All-Around Decent Restaurant in Massachusetts - Piccadilly Pub
Written: May 16 '06
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Reasonably priced, Large portions, Decent service, Good tasting
Cons: Nothing is spectacular, Service at times
The Bottom Line: Prices are reasonable, the food is good and the portion size is more than enough for the average person
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| jps246's Full Review: Piccadilly Pub Restaurant |
If you’re in Massachusetts and looking for a decent restaurant with reasonable prices and good food, you might consider stopping at the Piccadilly Pub for lunch or dinner.
Scattered throughout the Commonwealth with fourteen different locations, there’s almost always a Piccadilly Pub nearby when you’re in Massachusetts. Serving a mixture of typical American pub food and a few Italian ‘inspired’ dishes, the Piccadilly Pub does a good job at combining well-sized portions, good tasting food and decent prices.
Where do I find the Piccadilly Pub?
There are fourteen Pub locations in Massachusetts, with the majority in the portion of the state east of Worcester. Heading west beyond Worcester, you’ll only find three more restaurants and most of those are right along the Massachusetts Turnpike.
The restaurants are located in:
Auburn
Dedham
Foxboro
Franklin
Marlborough
North Attleboro
North Reading
Randolph
Sturbridge
Tewksbury
Waltham
Westborough
West Springfield
Worcester
What can I eat at the Piccadilly Pub?
Much like the Ninety-Nine, a similar but larger New England ‘pub’ chain, the Piccadilly Pub offers a mixture of chicken, fish and beef dishes that are generally grilled or fried along with the occasional run-of-the-mill Italian dish. That’s not to say any of these meals are bad – but they are much like you’d find at any other pub/restaurant and there’s nothing special about the food that would draw me specifically to the Pub.
Like most chains, the menu at Piccadilly Pub evolves over time, with more popular dishes remaining and other dishes disappearing off the menu and being replaced with others.
So what about the food? A quick overview of what you can find there:
Appetizers
Shrimp cocktail, boneless buffalo wings, nachos, spinach and artichoke dip and mozzarella sticks are all on the appetizer menu. The prices run from about $6 up to about $10 and the serving size for all of the appetizers run on the large size.
My favorite appetizer (and favorite menu item overall) tends to be the honey bbq boneless buffalo wings that they have, though the regular boneless buffalo wings are good, as are the nachos and the mozzarella sticks. With the buffalo wings, even the smaller standard size is more than enough for two people and probably enough for four people. The large size guarantees that you are going to be bringing some home.
Soups and Salads
It’s New England, so of course there’s clam chowder and lobster bisque, along with chili, french onion and a soup of the day, which has tended to be something like chicken noodle when I’ve been there. I’m not a soup person, but my partner and some friends have had the chowder and have said that it’s good.
The salads are a mix of smaller side salads and larger salads that could be a meal by themselves. There’s the garden salad and the Caesar salad, both of which you can get either as a side salad or as a meal with chicken on them. There’s also a steak tip salad and a fried chicken salad.
The soup and salad portions are generous and prices for the soup run from $3 to $5 and the salads go from about $3.50 to $9.
Sandwiches
Not ready for an entrée? There are quite a few different sandwiches to choose from including several different kinds of chicken sandwiches, a tuna melt, a lobster roll, a fried fish sandwich and a few different kinds of hot, open-faced sandwiches.
My personal favorite here is the hot, open-faced turkey sandwich, which comes smothered in gravy along with stuffing, cranberry sauce and your choice of potato. The balsamic grilled chicken wrap is also quite good.
Prices on the sandwiches go from $7 up to $14, though only the lobster roll costs that much, the rest of the sandwiches only go up to about $9.
In addition to the sandwiches, the Piccadilly Pub also offers several different kinds of burgers and while they don’t offer a turkey version of their burger, do offer a gardenburger. I’m personally not much of a burger person (and I’d try to have a turkey burger instead), so I haven’t tried their burgers and no one with me has had one when we’ve been there.
The prices for the burgers go from about $6 for the basic burger up to $8 for the fanciest one. They all come with your choice of potato.
Fish
Not my favorite thing on the menu, but I am trying to expand my tastebuds and I’ve managed to have a piece or two of some of the seafood dishes that others have had when I’ve been there with them.
There’s the old standby, fish and chips, along with broiled haddock, baked salmon, clam strips, shrimp, and scallops on the menu. All of the menu choices are served with a choice of potato and a vegetable.
I’ve never heard a complaint from anyone about their seafood and everyone I’ve been with has enjoyed their meals when they have had it.
Because the fish meals are considered entrees and come with both potato and vegetable, they are slightly pricier than the previous items on the menu. The price ranges from about $9.50 to about $14.
Poultry
Closer to my heart, I tend to stay here on the menu when I’m looking for a meal, though if you are looking for healthy poultry eating, your selections are somewhat limited. There’s the roast turkey dinner with all the fixings, along with a chicken tender meal, chicken parmesan, fried chicken and glazed turkey tips.
I do kind of wish they had some sort of grilled chicken entrée, but you can only get grilled chicken in the sandwiches.
If I’m ordering, I tend to get the roast turkey or the turkey tips, just because I try to shy away from fried foods. With either of those, there’s more than enough food for a single person and I always end up taking some home with me because I simply can’t finish all they put on the plate, especially if I’ve had a salad or an appetizer beforehand.
Depending on your choice, most of the chicken dishes come with potato and vegetable and cost anywhere between $7 and $9.
Beef, it’s what’s for dinner
I know, I know – but when it comes to eating out when I’m having one of those “I don’t care about cholesterol content or calories” kind of days, I want to have a good steak when I eat out.
The Piccadilly Pub hasn’t let me down either. Their steak tips are very good, glazed in a bourbon bbq sauce and served with a potato and vegetable. The sirloin is almost as good and the open sirloin sandwich is one of my favorites.
Beyond that, there are also ribs and meatloaf, though I’ve never tried those.
You get what you pay for here and I’ll bet for most people, any of these meals will end up being two meals since you’ll have to take some home. The prices range from about $11 up to $15.
Desserts
I’ve never been one for having desserts, especially after having an appetizer or salad and then my dinner, so I’ve never managed to have a dessert at the Piccadilly Pub. That and the portions on the meal are so good, I’m not sure anyone would have any room for a dessert afterwards.
However, if you want one or perhaps you’re only stopping in for coffee and a dessert, you’ll find a chocolate fudge cake, apple crisp, strawberry shortcake and a brownie and ice cream hot fudge sundae. The prices on these desserts are all about $5.
Specials
The Pub offers a large number of specials each night, which are usually slight various on regular menu items or sometimes various pasta dishes. I’ve had a few of the specials and they have been good – my favorite so far was the grilled chicken and steak tips over a bed of pasta with a garlic, butter sauce and broccoli mixed in. The specials are usually slightly less than the regular entrees and average around $8 to $12.
Will I still eat there?
Having just recently moved to an area that is closer to the Piccadilly Pub than before, I’ve found that I’ve been stopping here more often with friends and family when we are looking for a place to eat.
It’s simple, it’s easy and you know what you are going to get when you go to the Piccadilly Pub, even when it might not be a location you are that familiar with. I’ve eaten in a few of them and the menus are the same and the food quality overall is quite good.
Service is a bit scattered, especially at night, but it’s no worse than you’ll find at most other similar restaurants. Though we’ve never had bad service there, they’ve just been a bit slow to seat us or take or order. When it comes to the rest, we’ve always had good luck with our servers and they’ve paced the meals admirably with the appetizers and/or salads and the meals, making sure they all come out at the right time.
My Experiences
Most of my experiences with the Piccadilly Pub are limited to the Franklin location, though I have been to the Sturbridge, Worcester and Westborough locations too.
Final Thoughts…
If I’m looking for reasonably priced pub food or perhaps some simple pasta dishes, I just might end up at the Piccadilly Pub since it definitely fits those requirements. Prices are reasonable, the food is good and the portion size is more than enough for the average person (you’ll most likely bring something home).
There are plenty of restaurants that are a lot worse than Piccadilly Pub and if you aren’t looking for anything fancy, you probably will enjoy it.
Recommended:
Yes
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