I’ve found that local pizza outfits are not noticeably better than the chains but are startlingly more expensive. But then I find everybody around me except Pizza Hut to be consistently edible. (Pizza Hut has improved since they did a menu revamp but still isn’t all that great.)
With the exception of my local Italian restaurant, which doesn’t do delivery and whose pizzas are about one meal for me (versus 2-3 for a large most places depending on how hungry I am), but which are comfortably the best pizza I’ve ever had.
It’s because you live in the Twin Cities. They, like most of the midwest, and the Great Plains in particular, have bad pizza. The worst pizza’s I’ve ever had have all resided between the Mississippi River and the Rocky Mountains.
You’ve got lots of other good foods there, but I’ve never found pizza among them.
I give lots of grief to other styles of pizza, New York in particular, but there is usually some quality to recommend the local style over a national chain. But states like Indiana and South Dakota have nothing, in my experience.
Add North Dakota to that. Unless you consider Pizza Ranch to be good. Nearly every pizza I’ve had in that state reminds me of frozen shipped pizza that were warmed up and served.
In many of the places I’ve been Pizza Ranch is the only pizza place too. I don’t understand it either. Strangely in Wahpeton, the best pizza is actually found crossing the state line into Minnesota just to get away from anything offered in ND.
I’ve not been to Fargo in a while, hopefully they have something there better than Pizza Ranch.
We have a local place in A2 called NYPD, and they make an excellent thin-crust style pizza. I’m not keen on their deep-dish, though.
For deep-dish, probably the best around here is Uno’s.
I’ve had Domino’s (of course this is the home town for Domino’s), Little Caesar’s, Pappa John’s, Jet’s, a bunch of others from chains, and not a one of them is worth eating imo.
One thing about Pizza Hut – or at least the Pizza Huts in the greater DC area – is the bacon. Holy shit, Pizza Hut bacon is amazing, mostly because it’s so thick it’s like diced porkbelly. Which is amazing, he said again.
After Domino’s started airing those “We used to be terrible, but we’re not anymore, HONEST!” commercials, I was very skeptical. I have had so many regrets eating Dominos for decades up to that point. But I was talking to my friends over Teamspeak as we played Supreme Commander, and they said, no you really should give Dominos another shot, they really aren’t terrible anymore.
And I have to admit, they were right. They’ve been pretty good since then. I’ve never had a stomach upset or any kind of bathroom emergency or searing internal pains like I used to with the old Dominos. And more recently Pizza Hut finally changed too, matching Domino’s better quality crust. The deep dish still swims in disgusting oil, but their hand-tossed is almost as good as the new Domino’s now.
I recently tried Papa John’s again. They’re still as bad as ever. Their chicken used to taste like medicine, and it still does. I’m convinced that’s not really chicken, since I’ve never tasted chicken that tastes like that anywhere else. And even if I stay away from their chicken, their crust still gives me some pains, like the old Dominos and the old Pizza hut hand-tossed crust. Whatever those two did to improve their recipe on the hand-tossed dough, Papa Johns has not followed yet.
(On the other hand, I do still love dipping the Papa John’s crust into the little garlic dipping sauce they give with it. Bad for my stomach, but still tastes okay as long as you stay away from the medicine chicken).
Papa John’s. When I lived in Brooklyn, home of the best pizza in the world, I tried Papa. It wasn’t bad. It just wasn’t good. And for one reason, sauce was too damn sweet.
Second time. Orlando, in a motel. Waiting to buy a house. Ordered the meat lover’s pizza for the wife and I and the bird. (she got the crust}
Not bad at all. Not too sweet. Good cheese. Great bacon.
Second time in Orlando, three cheese. Hot, fast, tasty.
There is my anecdata. Three shots. Two out of three. Sorry they made you sick JP.
Papa John’s has never risen much beyond adequate for me, but between the price and ease of ordering online, it was my go-to for years.
Recently, I moved within walking distance to a great little local chain Uncle Peteza’s, and I haven’t gone back. Moderately priced, solid quality, and huge portions.
EDIT: “Chain” might be overselling it a bit. I think they have just two locations, and they’re within a <5 minute drive of one another.
Even post revamp for Pizza Hut and Dominos, Papa John’s here has always been comfortably better quality than either. Dunno what to tell you. (The former two are at least edible now, though.)
True story, last week at my brother in laws place we decided to order Domino’s, the wife wrote down the order and then got the number and rang through. After getting a recorded message/advertisement she commented that they all had American accents. After being on hold for a while she hung up. I then checked the number, she had rung Dominos Pizza, Kingston Pa.
No big deal except she was ringing from Kingston Tas, AUSTRALIA… I wonder if they would have delivered in 15 minutes?
Papa John’s in Houston is ok. Like someone said before, it’s got a good online ordering system and not too expensive (although I don’t like the online charge they add…when I order online I’m saving you from having to tie up an employee on the phone, I shouldn’t be charged for that). I found the quality can vary depending on the crew cooking that day.
My local store has pretty good service though. Once when they missed a topping, I left feedback via email. A couple days later I got a call and they gave me credit for a replacement pizza.
Back when I was in California, I ate Round Table a lot. I remember Shakeys too…wow, what a blast from the past…those dark parlors with pizza and video games.
There was a less common chain called Pizzeria Uno that was good too. Thick crust, slightly sweet, and tomatoes on top, but not the watery beefsteak tomatoes, these were really nice deep red things with a hefty flesh. Sorry, that description might have sounded gross but that pizza was good.
Heh, we don’t need to turn this into a fight between your (wrong) NYC pizza elitism vs my Chicago pizza elitism ;)
I’ve already elided a few responses for calling the Twin Cities to the mat. @Chris_Gwinn and @copeknight it’s cool you’ve got places. Never been my experience when I visited family up there. But come to Chicago, there’s more great pizzas than you can count. You have to go out of your way to get the bad stuff.
