Norm's Pizza and Eatery in Wilkes-Barre, PA

Norm's Pizza is located in the Heights section of Wilkes-Barre, PA; not far from other local businesses such as Wegman's. Norm's serves pizza, wings, salads, and pasta dinners; among others, for fairly reasonable prices. The food is tasty, but be prepared to go through some hassle to get it.

If you come to Norm's after 5 or 6 o'clock on a weekend, it's almost a guarantee that you'll be waiting for a table. You give the hostess your group name then have to wait until you are called. On my most recent visit, the wait time wasn't that long but other times, it can stretch into a half hour or longer period. There are also two entrances to the restaurant: the front entrance is for take out orders and the back entrance is for dining room customers.

Upon being seated, our drink orders were taken. We all ordered large drinks for 99 cents apiece. The downfall is that if you finish your drink, you do not get a free refill. This can quickly run up a tab if you are with a group where some of the people like to drink a lot of soda. If everyone in your group likes one kind of soda, I'd suggest purchasing a pitcher. At least this way you are paying one flat refill cost instead of several.

For starters, my mother and sister ordered side salads and my stepfather ordered a tossed salad. I ordered a basket of cheese fries and my brother, a dozen barbecue wings with blue cheese and celery. For our pizza order, we got one small pie of six slices and ten slices of Sicilian with onions.

The speed of service at Norm's is not too quick. The salads definitely took longer than they should've taken; how long could it possibly take to make a salad? My brother also became impatient when the salads, the order of fries, and even the Sicilian slices arrived before his wings. The food is delicious when you finally get it, though. The sauce for the wings was the same Masterpiece sauce used at Kentucky Fried Chicken.

The small pie when it came out was good and cut into reasonable slices. I have always enjoyed Norm's pizza so this time was no different. However, it does seem like they use more sauce than cheese on the slices.

Our waitress, while friendly enough, really didn't do enough to check on us. Instead of directly coming to our table to ask if everything was OK, she pretty much shouted to us from across the way while cleaning another table. She was also not too apt in giving us approximate wait times for our orders, even as my brother appeared restless. While the restaurant was busy, she should've put in more effort to make sure everything was going well. Even an apology for the long wait would've sufficed.

I feel that Norm's needs to make some changes to their menu. They only have cuts of round pie available from 11-3 everyday. Why not change that and make them available to those who don't necessarily want a full pie for dinner? The no free refills policy also needs to be changed especially considering that they are only using plastic cups for drinks anyway.

Another problem is that the Sicilian pizza is not available in pies. The slices cost 99 cents each but again, why aren't Sicilian pies available? It seems like the cost of a pie would be cheaper than ordering ten slices. The small pie was only $6.50 which is probably cheaper than ordering six separate slices during lunch hours.

Norm's has good food, but I never find my experience there to be particularly memorable. I don't recommend Wilkes-Barre locals to avoid this place altogether, but knowing what I do, I would say Norm's is a good eat once in awhile. If you're looking for a regular place to eat, take your business elsewhere.