This review is one of those rare ones which breaks
the rules; Wonder Bar happens to fall into the
category of "Needs Work", but I'm going to
recommend the restaurant anyway, for reasons I'll
enumerate here. I went with a medium size group
of friends to the "joint" on 4/10/2002.
Long time Worcester natives and "old school"
alumni of the ten colleges in the city usually
recall the neon sign of the Wonder Bar with great
fondness. If you do happen to remember the place
from the 70s, the good news is that the restaurant
has literally not changed at all since
then. The same owners and servers run the place,
though one of the servers is about to retire after
many, many years working there.
Now, as far as pizza goes, I like to consider myself
something of a perfectionist. Also, of the many
styles of pizza: greek, chicago, sicilian, thin
crust, foccaccia... I prefer traditional Italian
style "medium" crust the best. Most pizza
eateries in Worcester fall into the greek
category; a crunchy, round, oily crust.
Wonder Bar happens to have the best Italian style
pizza you can find in Worcester. For around 7 to
10 dollars, you can get an "individual" size pizza
(a 12 inch round, they only come in one size) with
a variety of toppings. I usually get the
"combination" with sausage, mushrooms, and
peppers, but other friends have had luck with
meatballs, three cheese, and even anchovies.
Take note, this isn't pizza for the fainthearted
or health-conscious - Wonder Bar is greasy pizza
heaven. Unfortunately, everything else at the
restaurant is greasy too, even the garden salad.
Now this is great if you're looking for homemade,
hand cut french fries or fried chicken. Sadly,
the Wonder Bar isn't consistent as far as quality
goes. Some nights they get everything perfect,
other nights you get overdone french fries and
brusque service (usually these are the busy
nights, which can be any night from Wednesday
through Saturday). For some reason the non-alcoholic
drinks often taste watered down, as if the soda
fountain constantly runs out of syrup - but this
isn't a problem if you order a juice or beer.
I have to say that I find the dining experience of
Wonder Bar to be a worthwhile one, even when
quality and service are low. The pizza at least
is almost always uniform, and that and the
atmosphere and local color make up a large part of
why I continue to go there.
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