Cutter's Pizzeria in Oxford, AL

Basic Information:

Pizza: Cutter's Pizzeria
Number of Locations: 2, both in east-central Alabama
Location Reviewed: 1781 Hamric Drive East in Oxford, AL (at the corner of US 78 and Coleman Road)

Website: https://cutterspizzeria.com/
Date of Review Visit: March 2022
What I Ordered: handtossed small (10") meat lover pizza, Dr. Pepper to drink
Price: $13.18 (includes drink and tax but not tip)

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Summary Review: 3.5 stars (out of 5)

Detailed Review:

Crust: Cutter's Pizzeria offers several pizza/crust options.  Because I was by myself and had no way to store leftovers, I chose the handtossed, which is the only option the menu lists with a small size.  The handtossed crust has a fantastic chewy texture.  It is thick on the outside but not thick enough on the inside to support all of the toppings.  I'm not really a fan of handtossed crusts, but I liked this crust more than I thought I would.  Score: 9/10.

Sauce: This pizza is somewhat undersauced, and the sauce that does exist has little tomatoey flavor.  Score: 4/10.

Cheese: This pizza has plenty of cheese, but it produces a decent bit of grease.  Score: 8/10.

Toppings: This pizza has plenty of toppings, but none of them carry a lot of flavor.  The sausage is only spicy, and the pepperoni is unremarkable.  My favorite of the three meat toppings is the ham, which appears in large lean slices.  Score: 8/10.

Overall Taste: Except for some spiciness in the sauce and sausage, nothing really excites the tastebuds here.  Score: 7/10.

Pizza Appearance: My pizza had an evenly cut topping-dominated appearance, as you would expect for a meat lover pizza.

Dining Atmosphere: Their Oxford location offers a rather plain dining experience with only some TV's for decor or entertainment.

Customer Service: The service was poor: the servers seemed more interested in talking to their friends than serving customers.

Monetary Value: The quality is not great, but the price is fairly low.  Therefore, the value is not bad.

The Final Judgment:

Cutter's makes a passable if not excellent pizza.  I would like to try some of their other crust options.  At this price point, it belongs as part of your pizza rotation, but it probably won't make the top of your pizza list.  Score: 75/100.

Cucina 100 Wood Fired Italian in Fountain Inn, SC

Basic Information:

Pizza: Cucina 100 Wood Fired Italian
Number of Locations: 1
Location Reviewed: 100 S. Main Street in downtown Fountain Inn, SC

Website: https://www.cucina100.com/
Date of Review Visit: February 2022
What I Ordered: 12" Trifecta Pizza (Italian sausage, Canadian bacon, and applewood smoked bacon); Dr. Pepper to drink
Price: $17.23 (includes drink and tax but not tip)

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Summary Review: 4 stars (out of 5)

Detailed Review:

Crust: As stated in its name, Cucina 100 makes pizza in a wood fired oven.  This crust is thicker than you would expect for wood fired pizza.  It has a fantastic crispy on the outside and chewy on the inside texture, and it has none of the burnt taste you frequently find with this kind of pizza.  This is one of the best wood fired crusts I have ever had.  Score: 10/10.

Sauce: This pizza is fairly undersauced, and what sauce does exist has more of a spicy taste than a tomatoey taste.  I can't say I care for this sauce.  Score: 4/10.

Cheese: On the other hand, this pizza has plenty of cheese.  It seems to be 100% mozzarella or provolone, and it produces very little grease.  What more could you want?  Score: 10/10.

Toppings: As usual for a meats pizza, the toppings make or break the pizza.  The sausage comes in thick round slices, and it tastes like Johnsonville mild Italian sausage, which is a little too spicy for a pizza sausage according to my taste.  The Canadian bacon has a nice slightly sweet ham-like taste, but the applewood smoked bacon has less flavor than the bacon topping on other pizzas I have had.  All toppings appear in excellent quantity.  Score: 9/10.

Overall Taste: The sauce and the Italian sausage combine to produce a little too much spice for my taste.  The more intricate flavors get covered up by the spiciness.  Score: 8/10.

Pizza Appearance: My pizza had a perfectly-baked even appearance dominated by the toppings.

Dining Atmosphere: Cucina 100 has a nice dining area in a row of old brick buildings that has housed many things before this restaurant.

Customer Service: The service was quick and attentive on my visit.

Monetary Value: The price is fairly high, but the quality is also fairly high.  Therefore, the value is about average.  Cucina 100 only makes 12" pizzas, so you cannot gain a price advantage by ordering a larger size.

 

The Final Judgment:

Far better than your average small town pizza, Cucina 100 deserves a spot in your pizza rotation.  I would definitely come here but maybe not too often due to the price.  Score: 83/100.

Johnny's Pizza House in Northern Louisiana

Basic Information:

Pizza: Johnny's Pizza House
Number of Locations: around 45, mostly in Louisiana

Location Reviewed: 6138 Greenwood Road in Shreveport, LA (west side of Shreveport near I-20 exit 10)
Website: https://www.johnnysph.com/
Date of Review Visit: December 2021
What I Ordered: small (10") pizza with sausage and pepperoni; fountain drink
Price: $12.80 (includes drink and tax)

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Summary Review: 4.5 stars (out of 5)

Detailed Review:

Crust: The pizza at Johnny's Pizza House has a thin crust similar to Donatos, a pizza from Ohio I like very much.  The crust has a nice crispy texture, and my pizza was perfectly baked.  Score: 10/10.

Sauce: This pizza features plenty of sauce that has a nice tomatoey taste.  Fantastic!  Score: 10/10.

Cheese: This pizza is slightly undercheesed, but the cheese still produces a decent amount of grease.  Thus, the mandatory grease deduction applies, plus a little more.  Score: 6/10.

Toppings: The toppings appear in above average quantity, but neither topping has much independent flavor.  Score: 6/10.

Overall Taste: The cheese and toppings have very little taste, and they keep the overall taste score well below what it could/should be.  Score: 7.5/10.

Pizza Appearance: This pizza has a well-balanced square cut appearance.

Dining Atmosphere: The location I visited has a nice casual dining area.

Customer Service: The counter service is quick and friendly.

Monetary Value: Johnny's Pizza House offers pretty good quality for a low price, so the value is excellent.  The counter service also helps save on the tip.

 

The Final Judgment:

I really wanted to like this pizza, but the cheese and toppings just aren't elite.  Therefore, this pizza is good but a notch below the best.  Score: 86/100.

Heat Pizza Bar in Tuscaloosa, AL

Basic Information:

Pizza: Heat Pizza Bar
Number of Locations: 1

Location Reviewed: 2250 6th Street in downtown Tuscaloosa (east side of the Transit Authority parking garage)
Website: https://heatpizzabar.com/
Date of Review Visit: December 2021
What I Ordered: Meat Lovers pizza (10"); Dr. Pepper to drink
Price: $15.66 (includes drink and tax but not tip)

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Summary Review: 2.5 stars (out of 5)

Detailed Review:

Crust: Heat Pizza Bar makes wood-fired pizza, and hence this pizza features a thin blackened crust.  My pizza was baked the perfect amount.  This is not my favorite type of crust, but it is pretty good for what it is.  Score: 9/10.

Sauce: The sauce is where the heat is, and it overpowers any tomato flavor in the sauce and pretty much everything else on this pizza.  I prefer sweet sauces to hot sauces, so this sauce does not score well on my taste palette.  Score: 5/10.

Cheese: The cheese is 100% mozzarella, so the taste is fairly bland.  Also, this pizza is somewhat undercheesed.  Fortunately, the cheese does not produce much grease.  Score: 5/10.

Toppings: Toppings are usually the centerpiece of a meat lovers pizza, but that is not the case here.  This pizza has plenty of toppings, but they have no unique flavor, or maybe the toppings' flavors get overpowered by the spiciness of the sauce.  Score: 7/10.

Overall Taste: The spiciness of the sauce overpowers everything else, so the overall taste is uninspiring.  Score: 6/10.

Pizza Appearance: This pizza has the usual bare and blackened appearance you would expect from a wood-fired pizza.

Dining Atmosphere: Heat Pizza Bar offers a nice cozy but modern dining area.

Customer Service: The service was a little slow, and I was the first person in the door on a Monday evening.

Monetary Value: Even for wood-fired pizza, this pizza is way too expensive for what you put in your mouth.

The Final Judgment:

Based on the number of people who were there on the Monday evening I was, Heat Pizza Bar is popular, but the "heat above everything else" taste is not for me.  Score: 68/100.

Mamma Rosa's Italian Restaurant in Cookeville, TN

Basic Information:

Pizza: Mamma Rosa's Italian Restaurant
Number of Locations: 1

Location Reviewed: 200 S. Lowe Ave (2 blocks south of US 70N in downtown Cookeville)
Website: http://www.mammarosasitalian.com/
Date of Review Visit: September 2021
What I Ordered: 2 slices of square (Sicilian) pizza with pepperoni and sausage; Coke to drink
Price: $15.61 (includes drink and tax but not tip)

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Summary Review: 3.5 stars (out of 5)

Detailed Review:

Crust: Mamma Rosa's offers two crust options: hand-tossed round and Sicilian square.  As most regular readers of this blog would expect, I chose the thicker square crust.  The square crust is a true thick Sicilian crust.  While I appreciated the heartiness of this crust, my pizza was slightly overbaked, and some parts of the crust were hard and overly crispy.  Overall, I have had better Sicilian crusts that this one.  Score: 6/10.

Sauce: The pizza is fairly undersauced.  What sauce does exist has a nice tomatoey taste.  Score: 7/10.

Cheese: The cheese tastes like high quality provolone or mozzarella.  It appears in high quantity and produces little grease.  The cheese is the strength of this pizza.  Score: 10/10.

Toppings: The sausage comes in tiny crumbles, and it offers spiciness but no real flavor.  The pepperoni has nice flavor with just the right amount of thickness and spiciness.  Both toppings appear in above average quantity.  Score: 8/10.

Overall Taste: The crust is filling, and you get some spiciness from the sausage.  Yet the overall taste is fairly underwhelming.  This pizza delivers quantity but not flavor to the taste palette.  Score: 6.5/10.

Pizza Appearance: The pizza has a nice square pizza appearance.

Dining Atmosphere: The dining room offers a casual dining atmosphere with nice music and pictures on the wall.

Customer Service: The service was slow, but they were very busy on my visit right after a Tennessee Tech football game.

Monetary Value: The quality is solid, but this pizza is very expensive if you buy by the slice as I did.  Buying a whole pizza is more economical, but I had nowhere to store any leftovers.

The Final Judgment:

There are some things to like here, but the cost and lack of flavor keep it from the top of my pizza list.  Score: 77/100.

Hambone's Pizza in Cheyenne, WY

Basic Information:

Pizza: Hambone's Pizza
Number of Locations: 2, 1 in Cheyenne and 1 in Laramie

Location Reviewed: 415 W. 17th Street in downtown Cheyenne, WY (near the corner of 17th St. and Lincolnway)
Website: https://www.hambonespizza.com/
Date of Review Visit: July 2021
What I Ordered: small (10") pizza with pepperoni and sausage; 2 cans of Wild Cherry Pepsi to drink
Price: $8.45 (includes drinks and tax but not tip)

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Summary Review: 4 stars (out of 5)

Detailed Review:

Crust: The crust on Hambone's Pizza has a nice and crispy but fluffy texture.  It has medium thickness but no independent flavor.  This crust does the job, but I have had better.  Score: 7/10.

Sauce: This pizza does not have a lot of sauce, but what sauce does appear has a nice tomatoey taste with only a mild amount of spiciness.  Score: 8/10.

Cheese: The cheese appears in adequate quantity and produces very little grease.  Like the crust, the cheese also has little flavor.  Score: 8/10.

Toppings: The sausage comes in small chunks and has just the right amount of spiciness.  The pepperoni is unremarkable.  Both toppings appear in high quantity.  Score: 8/10.

Overall Taste: The sausage and sauce combine to give an overall taste that is slightly on the overspiced side.  Also, I would have preferred meatier sausage.  Score: 7/10.

Pizza Appearance: The large amount of sausage dominates the appearance.

Dining Atmosphere: The dining room is just a couple of tables with stool-like backless chairs.  This arrangement is very uncomfortable for people like me who have back problems.

Customer Service:  The service was quick and friendly despite the fact that they were fairly busy.

Monetary Value: For quality pizza, the price is downright cheap. Therefore, the value is high, especially for a downtown location.

The Final Judgment:

Clearly the Hambone is connected to the pizza bone: they make a high quality pizza for a fantastic price.  If I lived in southeast Wyoming, I would come here often.  Score: 83/100.

Abby's Legendary Pizza

Basic Information:

Pizza: Abby's Legendary Pizza
Number of Locations: around 36 in 2 states: Oregon and Washington

Location Reviewed: 2226 Shallock Ave. in Klamath Falls, OR (2 blocks from Sky Lake Medical Center)
Website: https://abbys.com/
Date of Review Visit: July 2021
What I Ordered: small (10") deep dish pizza with Italian sausage and pepperoni; 1 fountain drink
Price: $16.79 (includes drink and tax but not tip)

Photo:

Summary Review: 3.5 stars (out of 5)

Detailed Review:

Crust: Abby's Legendary Pizza offers 2 crust options: thin and deep dish.  As will come as no surprise to any regular reader of this blog, I chose deep dish.  The deep dish pizza has a nice golden brown pan crust that is about the same thickness as Pizza Hut's pan crust.  My pizza was slightly overbaked and thus a little crispier than I would have preferred.  I've had better pan crusts, but this one ranks pretty high.  Score: 8/10.

Sauce: The sauce is very overspiced; I could not taste the tomatoes for all of the spices.  As you would expect for a pan pizza, the sauce appears in high quantity.  Score: 6/10.

Cheese: The cheese is a tasty blend of mozzarella and an orange cheese I could not identify.  It appears in decent quantity but produces very little grease.  Score: 10/10.

Toppings: The sausage is on the spicy side for my taste palette.  The pepperoni is rather bland, and for good reason: they use Hormel pepperoni (like you would buy in the store), and they even advertise this fact.  I hope Hormel pays them a kickback for the advertising, because I doubt it helps them sell pizza.  Both toppings appear in high quantity.  Score: 7/10.

Overall Taste: The spiciness and saltiness tend to overwhelm the taste buds, which is too bad because there are some interesting individual components here.  Score: 7/10.

Pizza Appearance: This pizza looks like a nice golden-brown pan pizza that has plenty of toppings.  

Dining Atmosphere: The dining room seems to date to the 1990's with video games of slightly newer variety.

Customer Service: The counter service was fast and friendly.

Monetary Value: This pizza has pretty high quality, but it is very expensive even though the counter service saves on the tip.

The Final Judgment:

This pizza tends to overwhelm your taste palette with brute force rather than impress it with a mouthful of flavor.  While I have certainly had worse pizza, Abby's does not rank as legendary in my gradebook.  Score: 77/100.