Woodvale Pizza - Edmonton

I go to Hillview Pub for karaoke on Friday nights usually.

My family and I have been ordering pizza from Woodvale for years and years, because it really is the best pizza available in the city.

Oh the Woodvale!! It's a little neighbourhood place for sure! Not much to look at, but it totally is a diamond in the rough because their pizza is

Well worth it fresh tasty and lots of toppings will be a regular there now. Great value for the dollar

Tonight was our first visit. After our experience, we decided it worked sufficiently for a place to wait out dance lessons with the itty bitty ones, but we wouldn't go there for any other reason.The food was good overall... 70's small town pub grub at it's finest. If you have a hankering for deep fried frozen appetizers, it's as would be expected. That said, that was EXACTLY what I wanted, and it was better than expected! The portions were very generous and priced very fairly. The coffee was terrible, as most neighbourhood pub coffees are, but the zucchini sticks at $5.50ish were cooked properly, and the poutine came in a lasagne dish, baked with a generous amount of cheese. All of it was served piping hot.The service was quite friendly, but our server seemed to be handling both us and the pub next door (separated only by an accordion wall, and utilising the same menu).There was a sign posted on the front door that they are looking for wait staff, so that might have been why.The decor is what really killed the experience. Nothing appears to have been updated / refreshed since the late 70s / early 80's. The carpet is in bad disrepair, and the lighting is not only insufficient, half of the light bulbs were burned out, so we really were in the dark. The menus are old, with paper labels blocking out the only "steak" options. That said, I'd prefer that a resteraunt delist items that obviously weren't good sellers rather than serve me a frozen / old steak.There were people coming in to pick up take-out, the pizza seems to be popular, and even at 5 PM on a Tuesday night the pub seemed to be pretty busy. I doubt the restauraunt gets a lot of business though, because the pub patrons felt right at home coming over the the restaurant side to handle their phone calls in the middle of the dining room.Overall, I don't think that this establishment is beyond fixing, it just needs a little care from the owners - the staff obviously already do, because the place, for all of it's horrid condition, was decently clean, the service was friendly and prompt, and the food, for what it is, was good. It did leave me curious about the pizza and salads, because it seemed like someplace just far enough out of date that it would be freshly made with generous toppings, and not some generic chain-restaurant fare. A good coat of paint, some new lighting and window coverings, new flooring, and rearranging the tables (moving the extra chairs and high chairs away from the front window and out of the way of those trying to sit at the first table) would go a long way toward making this someplace I'd actually recommend. That, and the staff not smoking right outside the front door where I can see them before they go and handle my dinner.All in all though, I can't say I won't be back - because there aren't many places that still serve that particular food memory. :-)