Ray's New Haven Style Pizza

This is one of the best pizza places in the country. I can tell any person with certainty if u don't like rays new haven style of pizza you don't like pizza, or at least don't know what a good pizza is. Only pizza place better anywhere is in new haven, it has to be the water cause there's no explanation for how good this food is!

If there's one thing that East Lyme doesn't need, its another pizza place. I can think of about 5 off the top of my head. But when Rays moved into town we decided to try it out. The family that owns Rays is from New Haven and it shows. Pizza is pretty classic New Haven style thin crust although they don't use a wood fired oven like the classic New Haven joints. That being said, the pizza is a step above the other local joints including Pizza Cucina and Iliano's. Its not a fancy place by any means but the pizza makes it worth the trip. The Eggplant Deluxe is killer.

Went for lunch, short staffed. Pizza was ok, they use a typical electric oven...not wood fired or brick. Stick to pizza everything else appeared to be frozen or nothing special.

I went to Rays on two different occasions and both times turned out to be terrible. The first time I called in an order for pick up and the person on the phone was very rude so I decided to call back and cancel my order and go to another restaurant down the street. I figured I would give the place another try to be fair and this time went in the restaurant. On these extremely hot and overly humid days, no customer wants to sit in a restaurant that is not air conditioned, how can you expect anyone to eat in comfort? So walking in the air conditioners were off and it was like a sauna which immediately made us pick a different place to eat where we could escape the heat and enjoy a meal. I think this restaurant needs to think about customer service more and maybe they would be more busy like other restuarants in the area.

Love their pizza! I keep going back because the pizza is so good. But their service needs new Management. Ray's could raise to the top of pizza restaurants in the area if they could get the pies out faster and have slices ready for a lunch time crowd.

Been twice to Rays.

First time was with a coworker during our lunch break. Coworker gave a tip {for take-out} that was higher than the price of his pizza. The gal at the register gave absolutely no acknowledgment of gratitude, to put it mildly. In fact, she didn't even look up from whatever she was gazing at on the floor. And to top it off, the coworker hated the pizza.

I didn't think the pizza was that awful. Nothing special, mind you. But not bad to the point of tossing the entire pizza into the trash as he did.

So I decided to give it another try...on my own.

Again- take out

Again- the zombie-like stare at the floor after receiving a rather generous tip.
{what the hell is up with that?}

But this time, the pizza was just downright terrible. The dough was as hard as a rock. I didn't think it possible that pizza dough could be transformed to the hardness of kiln heated pottery. But that is EXACTLY how hard this pizza was. No exaggeration. If I had walked out the door of Rays and flung this pizza, like a discus, into Niantic Bay, there's a good chance that that hardened piece of pizza dough with tomato sauce on top might have floated, like a message in a bottle, clear across the Atlantic Ocean to Ireland, Scotland, England, France, or Spain..completely intact. And woe to the marine animal out there on the bounding sea that attempts to digest that thing called a Ray's pizza. The thing is a hazard to marine life and might even kill endangered whales who try and swallow the thing.

I may be trying to paint a more vivid portrait here in my description. But my account isn't really all that far from the truth.

And one thing I can tell you all in complete earnest, without additional color, is that I will never patronize Ray's again.

I just called for a delivery to Great Neck Rd., in Waterford, placed my order and then told you don't deliver here and was abruptly hung up on before I could say I would come pick it up! HOW RUDE CAN YOU BE????? This, after my 91 year old Mom fell today, my furnace went out and I missed the gym, put the icing on the cake! NEVER, EVER WILL I OR MY BEST FRIEND (YOUR NEIGHBOR) DARKEN YOUR DOOR AGAIN. I SHALL NEVER RECOMMEND YOU AS I HAVE IN THE PAST. Ray, you rent from Jerry and Kathleen. They won't like hearing this!