DINING REVIEW: Marzio's Pizzeria & More

EDITOR’S NOTE
Today’s restaurant review marks a notable change in The Gazette’s restaurant coverage. Readers have told us you love reviews. You want us to be honest and fair and report on our experiences, positive or negative. But you’re not crazy about reviews of bad or mediocre restaurants that detail every flaw of a place you probably won’t visit anyway. Below you’ll find a different approach that we hope you’ll prefer: an extremely shortened review of Marzio’s Pizzeria & More, which our critic didn’t love, with suggestions of other good Italian places in the area. Please visit our Dining Blog (gazettedining.freedomblogging .com) and let us know what you think about the change.

Marzio’s Pizzeria & More, which recently took over a space on the corner of Garden of the Gods and Northpark Drive that had long been home to Antonio’s Italian Restaurant, trades the mid-brow Italian and opera singers for a more humble tack.
It serves well-priced pizza, calzones, a scattering of burgers and sandwiches. While none of it is awful, the food didn’t make much of an impression, nor did the service or the decor. (The manager says he’s working on upgrades in all those areas.)
If you go, your best bets are the sandwiches, particularly the steak (a deal for $8), and the Rueben (also a value at $7).

MARZIO'S PIZZERIA & MORE
2 STARS out of 5
(Lackluster)
Address: 4475 Northpark Drive
Phone: 264-1554
Hours: 11 a.m.-9 p.m. Mondays through Thursdays, 11 a.m.-11 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays and closed Sundays
Entrees: $7-$20
Vegetarian: Pizza and salads
Alcohol: License pending
Credit cards: Yes

ALTERNATIVES
People looking for great Italian in northern Colorado Springs might be better served by checking out long-time favorites:

Mollica’s Italian Market
985 Garden of the Gods Road, 598-1088; mollicas.com
This family Italian market and deli recently expanded to a fancier location in the Broadmoor Towne Center, but the original location is still wonderful. That’s because the Mollica family never cuts corners. The sauces, sausages and most of the pasta are made from scratch. Even the olives and pepperoncini are cured in-house.

Roman Villa
3005 N. Nevada Ave., 635-1806
When a place is still going strong after three generations in the same family, it must be a classic. So it is with Roman Villa, where three generations of the Biondi family have been keeping customers happy with well-priced, homemade Italian dishes since 1959.
It takes only one forkful of Roman Villa’s steaming lasagna to show you how they do it. It’s a personal lasagna, cooked to order in its own casserole so it doesn’t sit around the kitchen waiting to be reheated. The three layers of meat, cheese and mushrooms arrive at the table billowing steam and puffed up like a soufflé, just daring you to dig in with a fork. When you do, it’s a furnace blast of heaven.

Rocco’s Italian Restaurant
3878 Maizeland Road, 574-1426; roccoscolorado.com
Rocco’s is one of those old school Italian-American eateries you find in almost every town: red-checkered tablecloths, comfy booths and friendly servers, lots of fresh red sauce and Chianti bottles on the walls that bear little relation to the cheap stuff sold by the carafe on the menu. And it distinguishes itself as being one of the good ones.
The sauce is made fresh every day by owner and chef Robert Tust, who bought the place from the original Rocco in 1995. Along with ravioli, lasagna and eggplant Parmesan, he often spices up the standard menu with chalkboard specials of fish and other seafood.