So the place has a bar scene feel. It's dark, music is playing, though just short of blasting. Most of the patrons at this time, 6:30 pm on a Sunday night, were hanging out at the bar. We were seated near the back of the cavernous dining area by a friendly host.
I saw a few tables with customers enjoying their pizzas as we were seated. Strangely though the smell of pizza wafting through the air was missing.
Our waitress was vey nice. She brought us drinks and took our order, which is about the time things went a bit south in North Park. We ordered a large sausage, cheese and fresh tomato pie, as well s a small white pizza with clams. It took quite a while for our pizza to be served. I was starting to wonder what happened to our order when it finally arrived. Our waitress delivered our prizes and was off to tend to other tables. By now the restaurant was beginning to fill with new patrons.
I took a couple of pictures and they looked great. Check out the crust on the cheese pie. Looks yummy. I tried the clam pizza first. Uh oh...not hot, not even really warm. Nearly Cold. It tasted pretty good. I haven't had a clam pizza in years. I know this was the real thing. I spoke to Jon Mangini, the owner, last week and he mentioned that he has the clams imported from New England. It tasted great, but again it was verging on being cold. Then I tried the sausage, fresh tomato and cheese pizza. Slight warmer, but it had obviously been sitting in it's own juices for much too long and it was pretty soggy. Again, tasted very good, but all in all not nearly as satisfying as I'd hoped. 
When the waitress came back she asked how everything was. Without making much eye contact we sheepishly said it tasted really good. As soon as she walked away we commiserated that we should have spoken up because otherwise, they would never know. A few minutes later the host came by to ask how it was and we told him that it tasted really good, but we were disappointed because it wasn't hot. He was genuine in his concern and asked what he could do to make it up. We asked for nothing saying it was ok.
Feeling better about our confession, we ate a few more slices before asking for a "to-go" box, figuring it might taste better coming hot out of the toaster oven than it did when it was delivered to our table.
We finished up our beer, wine and two Foxon Park birch beers. The waitress brought us our check.....and here was the best part of the evening. The check showed a deduction of $40.00 for the cost of the 2 pizzas. Of course it was great to not have to pay, but what was really gratifying was the way the manager handled this situation. Sometimes in this world of "business as usual", great customer service just kinda smacks you in the face. The pizza wasn't what we expected, but the way the manager took care of us had us leaving with a great feeling about the place and a desire to come back and give them another chance. Oh yeah, the guy we told about the pizza being cold turned out to be the manager, Nick.
So we will being conducting a do-over in the near future. In the meantime we've been getting additional recommendations so in the spirit of the hunt we will be happy to check them out. So far though, my favorite, and the closest thing in town to the authentic New Haven style pizza we are looking for remains Urbn in Vista.
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