..so, it must not have been too long.
OUTSTANDING PIES!!
Sorry, comment time is over.
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