Spartan Pizza & Restaurant

Tough place to review. Place has a very loyal following here in Waterbury. For me and my wife, the food is good but not great. Portions are large. Sandwiches are always good, pizza is decent. (pizza is a very subjective food) I recently ordered prime rib Madagascar. The piece of meat filled my platter and was cooked at medium rare and was a very good tasting prime rib. The mashed potatoes were on the runny side and the mixed veggies looked and tasted like they came out of a can. Service was good. For us this is a good backup place for dinner close to home

Excellent job by the bartender stopping in here for a cocktail early June before meeting friends for dinner in Beacon Falls. Chilled martini glasses were brought to the bar with lime wedges on the rim and then two shakers for each of our drinks. Full pour. Ingredients blended well in terms of flavor. Nice to see the owner, Vasi. # Spartan Restaurant has been a go-to place in Waterbury for a few decades. Part lounge and bar, and part take-out pizzeria with enough room for tables and an event, the family owned business services many people, from buddies meeting for a beer, three generations enjoying a meal in a corner booth, young couples on a date, or seniors returning to their regular spot for a martini and club sandwich. Spartan reminds me of the Friday's chain on the bar side, with a big square bar in the center and booths circled around it. Different is the décor, in that Spartan showcases large paintings of Greek warriors on their walls vs. Friday's feel-good kitsch. The take-out/event side reminds me of any place where you can grab your pizza and leave, or sit in a booth under bright lights. Entering Spartan, a member of the wait staff told us if we wanted a booth there wasn't one, but we could sit at the bar. This is not an hour we usually frequent busy restaurants, but when hunger calls, there it is. Very crowded, we settled at the wood bar. Plexiglas sheets hung around the entire bar to protect customers from staff and vice versa. We never saw one of the empty booths taken including the one with the reserved marker on it, but we left around 7:30. Given both the restaurant's special and regular menu, we saw on the back page prime rib weekends were back on Fridays and Saturdays. We ordered the traditional Prime Rib Au Jus and Prime Rib Madagascar with onions, mushrooms and a brandy sauce to determine the difference. Our drinks were a double Myer's rum with club soda and lime and an ice tea. The double was suggested by the bartender in that it was Saturday. True. Nice pour. The stuffed mushrooms off the special menu with crabmeat were large and savory. The bread that came before our dinner was warm and the right mix of a crunchy crust and soft interior. Given the choice between soup and salad which came with our meals, we chose soup. There were two options: chicken noodle or lobster bisque. We chose the lobster bisque. Hearing this, our waiter said there was a surcharge with this choice. We agreed. Not expecting anything, what a pleasant surprise. Really, really good with notable small chunks of lobster and a first bite taste that reminds us why we suffer extra pounds throughout this Google Maps Local Guide adventure. Noteworthy that paying $3.50 each for the bisque means soup didn't really come with the dinner, but no matter. With the starters being so satisfactory, the mains were average. The Prime Rib Madagascar ordered rare to medium rare, was served medium well to well. A good portion of fat removed left maybe 10 ounces of steak. The menu did not specify the portion size. The traditional Prime Rib with Au Jus was better in pure beef flavor, and ordered medium, came to the bar this way with a little pink in the center. The accompanying sides of mashed potato, mixed carrots and green beans were comparable to what one would expect on a plate at a school cafeteria. Zero seasoning. Overcooked. Unimpressive for $23/$24. dishes. Our bad, in that we forgot we weren't in a steak house where this cut of beef should be ordered, like Chuck's, for example, (see my photos) where our prime rib dinners were cooked to perfection - from rare to the well-done end cut, and with the more appropriate baked potato side. Mentioning to staff behind the bar waiting for our tab that my prime rib was not cooked to order, he winced, apologized and thoughtfully brought us a container of extra au jus to have at home. Pizza, apps, fried food and sandwiches are the way to go in these restaurants. With Spartan, one of their Greek specialties could also be a nice surprise.

In short, Spartan is not what it used to be (I grew up eating and dinning at Spartan), if given Spartan as a choice again to dine at I would pass. Spartan, food in my families opinion, is not worth the money. Spectacular wait staff but flavorless food. Saturday, after a family day at the beach our group of seven were really looking forward to a delicious dinner to round out and end our long fun day. We phoned Spartan about 30min before we arrived to make sure they would be able to accommodate a party of seven. We arrived approximately 4pm and were pleasantly greeted by an energetic hostess. We were ushered to a large, awkward corner booth in the bar area. We should of asked for alternate seating however we didn't want to make a fuss. Two family members sat and ate on the square corner of the table and one family member sat half off the edge of the booth seat. Clearly the booth was not large enough to accommodate seven people comfortably. I wish the wait staff would have been more observant and recognized our space issue. We had two servers as a shift change was in the process. Both servers were excellent. One server started us off with drinks and taking our order then explaining that the second server would be taking over. The service was flawless and attentive without being annoying. However, each of our ordered food choices tasted less than impressive. Within our family group we had three people that have experience in the culinary field. ALL seven of us agreed that the food we ordered lacked flavor. There was an order of Real Chicken Parm, Fish and Cips platter, 2 Grilled Chicken wraps, Steak Euro, Chicken Nuggets and Fries and a Burger and Fries. Our orders all varied greatly so it's not like the lack of flavor was a fluke. We were all very disappointed in the food. We were all shocked that it was ALL the dishes ordered that lacked FLAVOR! I would go into detail and pick apart each meal however this review has become long winded. .