Baseball Toaster was unplugged on February 4, 2009.
scott@scottlongonline.com
Let me begin this installment of Please Explain by mentioning that if you live in the cities of New York, Chicago, or Philly, you probably have little concept of national pizza chains. These cities have so many great pizzarias that it's hard to concieve why anyone would even contemplate ordering one of the generic Za's that litter the rest of the American landscape.
For the majority of Americans there isn't a great option within a few miles, like there is in the places I named above. Considering that Americans have such pathetic taste buds that they will eat Tony's or Tombstone frozen pizzas, I guess it's not surprising that they will choose convenience in going with one of the national pizza chains.
Some of the younger readers might not realize this, but as recent as the late 70's, there was really only one national pizza chain, Pizza Hut. Each city had some local delivery chains, but if you grew up in a smaller town like I did, as hard as it might be to believe, Pizza Hut was your best option. This was a decade that when my Mom said "we were having Italian tonight," it meant Spaghetti O's or the molten lava puffs (better known as Pizza Rolls) were going to be served.
In the 80's, Domino's expanded, becoming Pizza Hut's first national competitor. What really put the chain on the map was Domino's promised to deliver their pizza to your house within 30 minutes or the pizza would be free. I can't think of another product that has ever offered such a thrilling concept. Think about it: Generally brain-dead males in their late teens to early twenties, terrorizing communities with their revved up beaters, just so they could deliver a substandard pie to their customer. The excitement derived in being able to get something free from the man (Domino's) was a delirous game. When the driver showed up before the 30-minute mark, you would actually feel some dejection. Name me another experience where good service is actually a bummer?
The beginning of the end for Domino's began in the early 90's, when the amount of car accidents their delivery drivers were involved in was creating negative publicity. By 1993, the company decided to do away with the 30-minute guarantee. While this was a neccessary decision, it also robbed Domino's of what made it special, their pizza shot clock. With that gone, its customers were left with solely focusing on the product itself. Considering how bad the typical Domino's pizza tastes, I truly don't know how the majority of its franchises stay in business.
I can't say that Pizza Hut is much better when delivered, but its ultra-greasy pan pizza is pretty good when eaten in the restaurant. Papa John's is consistently the highest quality home delivery pizza of the national chains and is pretty comparable in price to Domino's. While Little Caesars is the one pizza chain that is definitely worse than Domino's, it has such a low price point that it is more a direct competitor with frozen pizzas than delivery ones. None of the other chains are truly national players, but each area of the country has a Round Table, a Godfather's, a Hungry Howie's, a Donatos, etc. which generally are better than Domino's, as well.
For awhile, Domino's had the jump on its competition in offering buffalo wings as a menu item. This added heart-attack bonus gave them an edge, but its competitors have now matched them, so I really don't understand why anyone would call Domino's, if they had a choice. Please Explain Domino's Pizza.
**********
In a baseball note to this piece, it is interesting that the 2 worst pizza chains in this land are from Michigan and happen to have been founded by men who at one time have owned the Detroit Tigers.
Mike Illitch is still the owner of Little Caesars. He also owns the Detroit Tigers and Red Wings.
Domino's founder Tom Monaghan owned the Tigers when they won the 1984 World Series, but sold the team in 1992 to Illitch. For the past couple of decades, Monaghan has been one of the biggest financial supporters of groups that are bent on trying to restrict a woman's right to choose. Since Monaghan sold Domino's in 1998, it should be mentioned that you are not contributing to some of his nutty projects (see philanthropy) by ordering some Cinna Stix. His latest idea is creating his own conservative Catholic Truman Show in Ave Maria, Florida. This town Monaghan is building will be one where a pharmacy will not be allowed to sell contraceptives. If he really was concerned about protecting his followers in Ava Maria, he would be more concerned with banning Domino's Pizza chains,
**********
Author's note: I would be remiss if I didn't mention that the 2 latest products Domino's has thrust upon the American public, Brooklyn Style Pizza and the Philly Cheese Steak Pizza are actually decent. This reminds me of how the Frosty or Chili is good, but how I still don't understand how Wendy's can stay in business on the level that it does.
Also, the chain most likely to gain market share is the take and bake chain, Papa Murphy's. It is very reasonable and the quality is better, since it is cooked at home.
While Papa John's is generally the best delivery choice of the national chains, its new pan pizza is quite possibly the worst pizza I've had in a long time. I contacted Papa John's website about how bad the thing was and never received a reply back. Despite this, I'm trying not to hold a grudge, though I was happy Louisville's football underachieved in 2006.
I moved to NYC and really looked forward to the pizza. For the 3 years I lived there I didn't have anything but miserable pizza. The NYC has good pizza motto is a myth. It was all crap pizza with crap ingrediants.
In AZ, Oregano's is tremendous and blows away anything I ever had in NYC. It's still no Round Table, however.
I would strongly disagree with you on the sentiment that Round Table is better than even an average NYC pizzaria. But when it comes to taste buds, we all have our opinions.
I can remember that in the 70's it was my favorite place to go, as it was the first pizza buffet I had ever seen. Since it was 30 miles away, it was a special treat to hit the Shakeys. The last stats (2003) I was able to find listed Shakeys the 22nd largest pizza chain in the US.
My fav. pizza place right now is Pizza Buona in LA at the corner of Alvarado/Sunset. Stumbled upon it before a Dodger game 2 years ago.
That said, I'll agree that Round Table is by far the best regional chain pizza available in the LA area, though I'm also partial to CPK. Once upon a time, CPK was just this quirky little place, that, if you knew about it, marked you as a hipster. It quickly metastasized, and its ubiquity cancelled out any cool factor they had immediately, just like the Izod alligator became worthless when the shirts started showing up in the Costco racks.
Best pizza on the Westside has to be Lamonica's on Gayley. Their basil vegetarian pizza is to die for, and I usually hate vegetarian pies.
Supposedly one reason to never give a dime to Domino's is that the founder is a big donor to anti-abortion causes.
http://www.shakeys.com/
which is all Flash and therefore largely useless because you can't link into any of the interior pages. Whoever put that together should be fired. The "Shakey's" Wikipedia page is far more informative:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shakey's_Pizza
I really like this part:
"According to [founder Sherwood "Shakey"] Johnson, Shakey's Pizza engaged in little market research and made most of its decisions on where to locate stores by going where Kinney Shoes opened stores."
Thus was solved the mystery of store siting.
I've always been a Pizza Hut fan, mainly because they used to be the only place in town. Lately though, their service has stunk, mainly because they never can seem to find my house. Does anyone else seem to have this problem? I mean, damn, they're a delivery chain in a small town. They don't have a map?
A year and a half later my Dad accepted a job in Los Angeles and I've been here ever since. Several years after moving here Little Caesar's went national and one opened near where I lived. I was so happy. A good fast food pizza and a connection to my quickly disappearing youth. Imagine my disappointment. It was a completely different animal, a more cheaply made, crappier animal.
In L.A. I like Domiano's on Fairfax, across the street from Canter's.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cici%27s_Pizza
I am sure we still have the national chains in Chicago, but I don't think we have as many as we did in the 80s. There are a lot of Sbarro's in the Loop, but, all in all, it's not bad to grab a slice there on lunch.
NYC has some of the best pizza on the planet, but that doesn't mean you just get slices indiscriminately. It's like saying music in Austin sucks because you heard two crappy Stevie Ray Vaughn cover bands on 6th St. Do a little research. Until you've done the fresh mozz slice at Joe's on 6th and Carmine (the famous storefront used to be right on the corner of Bleecker, but that has been converted to a crappier pizza place that has no relation to the original, new Joe's is up the block about five storefronts), the Patsy's on 117th and 1st (there are about four Patsy's, this one is the king), Lombardi's, Di Fara in Midwood, Totonno's on Coney Island, and Nick's in Forest Hills, I believe you can't cast judgment. At least one of those establishments is absolutely necessary. Honorable Mention for Rosario's on Orchard.
That said, New Haven has the best pizza in the country.
Domino's is absolute garbage. How any of those stay open in the five boroughs is a mystery to me.
In terms of Domino's versus the other national pizza chains, Papa Johns is better than the other two, but the delivery seems to take longer and it seems to have less coverage. Pizza Hut is my absolute least favorite pizza place in the world (granted, I haven't eaten a Little Ceasar's since I was 7 and I didn't think that it was still open), the obscene amounts of grease on the pizza just makes me sick. Domino's tends to do well because it is consistent mediocrity. That seems to be the general answer to most of these please explains, you know what you're going to get.
There was a pizza place called Luigi's there that I pine for sometimes. It's not NY style or Chicago. Just weird.
Gatti's was awful. Then there was 4 Star, Chanello's, etc.
Luigi's on High Street? The kinda hippie-ish place? They did have good pies. Unfortunately, everyone from NY/NJ in town knew it, and to get your pizza fix, you'd have to wait ages for a table.
There's a place in Arlington called the Italian Store which is much the same way. You go there any weekend lunchtime or every evening, and it's a mob scene, all the displaced Yanks trying to get a decent samwich, fresh mozz trucked down from Brooklyn every day, etc. Why they haven't opened another location is beyond me- it would be gangbusters.
I've always hated Pizza Hut, just too greasy.
Shakey's is wonderful as well, and you get mojo's!
I haven't had a Domino's since. To me they were all about their monopoly on a business idea. I don't know how they keep going, since everyone delivers these days. I figured they must have improved the taste of their pizzas since then, but maybe not.
Agree that Round Table is the best big chain pizza, although I've never had Papa John's.
In the Bay Area, Zachary's is the best pizza.
In short: Domino's is cheap, it comes quickly, and they have a nice variety of side items and "specials." I haven't ordered it since college, but I remember many hazy nights that ended with huge Domino's orders. Though, I always pushed for Papa John's because the pizza and cheese sticks were so much better.
Oh, and Chicago deep dish is terrible. I hate Chicago style pizza, but NYC pizza blows me away. Thin crust is always better than Deep dish in my opinion.
-> grew up in northern nj. liked pizza there, never knew that we had it special til tried pizza elsewhere. UGH.
-> didn't know joe's on bleecker/6th moved - too bad! got hooked on it early in the 90s when everyone else was pimping john's up the street, which i didn't care for, but joe's sold slices, and they were GOOD. if i go, i'll go to the ray's on 12th/6th..
-> the thing on new haven pizza (which is best exemplified in hoboken / brooklyn by patsy's / grimaldi's) is the thin crust and brick oven. i've tried new haven's (pepe's/sally's), and don't like it at all.
-> there was some band that requested domino's, i think, on their rider at every concert. someone said they must have loved domino's, and they said no, we think it sucks, but we know exactly what it will taste like every time.
my real question is: why would anyone in new york / chicago / boston metro areas ever get domino's as opposed to local places?
That said, The only excuse for Domino's is that they stay open later than a real pizzeria in my neighborhood. Whenever I wanted pizza for dinner, I'd have to rush home to order it before they either stopped delivering or closed shop for the night, which at the latest was before 11pm. But Domino's stayed open until 1am, and that's probably when they get the most orders; when the other places stopped delivering or closed. It's only worth it when you realize that all the alternatives, including the supermarkets, are either closed or too far away to travel to. That's also why I leave out Pizza Hut, which I would choose over Domino's if I had one close enough to order from and I need extra oil for greasing the gears on my mountain bike. When you're hungry, salty cardboard will do in a pinch.
(yet, I will NEVER cross paths with Papa John's or Lil' Caesar's again...)
For bad pizza, I wonder if there is a major city worse off than London. Papa John's was the best option, bar none. And even then, 1 pizza cost the equivalent of about $25.
And since Domino's was started by Monaghan, I politically can't eat his pizza, too (it's so convenient when my political boycotts match up with my taste--see Coors). Indeed, I blogged about the creepiness of Ave Maria over a year ago.
http://imnotonetoblogbut.blogspot.com/2006/03/your-town-like-your-pizza-is-like.html
I had really good pizza in Norway. It wasn't like American pizza, but it was a nice change of pace.
The main problem wth NYC pizza being bad is simply volume. There are soooo many pizza places everywhere that the chances of one of them being any good ends up against you. Think of all those minor leaguers and college players teams have to pick from in a draft and how few of them have any quality at all. It is very very easy to understand how NYC pizza can be talked down on. Best per-slice RAYS pizza I've had in the city is the one on 6th ave and 11th street. If you want good pizza, you really have to head out to the boroughs, manhattan is tougher.
And now, my two-word explanation of Domino's from my time in small towns around America:
CHEAP and OPEN
Thus endeth the explanation.
And Doppelganger, what, ever have the pizza at Grimaldi's? Been too long now, I don't even remember if it was any good. I think I was too concerned about getting caught in some kind of crossfire. Oriskany boy.
I grew up in San Francisco and went to college in New York City. The standard NYC pizza-counter pizza sucks and only surpasses Round Table, etc, in that one can buy a huge slice for a reasonable price. Unfortunately, New Yorkers are very good at insisting that a piece of cardboard with a smattering of tomato sauce and a strip of substandard "cheese" that has been sitting under glass for a couple hours before being reheated is the greatest post-bar food anyone has ever produced, simply because it's from New York. The two best pizza places I was able to find were Two Boots (looked down upon by the natives because they put--heaven forfend!--prawns, barbecued pork, and other such delectables on their pies, and Grimaldi's (the one under the Brooklyn Bridge, viewed with suspicion by many natives because it's a sitdown restaurant). I've tried explaining to New Yorkers that pizza is better when it has, you know, fresh and tasty ingredients, but they've never listened.
Also, I second the "European pizza can be odd" comment. When I was spending a summer studying in London, my friends and I spent our entire six weeks trying different places to eat, and the pizza place in our neighborhood (called Pizza Express) was the only restaurant where we had people laughing at the menu. Seriously, one pizza was a Denver omelet.
I have never ordered Domino's. In SF, my family either bought a frozen take-home or ordered pickup from a local place (coincidentally, also) called Pizza Express. We usually got the Artichoke Special, which was pizza with pesto, artichoke hearts, onions, and chunks of roasted chicken. In the other places I've lived, I pretty much never ordered pizza under the "if every pizza option sucks, eat burgers" principle.
I was shocked by the mediocrity of inexpensive food in downtown Manhattan when I was there. I mean, when my dad and I first visited in summer 2001, on the plane ride home, we had a half-serious conversation about trying to open a real taqueria in the vicinity of NYU. Chipotle opened on St. Mark's during my last year there, and last I knew, it and Mamoun's were BY FAR the best quick food options for NYU students taking into account price and quality.
And 5 or 6 generations of New Yorkers are laughing - and not gently - at your shock at the mediocrity of inexpensive ANYTHING in Manhattan.
And to clarify, the reason there are so many crappy pizza joints in Manhattan is because people in Manhattan don't feel they have the TIME to stop and sit down for lunch. The same reason there are so many hot dog vendors, pretzel guys, etc. It's cheap and it'll fill you up and you can eat it while walking-THAT'S how those places stay in business. The same reason a McDonald's can survive next to the "best" burger joint in town.
I grew up and lived in Brooklyn for close to 30 years and now I live in New Jersey in between NY and Philly. I've heard people claim that DiLorenzo's in Trenton is the best in the U.S. (or at the very least, the East Coast) so I tried it out and trust me, it doesn't hold a candle to the top places in NY.
43: If that's how you read the polls. My experience with dozens of native friends (from Brooklyn and Queens, mostly) is that they like the pizza when they actually go in and eat, but they were suspicious beforehand because we had to wait in line, it's a sitdown restaurant, there're decent ingredients such as whole olives on the pies, and they're made to order. All of that went against these skeptics' idea of what pizza "should be". To go off your burger analogy, it's as if they'd always thought burgers were ideally consumed in the McDonald's fashion, and then someone took them to a place where the patties were hand-packed, and they had the option of avocados and sprouts and such.
44 I've never noticed anyone view Grimaldi's with "suspicion"? I'm not even sure what that means. Like ChuckM suggested, there are just a lot of good slices throughout Brooklyn and Queens that there's no need to venture to the congestion under the Brooklyn Bridge. If you want a good neighborhood slice, any number of spots will do...whether it be in Howard Beach, Coney Island, Marine Park, Bensonhurst or Forest Hills.
http://tinyurl.com/yt7dk6
Anyone who is lazy enough to want their dinner delivered to their door, is also lazy enough to call the place already in their speed dial. Domino's ups the ante further by keeping data about you, so you don't have to always explain where you live.
In some areas, you really have to work hard to avoid getting pizza from Dominos. Once you've decided to invest additional time in getting your feed on, you might as well take a couple extra minutes and make a healthy salad.
People in midtown & south "settle" for it because they don't know any better. (:
The Hut had decent pan pizza; the other crusts blew. It wasn't easy to make scratch as a driver there because they would over-schedule (all true fast-food places have to have tiny back-of-shops packed to the gills with employees), as drivers were also assigned...dish duty! Yes, you'd wash dishes for 15 minutes, alternately getting your hands in other people's half-eaten funk and then onto super-hot clean sterile ('til the dirty hands got onto them) plates, then it was behind the wheel for a stop or two.
The Domino's had crappy pizza all around, but shockingly fun coworkers except on the rare night when the owner was managing. This was in '93; our guarantee was three bucks off (not free) if we didn't make the 30 minutes. When the owner was working, we had to run to our cars and back and call out how much time we had on the way out and how much time the delivery took upon our return. The dough was all nasty: hand-tossed was delivered pre-sized in trays twice a week and left out of the cooler to proof (always fun scraping them out of the trays when they'd overproof and 'splode). Thin crust was basically a double-weight tortilla that we'd slather in an oil-and-spice mix before topping and baking. Pan crust was par-baked and also slathered in garlic oil before going through the conveyer oven. (All pizzas took six minutes to bake.) Also, the peppers and onions were nasty dried-out things that had the water spun out of them prior to chopping and shipping, the sausage and ground beef were basically dog food (though we called 'em rabbit turds) and the cheese was tiny pellets rather than shreds. And the make line was a grate system from which we would recover toppings that missed the pizza and put back in the bins. (mmmmm, slimy pepperoni.)
The small chain that I ended up with during my third year was way superior in terms of quality. Also, many drugs were dealt on the premises.
This has been Pizza Confidential with Steve. Remember, friends, always tip your driver generously; it's a hard life driving around listening to tunes all night.
1) fat, lazy people that have no taste
2) high school kids with cash and no car
3) drunk college students
That's it...
Great pizza can be found many places. In my experience, most of those places are in New England and NY. Most of the Pizza on the west coast is thoroughly mediocre but often unique in preparation (running all toppings through a buffalo chopper, crust that can't be cut with a steak knife, incredibly wacky topping combinations)
What's the wierdest way you've seen a pie prepared?
Most people here order from local pizza places (which ALL deliver).
Although I do struggle with the idea of $5 pizza. Most take-away Pizza's here cost about $20 for a 12" one with the current exhange rate...
Comment status: comments have been closed. Baseball Toaster is now out of business.