Marco's Pizza

The Facts:

Pizza: Marco’s Pizza

Business Category: National Chain

Website: http://marcos.com/

Review Location: 209 N. Magnolia Dr. in Tallahassee, FL

Date of Review Visit: December 20, 2012

What I Ordered: Large (14”) pizza with Italian sausage and pepperoni

Price: $13.96

The Micro:

Crust: Some may claim the crust on this pizza is too thick, but the thick crust is needed to support the large volume of cheese and toppings (see below).  Besides, the crust has a pleasant taste, and I like thick crusts.  Score: 9/10.

Sauce: There is plenty of sauce on this pizza.  The sauce tastes a little overspiced to me, but that may be due to my preference for sweet sauces.  Overall, this is a good sauce.  Score: 8/10.

Cheese: The cheese is a little on the greasy side, but the cheese is above average in quality and there is plenty of it.  You can even see the cheese baked into the edge of the crust.  Memo to most national pizza chains: this is how you cheese a pizza.  Score: 9/10.

Toppings: The toppings are robust in terms of quantity, as evidenced by the huge chunks of sausage in the picture below.  The pepperoni and sausage both have some flavor, but neither is overly spicy.  I actually expected the Italian sausage to be spicier than it is.  The only difficulty was keeping the sausage on the pizza: I lost several chunks of sausage to the floor.  Score: 9/10.

The Macro:

Appearance/Atmosphere/Service: The golden brown pizza looks great.  Even the box is one of the best looking pizza boxes I have ever seen.  Fantastico!  Score: 10/10.

Value: This is good quality pizza, but the price reflects such.  Thus, I can only give slightly above average marks here.  Score: 7/10

Taste: The robustness of the cheese and toppings are what really stand out with this pizza.  This is hearty fare for the serious pizza-eater, not a light snack for the delicate among us.  I think this pizza tastes very good, but you will have to decide if it is what you want.  Score: 18/20

The Final Judgment:

This is grown-up pizza, and it is not for the squeamish.  I like it, but make sure you know what you are getting before you dive in too deep.  Score: 70/80