Shakespeare's Pizza.

Shakespeare's Pizza ,locally owned and operated, is located in Columbia, MO. Their web-site is a bit light on history, but it looks like they opened for business in 1973 in downtown Columbia. They currently have two locations, the original downtown and a new joint on the west side of town. The pizza for this review came from the original downtown location.
Their menu includes Salads, Other eats (cheese garlic bread, Brightons cookies and frozen pizza's) and Pizza. The pizza's come with a choice of wholewheat or white crust. The cheese of choice is Provolone, but you can also get pepper or Cheddar cheese. You also have a choice of toppings or Exotic toppings, but unlike many places there is no price increase for the exotic toppings.

We started with a Louie's salad. It wasn't the salad I wanted but it was the salad I ordered (when I ordered the food I was racing west on I-70 towards Columbia). I had wanted to order a dinner salad, but instead I asked for a House salad for four people. I'm not a big fan of spinach salad, certainly nothing wrong with it, just not what I wanted.

We ordered 2 large pizza's, both with white crust, the first half cheese (for my daughter) and half Canadian bacon and bacon (a favorite of my fellow pizza eater). The second had pepperoni, Canadian bacon, hamburger and onions. The pizza's had a bit of a ride in the car, but were still very warm when we busted them out of the box's. The first things I noticed was a lot of corn meal on the bottom of the crust and how light it was, almost white. It was able to support it's own weight, that might be different straight out of the oven at the restaurant. The cheese and toppings were generously applied. Although I didn't realize until latter that they only used Provolone cheese, I did know something was different with cheese. As I recall the sauce was not remarkably sweet or spicy, and on the later my daughter would have made it known loud and clear. The sauce did a fine job of mediating between crust and toppings. I found all 3 pizza's quite good, and the leftovers did very well a couple of days later after spending some time in the toaster oven.

Overall I was very pleased with the food and service at Shakespeare's Pizza. I unknowingly picked Homecoming weekend to order from them, so when we arrived we found a line going around the building, luckily to go orders have a separate door. So if you go on a MU game night you should expect long lines and limited parking. Our pizza's were ready on-time and our salad come in a really nice reusable grocery bag.

The Pizza was very good and I would defiantly pay for it again. Shakespeare's Pizza is located at 9th & Elm Streets in Columbia, MO. You can reach them at (573) 449-2454, for more information check out their web-site (click on the title link).

Recommended.

GAW

Pizza Cat.

When I'm not wasting, er.. researching about pizza, motorcycles or one of my many other hobby's, I can often be found wasting time at Lolcats part of the icanhascheezburger network. On a recent day of under utilizing my potential I came across the photo below and felt I should share it with you my reader(s?).

Enjoy
GAW

P.S. If you like cats, dogs, walrus's, failures or any number of humours things you should check out the icanhascheezburger network.


see more Lolcats and funny pictures

Merrill's Pizza

Not Long ago I got the Call, "He's make'n em, how many?" I put in my normal order of three. So tonight we popped one in the oven. Not sure if it was because I haven't had one in a while, but it was even better than normal.

Fresh out of the oven, not even cut yet.

20 minutes later.

Click the title link to learn more about Merrill's Pizza.

GAW

What's for Breakfast?

Leftover pizza and a over easy fried egg.
Obviously dad made breakfast today.

Naturally Risen

The video speaks for it's self.

NATURALLY RISEN from michael evans on Vimeo.

Chuck E. Cheese's

Not long ago I found myself in Chuck E. Cheese's... No Really, I was there to celebrate my daughters 6th birthday, not just for the pizza. But I will take my pizza whenever and wherever I can get it, so here it is.

Chuck E. Cheese's is not a family owned local pizzeria. The story of Chuck E. Cheese's started back in May of 1977 when Nolan Bushnell, founder of Atari & Pong opened the first location in San Jose, California. Today Chuck E. Cheese's is a leader in entertaining young children and damaging the hearing of their parents. You can even buy stock in Chuck E. Cheese's if you feel so inclined, there symbol is (CEC), it's going for $26 as I write this.

Chuck E. Cheese's offers 4 sizes of pizza with your choice of the following toppings: pepperoni, bacon, jalapenos, chicken, tomatoes, mushrooms, sausage, pineapple, black olives, red onions, Canadian bacon, green peppers and beef. I should also let you know that Canadian locations use soya beef and ham in place of beef and Canadian bacon. No kidding check out the MENU! How messed up it that? If you live in Canada you can't get Canadian bacon on your pizza! I really feel sorry for the poor Canadian customers. Back to our regularly scheduled post. They also offer several combo's including: Super Combo, All-Meat Combo, BBQ Chicken and Vegetarian. If you can't bring your self to eat the pizza they have wings, mozzarella sticks, breadsticks, french fries and a salad bar. The online menu also shows several sandwiches, but I don't recall seeing them at the location I visited.

For our party we had cheese pizza and pepperoni pizza, the kids pretty much cleaned up the cheese pizza leaving the pepperoni for the adults to pick over. The first thing I noticed was what looked like a coating of butter on the crust and pooled in some of the pepperoni's. When you handle the pizza your hands will come away with a coating of the stuff. Even the bottom looks like it was fried. As far as taste goes I really don't recall much about the pizza, it was eatable for sure as I eat a couple of pieces and I'm still around a month later. If it wasn't for the photos I took I wouldn't have been able to give you this much information as all I can really recall from our visit was the noise, kids screaming, machines clanging and the big rat him self singing (and we had the first party of the day at 10am). I do know that all the kids had a great time at Chuck E. Cheese's and none of them complained about the pizza.

We visited the Chuck E. Cheese's at 15913 Manchester Rd. in Ellisville, Missouri 63011, but I suspect it would be pretty much the same no matter what Chuck E. Cheese's you visit.

Recommended BUT

• Only if you have young children.
• Only if you have ear plugs.
  
• Only if it's a child's birthday.
• Only if it's not your kid so you don't have to pay for it.
  

GAW

P.S. I'm serious wear hearing protection.

Frank and Helen's, second time.

I visited Frank and Helen's about 4 months ago as part of The Pizza Files 2009 Summer Binge and did a full review at that time, so I will keep it short.

I got the call Sunday morning that the family was going to Frank and Helen's that evening to have Broasted Chicken, and did I want to go? Of course I wanted to go, but I wasn't going to have chicken. Out of the 11 family members only 3 of us didn't get chicken (it must be good to pass on pizza).

On This visit as before I started with the Casa (house salad) with the House Creamy Garlic dressing, and as before it was quite good. I did have them add some mozzarella cheese to the salad this time.

For Pizza I ordered a Medium Extra Thin crust (St. Louis Style) with the Signature Red sauce, mozzarella cheese, pepperoni, Canadian bacon, meat balls and red onions. Just like my last visit the pizza was excellent. The ingredients were all fresh and tasted very good. The quantity of each ingredient was just right. Although the St. Louis style crust is not my favorite it did a good job of conveying the pizza from plate to mouth and added a crispness to the package.

On my June visit I noticed that they served Crown Candy Ice Cream after I had already eaten to much and had no room for dessert, this time I saved just a little space to share a scoop. My wife and I had a scoop of coffee ice cream. It was well worth saving the space. Some day I will make the trip to Crown Candy Kitchen and have a malt, but that will be another story.

So if you are craving some great pizza, Broasted chicken and ice cream you can't beat Frank and Helen's.

Frank and Helen's is located at 8111 Olive Street Rd in University City, MO. You can reach them at (314) 997-0666 or check out their web-site by clicking the title link.

Highly Recommended.

GAW