Hawthorne's New York Pizza and Bar Ballantyne

As a native New Yorker, I have been searching for authentic NY pizza and Hawthorne's 18" cheese pie hit the nail on the head. Badda bing badda boom! It had the cheese pull I was looking for with the orange grease running down your fingers and hand. The crust had just the right crunch on the outside but soft and tender on the inside. I got my order to go but the two ladies at the take-out counter were very nice and so was the hostess at the door. Definitely made me feel like I was back home in Brooklyn.

This was a pretty average pizza joint. The food, drink, service, and atmosphere were fine, but there was nothing particularly notable about it. It was a lot like the city of Charlotte itself: nice, yet corporate, soulless, and lacking in any real personality. However, I would recommend if you're simply looking for a solid slice of pizza.

We keep coming back, it’s easy and convenient when you live a few blocks away. But it’s just such a weird vibe. It clearly all starts with the very odd manager guy. And then trickles down to the staff. The pizza itself is pretty good, make sure you order it well done. Strangely it seems like they changed their pizza sausage to this, cutting up pre-cooked sausage links unfortunately?? The garlic knots are outstanding, and they have PBR tall boys. It’s definitely a nice touch to have a handwashing station outside of the washrooms, when it’s working.

The Italian Sauage & Pepperoni Stromboli was awesome, 9/10. The pepperoni pizza looked good, but was blah -- crust was great, but the cheese and pepperoni had no flavor, 5/10. I would come back for the Stromboli. I wonder how the pasta is.

I don’t know what has happened to this place but last takeout orders are nothing but soggy greasy undercooked messes. Additionally, I consistently ask for extra veggies and am 100% of the time left with just a couple on each slice. This exact thing happened the last time I ordered, called and spoke to a manager and he assured me it wouldn’t happen again . Apparently kitchen staff just wants to get the food out without any sort of concern for the customer or quality. Hawthornes has surely gone downhill and it’s quite unfortunate, because it used to be our fav.