Paul K.
Yelp
First off, this is perhaps the most beautifully designed restaurant in the entire Lehigh Valley. The darker-yet-inviting color palate, the warm lighting fixtures above the bar, the way the lines of the place all lead to a massive imported pizza oven the hue of burnt sienna (shoutout Crayola Factory). It's a visual feat that's even more gee-golly when you consider that the place used to be an auto garage.
Which is ironic because parking at this place is a total mess.
There are a handful of spots in front of the restaurant that abut a small outdoor seating area and a refurbished Airstream, but good luck. Then there's street parking, where you're competing with Hellertown residents whom I'm sure also looooove the restaurant's on-site parking limitations. And then there's the park across the street that's a short walk but, still, the whole automobile ordeal (auto-ordeal?) is kind of flustering and frustrating (flusterating?).
But luckily, when you finally park and enter the restaurant, PA House's staff is there to help--in full force. You know how every single business is looking to hire right now? Yeah, it's because PA House has 400 employees.
Even though the restaurant was packed at 5:30 on the Wednesday night we were there, there were ample servers, some of them even standing idle at various parts of the night. There were a few hiccups (our table didn't have food menus, one server didn't know what kind of mushrooms were on the Fun Guy pizza), but otherwise I felt taken care of and maybe even nurtured?
So and then there's the food. From the pizza oven, you'd correctly guess that the focus is pizza, but I'd argue that the menu isn't Italian, but more Saucon Valley American. There's a ubiquitous beet and goat cheese salad, there's a burger, there's a tuna burger (?), and then there are these French fries everyone can't stop Yelping about that have three sauces but all of them just taste like fancy mayonnaise and they're ... French fries.
And then the pizza.
Like other Yelpers have been saying (only they're right on this point), the pizza is unpleasantly floppy. And not only does it droop in the center, making the whole pizza-eating experience an exercise in creative folding, the crust is thick, chewy, and doughy.
The pizza proportions are way off and it's not the imported oven's fault. In fact, that imported oven is probably like, "Whoever is smooshing all the dough out of the center of these pizzas and piling it up around the edges like it's some inflatable baby pool is doing this ALL WRONG. And I should know because I'm from Italy!!!"
The variety of the pizzas? Great. The distribution of toppings? Wonderful. The crust? Nope.
Price wise, everything feels like it should be $2 less than it costs you. Gaffel Kolsch for $9. A cheese plate for $22. The Fun Guy (cringe) pizza is $16. Limoncello cheesecake for $12.
But maybe that's the built-in cost of good restaurant design.
