Trio Brick Oven Cafe in Downtown Greenville, SC

Basic Information:

Pizza: Trio Brick Oven Cafe
Number of Locations: 1
Location Reviewed: 22 N. Main Street (downtown Greenville at the corner of Main St. and Coffee St.)
Website: https://triocafe.com/
Date of Review Visit: December 2024
What I Ordered: personal (10") sausage and pepperoni pizza; Dr. Pepper to drink
Price: $22.48 (includes drink and tax but not tip)
Photo:

Summary Review: 3 stars (out of 5)

 

Detailed Review:

Crust:  As you would expect for a brick oven pizza, Trio's crust is thin and crispy, but I have had thinner.  It has a slight fresh bready taste.  It also has the usual burnt black spots that comes from the hot brick oven.  While brick oven is not my favorite style of crust, this crust is pretty good for its category.  Score: 8/10

Sauce: This pizza has very little sauce.  This sauce has a heavy garlic taste but not as heavy as the bread they serve for an appetizer.  I don't like tasting garlic, and this is not my favorite style of sauce.  Score: 4/10

Cheese: This pizza features a blend of several types of cheeses, but it would have more flavor if parmesan was one of the cheeses.  This pizza is slightly undercheesed, but only slightly.  The cheese does not produce a lot of grease.  Score: 9/10

Toppings: The sausage is a sweet Italian sausage, and it has very little spice or flavor.  The pepperoni has a small amount of spiciness.  Both toppings appear in decent quantity.  Overall, the toppings are OK, but they produce no flavors that really stand out.  Score: 7/10

Overall Taste: The garlic in the sauce dominates the taste.  I don't like garlic, and therefore I don't like this pizza's overall taste.  Score: 6.5/10

Pizza Appearance: The cheese blend gives the pizza's appearance some nice color.  Otherwise, this pizza looks like a typical thin crust brick oven pizza.

Dining Atmosphere: the dining room is surprisingly large for a downtown location.  They have a nice variety of seating and plenty of TVs for entertainment.

Customer Service: The service was fast even though I came here on a Saturday afternoon before Christmas when they were very busy.  My pizza arrived before I finished the appetizer bread.

Monetary Value: You're paying for the downtown location: the pizza's price is very high relative to what you put in your mouth.

The Final Judgment:

Trio is a nice place to dine when visiting downtown Greenville, but it is not one of my favorite pizzas.  In this region's brick oven pizza category, I like Brixx better.  Score: 73/100

Marco's Pizza: Triple Pepperoni Magnifico

Basic Information:

Pizza: Marco’s Pizza

Number of Locations: many nationwide

Location Reviewed: 1815 E. Greenville St. in Anderson, SC

Website: http://marcos.com/

Date of Review Visit: November 2024

What I Ordered: Large (14”) Triple Pepperoni Magnifico pizza (3 types of pepperoni plus extra cheese)

Price: $11.99 (on promotional special; includes pizza only)

Photo:

Summary Review: 4.5 stars (out of 5)

Detailed Review:

Crust: The standard crust on Marco's Pizza is the thickest standard crust of any national chain, but the thick crust is needed to support the large volume of cheese and toppings, as described below.  Besides, the crust has a pleasant bready taste, and I like thick crusts.  Score: 9/10.

Sauce: There is plenty of sauce on this pizza, and it has a thick texture with a robust tomatoey taste.  The sauce tastes slightly 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 there is plenty of it.  You can even see the cheese baked into the edge of the crust.  I like the cheese but don't like the grease.  Score: 8/10.

Toppings: True to its name, this pizza does indeed have 3 types of pepperoni.  The old world pepperoni comes in thin slices that cup as the pizza bakes.  The traditional pepperoni stays flat on the pizza.  The "spicy" pepperoni is not that spicy, and it comes in thin shreds.  The combination produces an interesting mix of pork and spice, and it also produces a lot of grease.  Score: 8/10.

Overall 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.  The grease is a real turn-off.  I like this pizza's taste, but you have to decide if it is what you want.  Score: 8.5/10

Pizza Appearance: The golden brown pizza looks great.  Even the box is one of the best looking pizza boxes I have ever seen.  Magnifico!

Dining Atmosphere: The Marco's in Anderson has a small dining area with a few tables and chairs; it is functional but no more.

Customer Service: Rarely have I had issues with the service at Marco's.

Monetary Value: The quality is quite high, and even at the regular menu price, the price is reasonable.  Thus, the value is quite high.

The Final Judgment:

Marco's is my favorite national chain pizza.  Even though I like their sausage pizzas more than this one, I would still recommend this pizza to pepperoni lovers.  Score: 88/100

Pleasant City Wood Fired Grille in Shelby, NC

Basic Information:

Pizza: Pleasant City Wood Fired Grille
Number of Locations: 1
Location Reviewed: 233 Lafayette Street in downtown Shelby, NC (corner of Lafayette and Graham Streets)
Website: https://pleasantcitywoodfiredgrille.com/
Date of Review Visit: November 2024
What I Ordered: create your own pizza with pepperoni and sausage
Price: $15.96 (includes drink and tax but not tip)
Photo:

Summary Review:  2 stars (out of 5)

 

Detailed Review:

Crust: The pizza crust at Pleasant City Wood Fired Grille is a thin crust, but it is not as crispy as you would expect for a wood fired pizza.  In fact, the texture is more spongy than crispy.  Also, a large area of the crust is bare.  This crust is OK, but it is not my favorite crust by far.  Score: 5/10

Sauce: This pizza does not have much sauce, as you would expect for a thin crust pizza.  What sauce does exist has a slightly spicy flavor, and you can't really taste the tomatoes.  This is not my favorite kind of sauce.  Score: 3/10

Cheese: All of the cheese is in the center of the pizza, so the quantity is not as high as you might think.  The cheese has a nice stringy texture, but it produces a decent amount of grease.  Score: 6/10

Toppings: The pepperoni has nice flavor with just the right amount of spiciness.  The sausage has little distinct flavor.  The toppings appear in above average quantity.  Score: 7/10

Overall Taste: Nothing adds any real flavor, so the overall taste is on the bland side.  Score: 6.5/10

Pizza Appearance: The wide ring of bare crust around the edge mars the appearance.

Dining Atmosphere: Pleasant City Wood Fired Grille has a large casual dining room in an older building that has nice character.  I would have enjoyed dining here except that...

Customer Service: ...the service here is questionable.  They sat me at a table that was clearly dirty.  The server brought me the wrong check and tried to hand me a knife pointy-end first.

Monetary Value: average quality at average price equals average value.

The Final Judgment:

Normally I enjoy wood-fired pizza, but this wood-fired pizza needs some improvement.  Pleasant City Wood Fired Grille is one of the few sit-down pizza options in Shelby, NC, but you might be better off (or at least save some money) if you order take-out and eat at home.  Score: 64/100