Columbo's Pizza in Clemson, SC

The Facts:

Pizza: Columbo’s Pizza

Business Category: Locally-owned

Website: https://www.facebook.com/ColumbosClemson/

Location: 203 Pendleton Rd. in Clemson, SC

Date of Review Visit: December 21, 2016

What I Ordered: Small (10”) deep dish pizza with sausage and pepperoni; Dr. Pepper to drink

Price: $11.13 (includes drink and tax but not tip)

The Micro:

Crust: Columbo’s offers 2 crust options: thin and deep dish.  Inspired by the pictures of Chicago on the wall, the Chicago Cubs themed logo, and my personal thick crust preference, I went for the deep dish.  The name was accurate: what I got was a true Chicago-style deep dish crust.  Although the crust has a nice, robust taste, I found it quite hard, possibly because my pizza was slightly overbaked.  While this crust may not be the best Chicago-style crust I have ever eaten, it still ranks pretty high.  Score: 8/10.

Sauce: The sauce comes in good quantity, as it should for a Chicago-style pizza, but it is significantly overherbed.  The herbs and spices overpower the tomatoes, and the sauce tastes too herby for this to be an excellent sauce.  Score: 6/10.

Cheese: The cheese appears in very good quantity, but it leaves quite a lot of tell-tale grease.  Sprinkling on some parmesan helps on the flavor side.  Score: 7/10.

Toppings: The pepperoni is completely unremarkable.  The sausage is not the usual chunky Chicago style, but the taste is excellent, thus making the sausage the best item on this pizza.  Both toppings appear in satisfactory but not overwhelming quantity.  Score: 8/10.

The Macro:

Appearance/Atmosphere/Service: The pizza looks like the hearty Chicago-style pizza it is.  The dining atmosphere has a casual almost run-down feel.  Maybe it seemed run-down due to the vacant lot next door.  The service from the one poor, overworked waitress was smiling and attentive.  Score: 8/10.

Value: Columbo’s is surprisingly inexpensive for good quality pizza.  They also offer 25% off a second pizza of equal value, so you can bring a friend and save more.  Their giant 28” atlas pizza (which they incorrectly claim is the largest pizza in the world) is an even bigger bargain.  Score: 10/10.

Taste: Maybe it was the abundance of spices in the sauce, but I kept thinking this pizza should taste better than it does.  This pizza has a lot of things going for it, but overall taste isn’t really one of them.  Score: 15/20.

The Final Judgment:

If Chicago-style pizza is your game, then Columbo’s is your pizza destination in Clemson.  For me, I like Columbo’s but slightly prefer nearby Todaro’s.  Score: 62/80.

Sciortino’s Trattoria and Pizzeria in Greenville, SC

The Facts:

Pizza: Sciortino’s Trattoria and Pizzeria

Business Category: Locally-owned

Website: https://www.facebook.com/Sciortinos-Trattoria-Pizzeria-123512401005238/

Location: 3734 Pelham Rd. in Greenville, SC (just west of I-85, exit 54)

Date of Review Visit: October 11, 2016

What I Ordered: 12” Neapolitan pizza with sausage and pepperoni; Dr. Pepper to drink

Price: $14.53 (includes drink and tax but not tip)

The Micro:

Crust: Founded by an immigrant who moved to South Carolina from New York, Sciortino’s offers two crust styles: Sicilian thick crust square pizzas and Neapolitan thinner crust round pizzas.  I would normally choose the thick crust option, but the Sicilian crust is only offered in one size (16”), which is too large for just me.  Therefore, I chose the 12” Neapolitan option.  The crust is not ultra-thin, but it is nice and crispy.  The pizza has a heavy garlic taste.  I spent a long time trying to decide whether the garlic taste was due to garlic in the sauce or a garlic-laced solution brushed on the crust.  I finally decided it was both, which leads to a small deduction for an otherwise quite good crust.  Score: 9/10.

Sauce: As you would expect for a New York style pizza, the pizza has only a little sauce.  I already mentioned the garlicky taste.  Some people may like the garlic, but it does not suit my taste preferences.  Score: 9/10.

Cheese: This pizza has 100% mozzarella cheese, which means the cheese has very little flavor.  The cheese appears in good quantity and produces very little grease, so those are plusses.  Sprinkling on some parmesan helps on the flavor side.  Score: 7/10.

Toppings: The sausage is slightly spicy but not overwhelmingly so, and the same can be said about the pepperoni.  Both toppings appear in excellent quantity.  Score: 10/10.

The Macro:

Appearance/Atmosphere/Service: The toppings dominate the pizza’s appearance, which is excellent.  The dining atmosphere is upscale casual with more refinement than a typical strip mall pizza place.  Sciortino’s also serves free garlic knots as a pre-meal appetizer that tastes almost as good as the pizza crust.  The service is prompt and attentive.  Score: 10/10.

Value: The price is higher than average, but the pizza is good quality.  Also, this pizza is huge: it easily feeds 2 normal-sized people or 1 of me.  Thus, the value is not as bad as you might think.  Score: 7/10.

Taste: The garlic really overpowers everything else.  If you like the taste of garlic, you will like the taste of this pizza.  I very much don’t like the taste of garlic, so I don’t like the taste of this pizza.  Score: 15/20.

The Final Judgment:

Sciortino’s offers a touch of class for a reasonable price.  I can see why some people think this pizza restaurant is top-of-the-line.  By my reckoning, it is very good but not quite elite.  Score: 67/80.

Uno Pizzeria and Grill

The Facts:

Pizza: Uno Pizzeria and Grill

Business Category: National Chain

Website: http://www.unos.com/

Location: 5304 Sunset Blvd. in Lexington, SC (3.5 miles west of I-20, exit 61)

Date of Review Visit: September 25, 2016

What I Ordered: individual (7”) deep dish pizza with sausage, pepperoni, and extra cheese; Dr. Pepper to drink

Price: $15.57 (includes drink and tax but not tip)

The Micro:

Crust: After almost 4 years of keeping this pizza blog, I finally made it Uno’s, the original and most famous entry in my favorite pizza category: deep dish Chicago pizza.  The pizza is only 7 inches across, but the crust is nearly 1 inch thick.  My crust was nice and crispy on the outside but chewy on the inside and baked to perfection.  Score: 10/10.

Sauce: The sauce is Uno’s signature ingredient: it comes with huge chunks of tomatoes spread over the top of the cheese and toppings.  I don’t like chunks of anything in my sauce, not even tomatoes.  Thus, I went with a minor deduction here even though the tomato chunks are actually quite juicy and tasty.  Score: 9/10.

Cheese: My pizza had plenty of cheese, possibly because I ordered extra cheese as one of my toppings.  (Side note: their “create your own” pizza comes with three toppings, so my usual diet of sausage and pepperoni pizzas did not fit until I added the extra cheese as my third topping.)  The cheese tasted like pure mozzarella, and the little extra grease it produced led to another minor deduction.  Sprinkling on some parmesan helped the bland mozzarella taste.  Score: 9/10.

Toppings: Attention all pizza makers: these crumbled up chunks of sausage have the taste many of you are trying but largely failing to imitate.  The pepperoni is nice and filling too.  Score: 10/10.

The Macro:

Appearance/Atmosphere/Service: The pizza looks like the classic Chicago-style deep dish pizza that it is, and the dining room has a nice casual dining atmosphere with pictures from Chicago on the walls.  The service was prompt and friendly.  Score: 10/10.

Value: This pizza’s price is the most I have ever paid for an individual sized pizza, so if this criterion were price I would be looking at a very low score.  Fortunately for Uno’s, this metric is value, not price, so the super-high quality helps a lot.  Uno’s does not make bargain basement value pizza, but it scores better than you would expect for a pizza of this price.  Score: 5/10.

Taste: This is the classic robust Chicago-style pizza taste everyone else is trying to copy.  There is no such thing as a perfect tasting pizza, but Uno’s is close enough to earn, for the first time ever from me....  Score: 20/20.

The Final Judgment:

Everyone should eat at Uno’s at least once.  I may not become a regular due to the price and lack of locations in my area, but I would come often if there was an Uno’s in upstate South Carolina.  Score: 73/80.

Minuteman Pizza in Columbus, OH

The Facts:

Pizza: Minuteman Pizza

Business Category: Regional Chain (3 locations, all near Columbus, OH)

Website: http://www.minutemanpizza.com/

Location: 2723 Tussing Road in Reynoldsburg, OH (just south of I-70, exit 110A)

Date of Review Visit: July 27, 2016

What I Ordered: medium (12”) 2-Pepp Parmesan pizza (i.e. double pepperoni and extra parmesan cheese)

Price: $12.99 (includes tax)

The Micro:

Crust: Minuteman Pizza offers two crust options: hand-tossed and thin.  I chose the thicker hand-tossed option.  The hand-tossed crust has a fresh bready taste and an excellent chewy texture.  My pizza was baked just the right amount, and the crust had just the right thickness.  What more could you want?  Score: 10/10.

Sauce: This sauce has a nice tomatoey taste with a little spice, and it appears in good quantity.  I found a couple of chunks of onion in the sauce.  I don’t like finding chunks of anything in my sauce, and I don’t like onions period.  Score: 9/10.

Cheese: I was expecting a tasty cheese blend with the extra parmesan cheese, but I could not even taste the parmesan.  This cheese blend turned out to be very pedestrian, and the pizza was slightly undercheesed to boot.  This area is definitely the weakness of this pizza.  Score: 4/10.

Toppings: As the name suggests, this pizza features 2 types of pepperoni, one smaller and slightly spicier than the other.  Taken together the pepperoni has just the right amount of spiciness.  The topping quantity is about average for a double pepperoni pizza.  Score: 9/10.

The Macro:

Appearance/Atmosphere/Service: I love the minuteman drawing on the box, and the pepperoni was placed nicely for a somewhat symmetric appearance.  The restaurant’s dining area used to be nice, but now it is very small and ordinary.  The service was fine.  Score: 8/10.

Value: The price is a little higher than usual, but this is a 12” double pepperoni pizza.  Overall, the value is not bad but not great either.  Score: 6/10.

Taste: Everything comes together pretty well, as this pizza produces a nice combination of tomatoey and spicy tastes.  Score: 17/20.

The Final Judgment:

Minuteman Pizza makes a nice pizza at a reasonable price.  If I come back to Columbus, I will be ready to order here again at a minute’s notice.  Score: 63/80.

Lamppost Pizza

The Facts:

Pizza: Lamppost Pizza

Business Category: Regional Chain (locations throughout California and Nevada)

Website: http://www.lamppost-backstreet.com/

Location: 3290 Northgate Blvd. in Sacramento, CA (south of I-80, exit 89)

Date of Review Visit: June 19, 2016

What I Ordered: small (10”) thick crust pizza with Italian sausage and pepperoni

Price: $11.09 (includes tax)

The Micro:

Crust: Lamppost Pizza offers several crust options, but I paid the extra $0.50 to spring for the thick crust.  In fact, the “thick crust” is less than an inch thick, and the thickness is mainly around the edges.  Nevertheless, the slightly crispy crust gave the pizza a robust tummy-filling feel even if the crust’s taste is unremarkable.  Score: 7/10.

Sauce: This pizza is slightly undersauced, but what sauce does appear has a nice tomatoey taste without being overspiced.  I like this sauce, but I would prefer to have more of it, especially on a thick crust pizza.  Score: 8/10.

Cheese: Lamppost uses 100% mozzarella cheese in sufficient quantity, and the cheese has the somewhat bland taste you would expect from 100% mozzarella.  This cheese does not produce too much grease, so it does have that going for it.  Score: 7/10.

Toppings: Both toppings appear in excellent quantity.  The pepperoni has excellent flavor and is cut thicker than average.  The Italian sausage is spicy but only spicy: it has no independent flavor.  Score: 8/10.

The Macro:

Appearance/Atmosphere/Service: The location I visited features a medium-sized, nice-looking, functional dining area with a single TV for your dining entertainment.  I was somewhat concerned by the fact that this location had only 1 employee present on my visit, and she spoke only broken English.  The high quantity of toppings dominates the pizza’s appearance.  Score: 8/10.

Value: The price is a little high for a 10” pizza, even after you take the thick crust into consideration.  The pizza’s quality is also good, so the value is about average.  Score: 5/10.

Taste: The quantity of toppings and spiciness of the Italian sausage really dominate the taste buds and give pizza a robust, hard-hitting taste.  The overall taste is not bad, but it does not give the flavorful combination some people expect.  Score: 15/20.

The Final Judgment:

Lamppost Pizza offers a lot of different pizza options, so you can return often without repeating an order.  This pizza ranks slightly above average in my book.  Score: 58/80.

Original Pizza House in Sacramento, CA

The Facts:

Pizza: Original Pizza House

Business Category: Locally-owned

Website: (none)

Location: 661 San Juan Rd. (north side of Sacramento, CA)

Date of Review Visit: June 15, 2016

What I Ordered: medium (12”) pizza with pepperoni

Price: $6.50 (on special; includes tax)

The Micro:

Crust: The crust made by the Original Pizza House has a nice texture: it is brown and crispy on the outside but chewy on the inside. The crust has a fresh bready taste, as it should.  My pizza was baked exactly the right amount.  This is a solid crust, though nothing makes it stand out from its peers.  Score: 9/10.

Sauce: The sauce appears in good quantity and has a fresh tomatoey taste, which is not surprising given that California is the top tomato producing state.  Overall, this sauce is near-perfect.  Score: 10/10.

Cheese: The pizza is slightly undercheesed, but only slightly.  The cheese does not have a lot of flavor, but it produces quite a bit of grease, hence the mediocre score on this criterion.  Score: 5/10.

Toppings: The thin slices of pepperoni appear in good quantity.  The meat features just barely enough spices to let you know you are eating pepperoni as opposed to mystery meat.  I only ordered 1 topping for the reason given under the “value” criterion below.  Score: 8/10.

The Macro:

Appearance/Atmosphere/Service: Original Pizza House has a small functional dining area with a single TV for your dining entertainment.  The pizza has a clean-cut appearance, and the service was fine.  Score: 8/10.

Value: On my visit, they were running a special for $5 off a 1 topping medium pizza.  This deal made the value extraordinarily good, and it is the reason I ordered only 1 topping.  At full price, the value is still decent.  They offer a large number of pizza sizes to help with the value as well.  Score: 9/10.

Taste: Everything comes together pretty well.  The only real downside is the large amount of grease produced by the cheese.  Only ordering one topping might have hurt this score a little as well.  Score: 15/20.

The Final Judgment:

The Original Pizza House offers a slightly boring pizza but does so with good quality and value.  If I lived in Sacramento, I would come here often.  Score: 64/80.

Yia Yia’s Pizza in Lincoln, NE

The Facts:

Pizza: Yia Yia’s Pizza

Business Category: Locally-owned

Website: https://www.facebook.com/yiayias/

Location: 1423 O Street in downtown Lincoln, NE

Date of Review Visit: June 11, 2016

What I Ordered: 2 slices of pizza (see below for details); Dr. Pepper to drink

Price: $11.48 (includes drink and tax)

The Micro:

Crust: The crust at Yia Yia’s has a very thin, tough, almost cardboard-like texture.  The crust has no flavor whatsoever except for some burnt cheese spilled over the edge of the crust.  While not a total disaster thanks to the cheese, this crust is not good. Score: 3/10.

Sauce: This pizza has a low quantity of sauce.  When I did get my tongue on some sauce, it had almost a salsa-like flavor with extra tomatoes.  This sauce may appeal to some people, but it is definitely not my style.  Score: 3/10.

Cheese: On the other hand, the cheese comes in good quantity, especially if you order some of the several extra cheese types.  The extra cheese options also add to the flavor.  I like this cheese blend.  Score: 9/10.

Toppings: All toppings appear in good quantity.  The Italian sausage is just on the spicy side of good, as are the thin slices of pepperoni.  The slightly sweet taste of the ham balances the flavor out nicely.  Score: 8/10.

The Macro:

Appearance/Atmosphere/Service: I found the menu quite complicated, so I had a hard time ordering.  That’s unusual for me because I usually walk into a pizza place with a pretty good idea of what I want, as I did this time.  But I could not figure out how to order what I wanted from their menu.  I tried to order 2 slices of Italian sausage, pepperoni, and ham pizza with 2 extra cheeses (parmesan and provolone), but I got 1 slice with said toppings and 1 slice of cheese pizza.  The man behind the counter did not help my ordering attempt one bit, hence a downgrade on the service criterion.  The atmosphere is a typical college-town pizzeria with blaring music (80’s rock on my visit), a dark dining room, and an older building with some nice artwork in the ceiling.  The pizza’s appearance is fine, but the hunk of bread served with each pizza slice is odd.  Score: 5/10.

Value: The value is hard to judge because I am not sure quite what I ended up ordering.  The price is more than I usually pay for 2 slices of pizza and a drink, but how did they price the slices?  Score: 4/10.

Taste: The overall taste would have been too spicy were it not for the cheese and ham.  As is, the taste is decent but not extraordinary.  Score: 13/20.

The Final Judgment:

If you are a student at nearby University of Nebraska-Lincoln, I would sanction coming here occasionally just to get off campus, but there are better pizza options around.  I can see how this pizza might appeal to some people, but it does not appeal to me.  Score: 45/80.

Big Daddy's Pizzeria in Pigeon Forge, TN

The Facts:

Pizza: Big Daddy’s Pizzeria

Business Category: Regional Chain (3 locations, all near the Smoky Mountains of Tennessee)

Website: http://bigdaddyspizzeria.net/

Location: 3053 Parkway in Pigeon Forge, TN

Date of Review Visit: May 17, 2016

What I Ordered: small (10”) Boo Boo Bomber pizza (i.e. pepperoni pizza)

Price: $11.06 (includes tax)

The Micro:

Crust: Big Daddy’s crust has the not-too-thick not-too-thin style that can be rather unappetizing, but it comes across pretty well on this pizza.  Some flour baked into the crust provides nice texture.  This crust is not fantastic, but it is not horrible either.  Score: 7/10.

Sauce: I could barely taste the sauce, and not because it doesn’t exist.  In fact, the quantity is slightly above average.  The sauce just doesn’t have much flavor.  I also found small chunks of tomato in the sauce, a personal pet peeve of mine: I don’t want to find chunks of anything in my sauce.  I have had far better pizza sauces than this one.  Score: 4/10.

Cheese: The cheese comes in a thick yummy layer.  The 100% mozzarella blend does not have the most flavorful taste, but the excellent quantity makes the cheese the strength of this pizza.  Score: 9/10.

Toppings: The pepperoni appears in average quantity.  I could taste the spices in the pepperoni, but they are not overwhelming.  For only a one-topping pizza, the toppings are decent overall.  Score: 6/10.

The Macro:

Appearance/Atmosphere/Service: The pepperoni was not evenly applied, so the pizza looked a little bare.  Big Daddy’s offers a casual family-oriented dining atmosphere with a nice video game arcade for the young and young-at-heart.  The service was fine.  Score: 7/10.

Value: The quality is slightly above average and the price is slightly above average, so the price/quality value ratio grades out about average.  Score: 5/10.

Taste: The cheese really saves what is otherwise a fairly dull-tasting pizza.  Nothing about this pizza really offends the taste buds but nothing really impresses them either.  Score: 15/20.

The Final Judgment:

Big Daddy’s Pizzeria makes a just slightly different than average pizza.  It is worth coming here occasionally for a change of pace, but there are better pizzas around.  Score: 53/80.

Rudino's Pizza and Grinders

The Facts:

Pizza: Rudino’s Pizza and Grinders

Business Category: Regional Chain (6 locations, mostly near Raleigh-Durham, NC)

Website: http://rudinos.com/

Location: 4022 Village Park Drive in Knightdale, NC (between Just Tires and Auto Bell Car Wash)

Date of Review Visit: March 15, 2016

What I Ordered: medium (12”) pizza with sausage and pepperoni

Price: $13.79 (includes tax)

The Micro:

Crust: The crust at Rudino’s has slightly above average thickness.  The crust’s crispy well-baked outer shell makes for one of the best crust textures I have ever eaten.  The crust also has a nice fresh bready taste.  Magnifico!  Score: 10/10.

Sauce: The sauce has a very sweet taste, and I like sweet tasting sauces.  Thus, I like this sauce.  The quantity of sauce is about average.  Score: 9/10.

Cheese: The cheese tastes like good-quality mozzarella or provolone.  It appears in about average quantity.  Score: 9/10.

Toppings: The sausage also has a sweet taste with just a little spice; it tastes like a sweet Italian sausage.  The pepperoni comes in thin and crispy (slightly burnt) slices with very little taste.  In hindsight, to match the sweetness of the sauce I should have ordered the honey ham topping instead of the pepperoni.  Both toppings appear in excellent quantity.  Score: 8/10.

The Macro:

Appearance/Atmosphere/Service: Rudino’s cuts their pizza into an odd criss-cross pattern instead of the usual wedges.  The cut gives an odd but OK appearance.  I ordered carry out, but the dining room seemed to have a nice casual dining grill/bar atmosphere.  The service was fine.  Score: 10/10.

Value: The price is high, but 1) this is good quality pizza and 2) this is a 12” pizza.  Rudino’s offers no smaller sizes, which limits your options in terms of limiting the price.  Overall, the value grades out about average.  Score: 5/10.

Taste: The sweet taste from the sauce dominates the taste buds, but it also tastes very salty, saltier than any pizza I have eaten recently except Pizza Hut.  The extreme salty taste drags this score down a bit.  Score: 16/20.

The Final Judgment:

Rudino’s Pizza is not quite elite, but it is a very good if slightly overpriced pizza option.  If I lived in Raleigh-Durham, I would come here rather frequently.  Score: 67/80.

Famous Pizza in Anderson, SC

The Facts:

Pizza: Famous Pizza and Restaurant in Anderson, SC

Business Category: Locally-owned

Website: (none)

Location: 1417 Pearman Dairy Road (on SR 28 just south of Whitehall Rd.)

Date of Review Visit: March 9, 2016

What I Ordered: small (10”) meats pizza; Mello Yellow to drink

Price: $12.73 (includes drink and tax but not tip)

The Micro:

Crust: I would classify Famous Pizza as Greek-style: the crust is thick and crispy around the edges but very thin underneath.  Even worse, the crust on my pizza was wet and soggy underneath from grease, so much so that it could not support the toppings.  The fresh bready taste around the edges is passable, but the texture and the crust underneath the pizza need some work.  Score: 4/10.

Sauce: The sauce has a very tomatoey taste; I could taste no spices whatsoever.  Usually I complain about sauce being overspiced, but this one fails in the opposite direction.  The quantity of the sauce is sufficient, so it could be worse.  Score: 6/10.

Cheese: The cheese looks and tastes like 100% mozzarella, so the taste is a little bland.  The cheese is applied in good quantity, but it produces more grease than good quality cheese should.  Score: 7/10.

Toppings: Pellet sausage alert!  Pellet sausage is never a good sign, and this pizza is no exception.  The rest of the toppings have some spicy heat but little flavor.  The salami (part of the meats pizza toppings package) tastes odd with the rest of the spicy Greek/Italian meat toppings.  All toppings appear in sufficient quantity.  Overall, I have had worse, but I have definitely had better.  Score: 6/10.

The Macro:

Appearance/Atmosphere/Service: The pizza’s appearance is fine except for the pellet sausage, and the restaurant features a nice homey dining area.  It took me 5 minutes to get a waitresses’ attention even though there was only one other customer in the restaurant when I walked in.  Once the service started, it was fine.  Score: 7/10.

Value: Famous Pizza’s topping pricing scheme forced me to order the meats pizza in order to maximize the value: it is only a few cents more expensive than my usual 2-topping small pizza.  That said, the price is about average (for a meats pizza), and the quality is about average.  Thus, the value is about average.  Score: 5/10.

Taste: There is really not a lot to commend the taste of this pizza.  The salami and other toppings clash violently on the taste palette, and the soggy crust is a real turnoff even though it only indirectly affects the taste buds.  Score: 12/20.

The Final Judgment:

Famous Pizza does not rank so famously in my book.  There are far better pizza options in Anderson such as DaVinci’s, Mellow Mushroom, or New York Pizza and Pasta.  Score: 47/80.

Alla Puttanesca Pizza and Pasta in Roebuck, SC

The Facts:

Pizza: Alla Puttanesca Pizza and Pasta in Roebuck, SC

Business Category: Locally-owned

Website: http://allaputtanescarestaurant.com/

Location: 6198 Highway 221 (I-26 exit 28)

Date of Review Visit: February 18, 2016

What I Ordered: 2 Slices of Extra Large (18”) pizza with sausage and pepperoni; Dr. Pepper to drink

Price: $7.51 (includes drink and tax but not tip)

The Micro:

Crust: The pizza at Alla Puttanesca has a nice New York style crust.  I found the crust under the center of the pizza to be too thin to hold the toppings.  The crust has a fresh but unremarkable taste around edges.  Score: 7/10.

Sauce: To be honest, the sauce is atrocious.  It has a pale red color that does not taste even a little like tomatoes.  The pizza is also undersauced, but that may be a good thing in this case.  Score: 1/10.

Cheese: On the other hand, the cheese is quite good.  The cheese, which looks and tastes like provolone, appears in good quantity.  The cheese produces a little more grease than I would like, but overall it is the strength of this pizza.  Score: 9/10.

Toppings: I like the sausage: it comes thickly sliced with plenty of body and just enough spices.  The pepperoni comes in thin slices with less taste but just enough spices.  The quantity of both is acceptable.  Score: 8/10.

The Macro:

Appearance/Atmosphere/Service: The thick-to-thin edge-to-center crust dominates the pizza’s appearance, which is otherwise OK.  The provolone sprinkled over the toppings is a nice touch.  The dining room has a typical strip mall atmosphere except for large, thick glass plates and cloth napkins.  These touches provide an almost out of place touch of class.  The service was homey but fine.  Score: 8/10.

Value: The pizza quality is pretty high, but the price is low.  Thus, the quality/price ratio grades out well.  Score: 9/10.

Taste: Overall the pizza tastes a bit overspiced, but the abundant cheese moderates the spiciness some.  The taste is not offensive but not stellar either.  Score: 15/20.

The Final Judgment:

Alla Puttanesca does not make the best pizza in Spartanburg, but its convenient location right beside I-26 and low price make it worth a stop.  Score: 57/80.

Shakey's Pizza Parlor

The Facts:

Pizza: Shakey’s Pizza Parlor

Business Category: Regional Chain (locations in 3 states, mostly in southern California)

Website: http://www.shakeys.com/

Location: 2437 E. Glenn Ave. in Auburn, AL (I-85 exit 57)

Date of Review Visit: January 7, 2016

What I Ordered: Small (10”) pan pizza with Italian sausage and pepperoni; Dr. Pepper to drink

Price: $12.19 (includes drink and tax)

The Micro:

Crust: Shakey’s offers two crust options: traditional thin and sourdough pan. As regular readers of this blog would expect, I chose pan.  The crust has a near-perfect texture: crispy on the outside and chewy on the inside.  I could not taste the sourdough, but the crust tasted like good quality bread.  I like it.  Score: 9/10.

Sauce: This pizza is very undersauced.  When I did get a lick of sauce, it had a sweet taste similar to Papa John’s, which I liked.  Overall, this sauce is good, but the pizza needs more of it.  Score: 6/10.

Cheese: This pizza is definitely not undercheesed: a nice layer of mozzarella or provolone blankets the pizza.  The cheese does not produce too much grease, so it is good quality.  Sprinkling on some parmesan only enhances the flavor.  Score: 10/10.

Toppings: The Italian sausage is downright terrible: it comes in large pellets that dissolve into grease when you bite them.  The pepperoni is a little better: it comes in thin slices that are only slightly spicy.  Overall, the toppings need improvement.  Score: 3/10.

The Macro:

Appearance/Atmosphere/Service: The pizza’s appearance is fine except for the pellet sausage.  Shakey’s offers counter service rather than table service, but I had no trouble ordering.  The restaurant has a nice casual dining atmosphere, but the dining area is too large: I was the only customer in the building at 5:30 pm on a Thursday.  Score: 9/10.

Value: The price is reasonable, but the quality is only OK.  Thus, the value is only slightly better than average.  Score: 6/10.

Taste: The good and bad really clash here.  This pizza tastes like good quality pizza if your bite includes only crust and cheese, but you learn otherwise when you bite into the toppings.  Score: 15/20.

The Final Judgment:

Shakey’s is a decent pizza option, but there are better.  It could be a real winner with some better toppings.  Score: 58/80.

Grimaldi’s Coal Brick-Oven Pizzeria

The Facts:

Pizza: Grimaldi’s Coal Brick-Oven Pizzeria

Business Category: National Chain (locations in 14 states)

Website: http://www.grimaldispizzeria.com/

Location: 6401 Bluebonnet Blvd. in Baton Rouge, LA (near Mall of Louisiana and behind HH Gregg)

Date of Review Visit: January 5, 2016

What I Ordered: Personal (12”) pizza with Italian sausage; Dr. Pepper to drink

Price: $15.81 (includes drink and tax but not tip)

The Micro:

Crust: The name and dining atmosphere at Grimaldi’s screams New York, but the crust on Grimaldi’s pizza is actually the crispy thin southern style.  The crust is slightly charred, as is usual for a brick-oven pizza, but I could taste the charring of the crust a little more than I would have preferred.  Score: 7/10.

Sauce: The sauce has a nice thick texture, and it is slightly spiced without being overspiced.  Overall, this sauce is excellent, and it is the strength of this pizza.  Score: 10/10.

Cheese: The cheese blend is 100% mozzarella, so it produces a rather bland taste.  Sprinkling on the parmesan provided helps but only a little.  The pizza is slightly undercheesed.  On the bright side, the cheese produces no grease, so there is a redeeming quality on this criterion.  Score: 6/10.

Toppings: The toppings appear in moderate quantity.  I tasted no spices in the Italian sausage at first, but the spiciness built the more I ate.  The real problem with the toppings is the pricing scheme.  Each topping is the same price regardless of pizza size, so the personal size is a real loser.  There was only one of me, and I came here on a hiking trip, thus making me unable to store leftovers.  Therefore, my only choice was to order a personal size pizza, so I had to order only one topping to keep the price reasonable.  Score: 6/10.

The Macro:

Appearance/Atmosphere/Service: Grimaldi’s offers a pleasant upscale dining atmosphere with a touch of class without being pretentious.  Pictures of New York dot the walls.  The pizza’s appearance is OK except for the undercheesing.  The service was fine on my visit, but I should note that they re-light the oven every day right before dinner rush, and they cannot bake pizzas while the oven is being re-stoked.  Thus, I had to wait about 20 minutes before they could take my order.  Score: 9/10.

Value: And now we finally get to the New York aspect of this pizza: the price!  The quality is good, but this pizza is very overpriced, especially for the personal sized pizza due to the topping pricing scheme described above.  For what you put in your mouth, this pizza is not worth the price.  Score: 2/10.

Taste: The excellent sauce saves what is otherwise a fairly bland overall taste.  Score: 14/20.

The Final Judgment:

I might come here for a change of pace, but the price would keep me from being a regular, and I would never order the personal size pizza if I lived nearby (and therefore had a refrigerator to store the leftovers).  In the brick-oven pizza category, I prefer Brixx over Grimaldi’s.  Score: 54/80.