Cogan's Pizza, Colonial Ave, Norfolk - Reality Check!

A disappointing response to my feeling totally ripped off by a Cogan's take-out, there was no real attempt to make me feel that I should return to the restaurant. Is Cogan's going to get back to me and let me know why the pizza was so small? I seriously doubt it.

Dear Alex,
Thank you for your comment I will pass it along to the kitchen manager. We still only have one size and I apologize that you feel ripped off. I will find out why your pizza was so small.
Sincerely,
Adele Denny,
Office Manager


monday, may 17, 2010
My gripe: I had not been to Cogan's in a good while, possibly since the last Laine and Alex review. Last night, Chas* and I decided we would venture out of our latest pizza box (YNOT Pizza) and try Cogan's, which has a California Dreamin' pizza, labeled 'staff favorite'. Sign me up. This pizza has spinach, artichoke hearts, mushrooms, a tomato that is said to be cut to order with a parmesan butter sauce, all the way to the edge of the crust. That sounded different. We rationalized the price, $18.99, and ordering only one pizza with the fact that I knew how big Cogan's pizzas were from experience. We place our order at 7pm on a Sunday night and they said they was about a forty-five minute wait. We strolled up there and I went in to pay and pick up the pie. I had to wait about 10 minutes since the bartender where you pay was nowhere to be found. The box looked a little small to me and when we got home and opened it, the pizza was the size of a medium pizza. For $18.99, remember. I was dumbfounded. The picture above is so you can see the size, in relation to a coffee mug. An afterthought, obviously. I remember Cogan's one size offerning being very large. This pizza should have been closer to the $12-14 range of the smaller YNOT size. The taste was great, but Cogan's has lost a customer of their gourmet selections (and that cut to order tomato was nothing special and you do not get the whole tomato). The only way I would ever eat there again is for their $5 deal where you dine in and order a $5 cheese pizza. Cogan's will probably not see me anytime soon because this was a big joke on me, the customer. I do not care if this pizza has lobster on it (which is does not), how can they rationalize $18.99 for a medium pizza in Norfolk. What reality are you living in Cogan's?

~Alex

Original Entry 9/23/2008
We have been busy the last three days...today's draw from the magic envelope was Cogan's Pizza. Cogan's has been around for a good 20-30 years and is known for its pizza, and the many varieties of it. There is only one size...large. There are also salads and hot and cold sandwiches on the menu. They have a lunch buffet that we did not try but which looked good and was a deal, $7.99 for unlimited pizza, plus a salad and a bowl of soup. Cogan's boasts 33 beers on tap and has a nice sounding happy hour, 1/2 off well drinks and cheap beer specials. There is also a Sunday deal, $5 off any pizza when dining in. Today, I opted for one of the salads since I have had the pizza (we often get it for a takie-outie). On the menu, the salad is listed as the spinach and roasted mushroom salad and has onions, hard boiled egg and bacon. Well, if you have read our previous entries, you know how the next part goes, I requested to remove the bacon and onions and to add walnuts and blue cheese. I also added chicken (calamari is another option). Hey, I like what I like and don't what I don't, period. I'm picky. The waitress did not seem to mind and my salad arrived perfectly. A plus for Cogan's, our food came out in a reasonable time. One thing we did notice, she did not come to 'check' on us between our food arriving and the final 'are you ready for the check' question. More water would have been nice in between (what is it with the water this week, see our City Line Cafe review). That is my only complaint, and I am not that revved up about it, so all in all it was a good experience.
Cogan's is a bar. It is not fine dining, but the food is good and you can eat and drink pretty much all day. The happy hour board said 11am-2am...we weren't sure if that was an error of if it is ALWAYS happy hour...it's 5pm somewhere, right. The music was great, Jimi Hendrix, Bruce Springsteen and others. I heard 'Disco Inferno' by The Tramps from the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack, 'Fire' by the Ohio Players and even 'Kung Fu Fighting' by Carl Douglas...disco and funk, you can't beat it. Since I'm ready to have a dance off at any given moment, the music elevated Cogan's to another level.


Stop by for a few slices, some drinks and good tunes. There is always a good mix of patrons there as well.


~Alex


When I patronize a restaurant with 'pizza' in the name, I feel it is only appropriate that I order the pizza. There are many different schools of thought on what makes the ultimate pizza. Deep dish or thin crust? Chicago or New York? Too much sauce? Not enough cheese? I am not a crazed pizza fan, but I like it every so often. Whether the crust is thick or thin isn't as important to me as as the texture. I want it to be crisp, not soggy. As for the sauce and cheese, I don't want to over or under whelmed by either. We had dragged Brianna* along again, which provided me with a pizza partner. We ordered the 5 cheese pizza. It was rockin! Even with 5 different cheeses, the sauce to cheese ratio was nice. I really liked the crust. You can watch the pizza man toss the dough in the air as he makes the pie too, which is fun to watch if you have juvenile tendencies as I sometimes do.

Service was okay. It took a while to get the check and no one checked on us after the initial visit, but this is a pizza place, not a 5 star dining establishment. The clientele was predominately male (hey, real girls eat pizza too!), with some hospital workers hitting the buffet, and I was pleased to see that the bar was occupied at noon on a Tuesday. The atmosphere inside is kind of old, meets rock n roll, meets blue collar, meets biker...but it appears to be clean and well organized. The restrooms are "asexual" as Alex called them, so of course when I used one the lid was up. Handling the toilet seat in a public restroom is not what I like to do before eating. Lucky for me, the restroom was well stocked with soap!

_Laine


Cogan's Pizza is located at 1901 Colonial Avenue Norfolk, VA 23517 and is open daily 11am-2am (eat in/take out available until 1:30 am)