Portofino Cafe

It’s…yeah. It’s not great. We ordered (for delivery) the large Chicken Fettucini Alfredo, the cheese sticks, and some cheesecake. When we opened the pasta container, it immediately smelled like feet inside. I didn’t have any feet-​pasta myself, but my boyfriend says it’s «mediocre» at best. He said it reminded him of a frozen dinner. I did have a cheese stick, though. Those taste like fish. I’m guessing they’re either stored NEAR frozen fish or they were cooked in a fryer that just produced some fish. I hate fish. My boyfriend immediately said that the cheesecake looked like it just got pulled out of the freezer and defrosted. I took a bite of it anyway, because, well, everything else sucked and I’m hungry. I guess he was right though, because it’s frozen in the middle. I guess it’s a compliment to the delivery service, though, because they got us the food before the cheesecake even thawed out!

If you like greasy pizza, this will do the trick. My boss just ordered it for the night crew (all guys, except me) and they all are RAVING about it. We ordered sausage & pepperoni with extra cheese. It was delivered, so it sat for the drive over, but we are pretty close-​by, so it wasn’t sitting for too long. The ratio of pizza and toppings is good. The crust is soggy, but again, it’s greasy pizza. I don’t know if I would order this for myself, but as take-​out for dinner at work with the rest of the staff it isn’t bad.

Oh, hell NO!
This has always looked like an emergency-​late-​night slice kind of place. The other night, we were on our way to BART to the airport, and wanted something other than airport food. So we went in.
It smells like a kindergarten classroom, first of all – not quite clean, and the table where we sat was on the sticky side. But whatever: we were there for slices and to get out of there.
They said that they needed to make our slices and that they’d be a few minutes.
I watched an employee (owner?) go towards what I _​hoped_​was the bathroom – he did, after all, have his finger up his nose. A second later, he emerged with a big ball of pizza dough in his hands.
We asked for our money back and left immediately. Someone who does not have the decency not to touch his face, let alone put his finger into his nose, without washing his hands afterwards, should not be handling food anywhere near the public.
A public health hazard.

The calzone with mushroom, olives and pepperoni was humongous and was fully stuffed. I loved that it was an overload of mozzarella cheese. You can taste that it’s better quality cheese than the regular chain. The veggies were very fresh as well (not canned flavored if that makes sense), and you can tell the cook made the calzone with care. However, it tasted a bit bland with no tomato sauce and a bit on the expensive side for a calzone. Thus, I rate the place a 3!

Dear Café Portofino,
I ordered a small Chicken Marsala. I got a ton of white sauce, maybe 2 mushrooms sliced, and 1/3…YES…1/3 of a SMALL piece of chicken breast. I know I made a small order, but holy crap… STINGY doesnt even begin to describe how frugal you were with my meal.
UNGENEROUS.
FRUGAL.
CHEAP.
You’ve lost a patron forever.

The worst pizza!!! the pizza looks like the leftovers from two days ago. Also take like 30 min. to pay blame on the internet connections. So im really disappointed be aware from this place.

Tasty good sized pizza slices (ask for Hot as you may not like the Warm slice). Very polite servers. Good place for a grab-​n-​go pizza slice.

I was leaving the Macarthur BART station at around 10:00 PM on a Friday, and pleased to see a pizza joint open selling pizza by the slice.
The slices are very large — but unfortunately that’s about the only good thing I can say about this place. Being from New Jersey, I know good pizza. But I’m not a snob; I like well made pizza of any sort, including decent frozen and chain pizzas.
This was NOT good pizza by any metric. My slice was served lukewarm and didn’t have a lot of cheese on it, and the crust had a gummy, slightly undercooked consistency.
The pizza slice cost $ 3, which is a decent deal for such a large slice. But be warned that while the price per slice was written on the paper menu sitting on the counter, it was not listed on the large menu above the counter.
I didn’t try anything else, but I wouldn’t bother unless I were really hungry and out of other convenient options.

It is exceptionally delicious pizza and pasta and others well done and serviced. I like the professional and friendly people work there. They do their best to deliver the order on time. I highly recommend to others to try their food. Keep up the good work.

The only reason this place doesn’t have more stars is because it’s in a rapidly gentrifying neighborhood filled with pretentious, bourgie foodies who’d rather pay $ 30 for a comparable pizza up the road at Pizzaiolo.
The pizza is the best I’ve found within a twenty-​block radius of MacArthur BART, and the staff/​owners are the nicest. Get it.

Ordered chicken primavera, greek salad, ginger ale for delivery… asked them to call when they arrived because I’m staying with people and didn’t want to disturb the house. The food took over an hour to arrive and the driver pounded like 10 times really loudly on the security gate. The front door was open, which made the knock more intense. We told him to hold on a second while we got to the door. so he knocked again… louder and longer… Pasta was burnt and the sauce was bland. Chicken tasted and felt cheap. Veggies were frozen or canned peas, carrots, corn, lima beans, string beans… The greek salad was lettuce, chopped black olives, raw onion, feta cheese… and at least one somewhat curly brown hair. That cost me $ 24 dollars that I debated on whether I could afford. I was hoping the «large» pasta would have been enough to feed me and my friend. It was not and it was awful. The only thing that was good was the garlic bread that they threw in for free. … maybe that was the difference between the regular and large pasta dish… 2 little pieces of garlic bread. Don’t eat here. And to the reps on here asking people to «give you another chance», don’t even say that to me unless you comp my next meal or refund my last or give me a voucher. Not a coupon. A voucher. You should be doing that with every complaint. Don’t ask people to give you more money when they were clearly unhappy with your service the last time they gave you money. If I could give zero stars…

Just tried this place for delivery. Awful.
I ordered a white pizza with ricotta, feta, mushroom, chicken and jalapeño poppers.
The white pizza was completely flat… Like somebody dropped a picture of pizza onto cardboard and served it. Completely skimped on the three cheeses, and there was no sauce at all. It also arrived almost cold. Not ever remotely a warm temperature. I can’t recall any chicken even though I was charged a dollar to add it.
The poppers were soggy but the less disappointing of the two. It was like they coated them in corn dog batter and deep fried them.
One star for including ranch instead of maranera sauce.

This place used to be my favorite until they sent me a really cold half cooked pizza. I didn’t appreciate that at all. The pizzas are usually tasty but I have to put it in my oven for about 15 minutes. And the salt is ridiculous.
Every time I ask for bacon they give me salami.

Way, way too salty!
Otherwise OK.
Won’t order again unless they have a low sodium option.

grabbed a slice of pizza here when i got to the café next door for eats. promptly politely served. server willing to make any kind of pizza. declined. just went for the cheese.
eats: slice of cheese pizza (3)
–was very large. (2x the usual size)
–doughy, not much cheese tasted
similiar to pizza i had in high school, mid school
–tasted ok, not great
2.5 stars

They are somehow rated 4 stars on Eat24hours… the food is bland at best. Ordered a meatball sub, a big Caesar salad, garlic bread and jalapeño poppers. The jalapenos were ok and that was the only thing I could eat from the whole order. The bread they use for the garlic cheese bread and their subs is not good tasting. The meatballs were pretty dry and bland… neither me or my boyfriend wanted to eat that. I paid over 30 $ for jalapeño poppers pretty much. Do not recommend this place to anyone no matter how hungry you are!

I had a couple of slices for lunch today, and they were surprisingly good.
The place looks kinda dumpy. It needs some fresh paint.
They seem to focus on delivery, because i think i was waited on by someone who had just finished a delivery. At first I was greeted by a man who looked like he worked there. He left the table where he was eating (Ethiopian food that I doubt they serve there), went behind the counter, and disappeared! Then a woman who looked like she just finished a delivery, took my order. The man helped her and brought my food to my table.
They say they can add toppings to any slice, but looking at the menu, it appeared to cost $ 1.00 per topping per slice. (I read here from another reviewer that it is much less) But I like plain pizza, and the crust, sauce and cheese were very good. The Parmesan cheese in the shaker smelled, but maybe that is a good thing.
Downside is that they don’t have a restroom available to patrons. They do have a bottle of hand cleaner, and I understand that in a crowded corner near BART, a restroom can be a liability. However, since they are a sit-​down restaurant, I think they should have one.

DO NOT GIVE THEM YOUR BUSINESS. This place is terrible.
I live a couple blocks away from this and pass by almost everyday en route to BART. First of all, I rarely see anyone eating there and if I do, I’m shocked they get any customers at all (I’ll tell you why in a minute). I usually see their delivery person and I still can’t believe they get anyone to order their food at all. Second, the ppl I do see are mostly family members who just hang out at all the restaurant all day long using the internet. That’s a pretty clear sign that they aren’t in the kitchen making fresh food for customers. Third, the restaurant itself looks dirty from the inside and outside. The space behind the soda machine is right in the window and you can tell that they do not care about the upkeep of their restaurant.
The one and only time I stopped in here was awhile ago. I was going into SF and didn’t have time for a real dinner. I thought I give this place a shot to grab something quick to eat. I wanted a slice of pepperoni pizza. I’m used to pizza places having prepared pizzas for slice orders with toppings already on them. This place, oh boy! They just have old cheese pizzas sitting in their «warmer» for who knows how long. The lady at the counter takes a slice out, places a few pepperonis on top and throws it in the oven to heat up. By that time, I already paid and I knew immediately I would regret it.
I tried to give this place a shot, but as I left with my pizza and tried to take a bite, pepperonis were falling off left and right. That’s what happens when you put toppings on an already cooked and most likely old slice of cheese pizza. I forced myself to eat the slice b/​c I paid for it and didn’t have many other options since I was short on time. It was the WORST pizza I’ve ever had and I’ve eaten a lot of pizza.
I don’t know how this place stays in business with crap as food, but I sure hope that the more bad reviews this gets, the even fewer customers they’ll get and maybe a great restauranteur will come and open up a real pizza place.

These people make the best spaghetti for miles around. My Toastmasters club is right down the street, and when it’s my turn to bring food, I bring spaghetti from Portofino. All the members of my club comment on how delicious it is and ask me where I got it.
The reason I don’t give this place five stars is because I have a problem with any restaurant that has seating for customers to sit down and eat their food, and don’t allow customers to use their restroom. I think that is dead wrong!

I’ve been waiting 25 minutes for my sandwich and I’m the only customer in the place. Shoulda gone to the Subway across the street…
Ooh! Sandwich finally came and it’s delicious. So I guess I’m glad I came but Jesus Christ it took FOREVER.