The Facts:
Pizza: Pizza Hut
Business Category: National Chain
Website: www.pizzahut.com
Location: 1995 Barnett Shoals Rd.
in Athens , GA
(behind Taco Bell )
Date of Review Visit: December 9, 2012
What I Ordered: Large (14’’) pan pizza with Italian sausage,
plus a regular order of breadsticks
Price: $14.98
The Micro:
Crust: The crust used to be a real strength of Pizza Hut’s
pizza, but I could not say that at present, even with all of Pizza Hut’s
gimmicky crusts (stuffed, cheese bites, etc.).
Good crust does not need to be gimmicked up. Of their “ordinary” crusts, I always have preferred
the pan, and I still do. The pan crust is golden brown on the outside and chewy
on the inside, but when you pinch it orange grease oozes out. That’s not a pleasant sight. Score: 7/10.
Sauce: The pizza has sufficient sauce, but the sauce has no
spices. Also, the sauce tastes canned
rather than fresh. I have certainly
tasted worse sauce, but there is room for improvement. Score: 6/10.
Cheese: The pizza is slightly undercheesed, as evidenced by
some of the bare spots that are absent any cheese. Also, something on this pizza makes it taste
very salty. The breadsticks dipped in
pizza sauce do not suffer from a salty taste, so I am thinking it is the
cheese. Score: 3/10.
Toppings: The pizza has sufficient toppings, but the
pellet-style sausage has very little flavor.
Both the pork sausage and Italian sausage used to taste quite good here,
but not any more. Also, adding more than
one meat topping makes the pizza very greasy; I know from experience. Score: 5/10.
The Macro:
Appearance/Atmosphere/Service: The pizza’s appearance is
quite good except for the bare spots of crust and sauce. I have not had any issues with the service at
the Barnett Shoals Pizza Hut (the subject of this review), but I have at other
locations. I still have not forgotten
the evening I waited 1 hour in the lobby of a Pizza Hut in Lynchburg ,
VA for them to hand me my take-out pizza
that I had paid for as soon as I walked in.
Score: 7/10.
Value: At $10 for a large 1-topping pizza, the pizza alone
offers good value: average quality for a cheap price. The side items, on the other hand, are all
overpriced. This is a pizza blog, so
I’ll weight the pizza more than the breadsticks on this metric. Score: 7/10
Taste: The salty taste overrides almost everything else on
my tongue and really brings this score down.
This is not the worst-tasting pizza I have ever eaten, but it is a far
cry from the best. Truth be told, the
breadsticks taste better than the pizza.
How many times will you hear that?
Score: 13/20
The Final Judgment:
Some people really like Pizza Hut while others really hate it. I think it is OK at best, and I do not like
it as much as I used to. My fond
memories of getting free personal pan pizzas through Pizza Hut’s Book-It
program might make this score a little higher than it should be. Score: 48/80