Barstool Pizza Review - Romo's Pizza (Glenmont, NY)
El Presidente | Pizza Reviews
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00:00 [Music]
00:19 Alright, pizza review time. We're at Romo's. Is this in Glenville? Where is this? No.
00:24 Where are we?
00:27 Is this still Albany? Huh? It might still be in Albany. No, it's not Albany. It's Glenville or something.
00:33 Glenmont. Glenmont. So this place is on the list and let me tell you why.
00:38 Because they won, and well we have it. We can roll the footage. They won a huge pizza contest, a Caputo Cup in Naples, Italy.
00:46 Best New York pizza was the category.
00:50 I was in Naples, Italy for the Caputo Cup and they did a category, Pizza Americana, and it's basically like your best version of a New York style pizza.
00:59 And you won that? I won it, yeah.
01:01 Wow, that was recent, right? June. Yeah, because people started hitting me up. It must have been the news.
01:06 The guy set the bar so impossibly high. He's like, "What I set out to do was create a mix between New Haven, Sally's, John's Obliquer, Lucali, De Lorenzo's."
01:19 So I'm like, "The best of the best. Take a little of all of them and make a super pie."
01:22 So it's a New York style? New York. So I kind of, the dough is kind of New Haven-ish. Very charred on the bottom, charred on the crust.
01:30 The top is Brooklyn style. Cheese first, sauce on top like your John's Obliquer, Tonno's.
01:37 Yeah, so a combo of John's Obliquer and New Haven. Yeah, I tried to create my own little combo.
01:42 Those are big words. Those are big fight words.
01:47 Here it is. And he says he has the New Haven bottom, John's Obliquer top.
01:53 It's a little bit, well, that is how you win the Caputo Cup, by the way.
01:58 Stuff like that tends to be more artisanal. And looking at it, this is artisanal.
02:04 You can see he's got the oils and all that, so it is a little leaky, which isn't always my fave.
02:09 Although that just moved light, which is a very good sign. So let's see what we've got.
02:15 I don't know if they cooked it the same as they always do. He knew everything about my pizza styles.
02:19 So there's the undercarriage that we like. And that is a New Haven-looking undercarriage.
02:24 So let's see. Romo, One Bite, everyone knows those.
02:28 And again, the Caputo Cup's a nice thing. That trophy that I held in there, it's pretty, it's nice.
02:33 This means more. Like, I'm not, all apologies to Naples and all of a Caputo and the fly.
02:40 But this, this is, this means more. And he pretty much said, he's like, I did that to get your attention, to get you here.
02:45 So here we go, One Bite. And he did get my attention. We built this trip around this place.
02:50 Because when he won that award, everyone said, hey, you gotta go try it out.
02:54 We know you're in Saratoga. Shoot on down. Here we go. One Bite, everyone knows the rules.
02:58 That little crowd behind me made me nervous.
03:01 Great crust.
03:03 [train horn]
03:06 Interesting.
03:20 Okay.
03:28 He nailed the New Haven part of it. Pretty good.
03:31 This is the outstanding crust. You can tell the way it's breaking, the undercarriage.
03:35 The top is heavy. Like, it's great. But I definitely would put this into the artisanal category.
03:48 Like, I can't eat this whole thing. I wouldn't be able to eat it.
03:51 Slice or two. Check out.
03:56 Here we go.
03:57 How do you want me to score this? Do you want to score me on how I personally like it or on the artisanal side?
04:17 Nine-one.
04:19 It's artisanal.
04:21 Yes.
04:23 It's like a heavier pizza.
04:25 Yeah, with the sauce and stuff. Yeah.
04:27 I mean, I still think that you got the New Haven down. I like the crunch, but it's heavy.
04:32 You don't agree with that?
04:34 Nine to ten.
04:36 Ten.
04:38 I'm going to go seven-nine.
04:40 I think it's really good, but it's a heavier. He bolted. The owner, he's like, "I hate that score."
04:47 I got to keep it how my scale is. If you're doing this Caputo Cup, I can see it higher.
04:53 It's too heavy for me to eat a ton of. I think it's very good. Seven-nine is a really good score.
04:57 But he bolted. I don't love doing that, but I got to keep it on. Seven-nine, there it is. That's our review of Romo Pizza.
05:06 What's going on? All right, so I'm going to do the quick set the stage here. We already reviewed this place.
05:21 Did the full review. Went back to my house in Saratoga. My man, Anthony, was stalking me.
05:28 No, no, he was stalking me. I walked back to my house. I hear Dave. I think it was like 9am.
05:34 Maybe 10am.
05:36 It was early. He comes. He's like, "Hey, you remember me? At first I didn't." He's like, "Romo, this is the pizza review."
05:45 Then he's got his muscle pull up. His buddy pulls up like five minutes later, gets out. And they, 25 minutes in front of my house.
05:54 Emotional. Welling up. Face-timed his wife. She's crying. And here was the moral of the story.
06:02 He's like, "Last time you were in here, I didn't get to tell the story of Romo's." Like, "I don't care about the review."
06:10 "Nothing like that. I didn't get to tell the story." He's like, "Come back. I need to tell the story."
06:15 I didn't promise it. I want to say something super clear. I'm never doing this again.
06:20 I can't encourage coming to my house. I don't want that. But I'm like, "Alright, I'll try to do it."
06:29 No guarantees. And again, I want to say so clear. I'm not doing this again.
06:34 If you don't like it or whatever, you didn't get your word out, tough. This is a one-time thing. I don't want people.
06:40 I use the word "stalking" my house. He stalked me. But that's fine. We're here. So now I don't know what's going to happen.
06:47 I'm going to tell you the story. My upbringing, pizza business in general. I'm going to get you to try my original New Haven.
06:55 So it is try, because I'm not rescoring.
06:57 No. So I just want you to try my original New Haven.
07:01 Okay. Which is what?
07:03 Which is a little bit different. The one you had was the one that I--
07:05 What's it called on the menu, though?
07:07 Just the New Haven.
07:09 The trying was when we met. You were much more like, "Story, story, meet my mom, this, that." Tears, the worst. It wasn't about trying.
07:16 No, I want to give you a little bit of everything. So you're here. Might as well do it.
07:19 Austin, you may be right. He may have just wanted me to try the pizza, but I'm not going to rescore the pizza.
07:23 The man was crying on my front stoop for 25 minutes. Elio was inside, and he's like, "What was going on?"
07:31 And then a pizza man showed up, was crying at my doorstep, and he's like, "Oh my God."
07:34 So I opened Romo's back in 2009. Never made a pizza ever in my life.
07:42 It was literally an 800 square foot spot. Can't see me from the road.
07:47 And I basically was just like, "You know what? I'm taking a shot." I was literally here every day by myself.
07:52 I was the phone person. I was the fryer guy. I was the sub and salad person.
07:57 My fiancé started helping out on the weekends. My mother would help out when she could.
08:01 My brother came to work with me. My other sisters would help me out when they could.
08:04 So I did that. After about three years, we moved up front to where the Lash Bar is.
08:10 Obviously my mother, who, you know, when I was in my second spot, saw that I was getting really busy.
08:17 And she was like, "You need help." Because really, at that time, it was me and a few other people.
08:23 And she was like, "You need help." And I was like, "I know I do, but it's stuff getting people."
08:27 So after about 20 years of working in a forest, she was like, "You know what? I'll leave there and I'll come help you."
08:37 She puts a lot of stuff on her shoulders that she really doesn't need to just because I'm her son and she wants to help me out.
08:44 For the most part, has been a single mother. There's five of us.
08:48 She's worked multiple jobs throughout our childhood to make sure we had stuff we needed.
08:54 Holidays to make sure we were good.
08:56 The biggest thing, I tell her all the time, "Thank you. I understand."
09:00 But she deserves to know on the broadest scale possible that she's been everything to me, my brothers and sisters, other family members, and stuff like that.
09:12 So is that why you were crying on my doorstep?
09:16 Well, I got emotional with that because I wasn't crying. I was holding back.
09:22 Let me say this loud and clear. You were crying. Like, yes, you were choked up.
09:28 Yes, choked up. My mother giving up basically her life so I could have an even better life.
09:35 I can give my daughters a better life. It just means a lot to me.
09:39 I wanted to show her in the first review. When you came in, I literally was like, I didn't know what to do.
09:48 It was like the pizza god was walking in my door because I know the impact that you have on businesses.
09:54 We've been waiting for two years for you to come in. I've had it down.
10:02 When he comes in, I'm going to tell him this, I'm going to tell him that. I just froze.
10:06 Dave, this is Mom.
10:09 We met last time.
10:11 I took pictures of you.
10:13 And he came in stalking me.
10:15 Yes. You know, you're really looking at the world today.
10:20 He dragged me out of my other profession. He said, come with me, Mom.
10:26 So I did, and we've been having a great time ever since.
10:31 The most of the theme when he was at my house was he felt like the original review, he didn't give you enough credit for everything.
10:40 That seemed to be the gist of why he wanted me back.
10:45 Me being nervous that he was there the first time, really reviewing the Napoli and not everything else that we have to do was part of the reason.
10:57 But the main reason was I wanted you to get your shine and your desert for everything that you do for me, for everybody else.
11:07 That was the reason that I thought.
11:11 Everybody's here.
11:14 He wanted to show appreciation, that almost made me tear up, but he wanted to show appreciation for you.
11:18 He's tearing up.
11:20 That was very cute. That was cute. It wasn't that we tried the pizza because we never do it.
11:25 But he was very adamant, he wanted to give you, he didn't show as much as he felt.
11:30 We drove 45 minutes, and I was a little nervous because he had his muscles, his body show up at my house.
11:36 I didn't know what was going to be going on.
11:38 How are you? Nice to meet you.
11:41 You're more composed than last time.
11:44 No, I'm not, actually.
11:46 Again, I can't, she was waterworks.
11:49 No, I'm not, I'm shaking.
11:52 He has done like a 180 composure from when he's talking.
11:56 There was tears, people were choked up, no one could talk, people were pulling up.
12:01 Now, it's like, oh, he's good to hear.
12:04 It's okay.
12:06 All right, here we go. What is this one? I'm not rescoring.
12:09 You got your story, that's the New Haven.
12:11 This one is my original New Haven style.
12:14 I'm not rescoring.
12:16 I do, instead of sauce on the bottom, I do cheese and sauce on top.
12:19 Great undercarriage.
12:21 But if you know what I like.
12:24 Well, when you came in and you started like, oh, you wanted Italy, we were kind of, well, we were making it.
12:29 I guess we ordered, you didn't know it was us, right?
12:31 No, but then we were like, do we give him the one that I wanted in Italy or do we give him the traditional one?
12:38 I'm not rescoring, it sets a precedent, it's already so fucked up that I'm not going to rescore it.
12:47 I'll tell you this, I much prefer this one to the one that I ate. Like much prefer.
12:52 That's a style difference.
12:54 Yeah, yeah. I mean, the other one, you know, I geared that towards my trip in Italy.
13:00 You know, I had a San Marzano blend, a, you know, buffalo mozzarella in it, you know, to try to fit that competition.
13:09 Didn't know I saw you.
13:13 I'm not rescoring it. This would float to the gates with no problem.
13:17 A thousand percent. And my taste buds, better than what I got the first time when you stormed off.
13:22 I'll also say I saw your cousin like the next day at the track.
13:25 Literally.
13:27 Comes running up, hey, this was an hour and a half after he stalked me.
13:32 And I'm like, this fucking family.
13:34 That's why she came running up to me at the track.
13:37 She sends me a text and she goes, did you go to Dave's house today? I go, no.
13:40 She goes, he just told me you did. I'm like, fuck.
13:42 Sit down for maybe 30 seconds.
13:44 The lady runs up, hey, you just reviewed my cousin's place, Romo.
13:49 I go, not only did I review it, he just stalked me 20 minutes ago.
13:53 And she's like, oh. And she turned around and walked away.
13:58 I don't know what to say. It was great. Yeah. A hundred times better.
14:01 I don't want to put down the other bitch.
14:03 No, because then such a bad president.
14:06 I mean, you've done multiple reviews.
14:08 Only to be mean.
14:11 It's better to go up.
14:12 So it's better than a 7-9.
14:14 This will be in the original review. That's why we haven't put out the first one.
14:17 So you had to know it was coming when the first one didn't come out.
14:21 Yeah, when I noticed that it hadn't gone out, I was like, you know, I'm going to come back and do something bigger.
14:25 I already said this is a sale into the eights.
14:28 That's as good as you're getting from me.
14:30 That's good. That's good enough for me.
14:32 Because then I just feel like you use me.
14:34 No. You prop me and mom me and what, just to get the eight.
14:37 I'm not, I can't be emotionally blackmailed.
14:40 I appreciate you coming back.
14:41 It means a lot that you just came back, got the story and got to not get the nervous Anthony.
14:47 I'm glad I came back.
14:49 Thank you.
14:51 And this is really great. It really is.
14:53 This is great.
14:55 This is really great.
14:57 It's great. I'm not going to do it, but it's great.
15:02 I think you did it.
15:04 Yeah.
15:05 [Music]