I ate a pizza at RedBrick Pizza in Altamonte Springs, FL. RedBrick Pizza seems to be a relatively new chain that has been popping up in the Central Florida area. This was the first one to open in Uptown Altamonte, and others have since opened in Sanford and in UCF.

I ate here when the restaurant first opened, but the pizza wasn’t worth returning for. Someone I was with wanted to eat here though, so I agreed to give RedBrick Pizza another try.

The last time I ate here, I had a cheese pizza which was pretty bad. This time, I figured I’d try a pizza with plenty of toppings to see if they improved the pie. I ordered their Greek Pizza, which was topped with ham, peppers, onions, kalamata olives, and feta cheese. I don’t like ham all that much, and I completely missed that part when reading the menu, but it really didn’t taste too bad on pizza. The toppings really did improve the pizza, and without them, the pizza would have been pretty bad. The crust was nice and crispy on the outer edges of the pizza, but was soggy in the center of the pie. It didn’t seem undercooked, it just seemed very damp. This wet spot caused some difficulties when pulling the slices apart. The pizzas here was really overpriced too. They started at $13 for a 14 inch pizza (the largest size offered), and went up from there. Overall, the pizza was slightly better than the average pie from Pizza Hut.

One thing I really didn’t like in here was the TVs. There was a TV and remote at just about every table. I really don’t watch TV at home, so why would I want to watch TV at a restaurant? I choose one of the few TV-free tables, but I couldn’t escape the TV’s with their blasting audio. I also noticed something kind of ironic about the name. It’s called RedBrick Pizza, but there are no bricks of any color in the restaurant. There are some red tiles on the wall, but no bricks.

The building that RedBrick pizza occupies wasn’t always here. It was once a normal strip mall before the city of Altamonte Springs rebuilt the area into Uptown Altamonte. Before the area was surrounded by highrise condos, almost exactly where RedBrick Pizza now sits, was a restaurant called Presto Pizza. Presto had the best pizza I’ve tasted in all of my time living in Florida. It was the whole New York pizza deal, with large, thin slices. Besides normal pizza, they always had the more exotic varieties like stuffed pizza, which I find difficult to get in Florida. The old strip mall slowly went out of business, and Presto was one of the last open businesses holding out here until they finally closed.  I haven’t found another restaurant in Florida that serves pizza on the same scale as Presto had, and RedBrick Pizza definitely doesn’t come close…

While my memories of Presto Pizza would get 8 out of 8 slices, the Greek Pizza from RedBrick Pizza gets a measly 3 out of 8 Slices.