Far be it from me to suggest conspiracy theories, but Yelp can be easily manipulated by stores that crave good reviews.  This isn’t a new concept, but it still makes me question the motivation of most posters.  It’s hard enough to form one’s own opinion on a restaurant’s food, atmosphere and service without secretly wondering if this place has been recommended to you by the restaurant manager posing as Suzie Q.

Ah, and the ranking system.  Any time you go from 1-5, one would expect rankings to reflect the following logic when ranking a restaurant:

1: Terrible service, terrible location, food was almost inedible.
2: Food was actually okay, but rest of experience was lacking
3: Everything was mediocre
4: Decent service, food was great
5: Already thinking about returning

I had a LOT of problems writing number 2. Why aren’t there four stars? Let’s look at some reviews and try and determine the metric for a 2 star rating.

“Yeah.. I know I will get crap for this.. and I know it’s a very unChicago thing to say… but I find corn bread crust yucky. I hate cornbread, so don’t make a pizza out of it…The ingredients were fresh and tasty. I also didn’t think that the “large” pizza warranted the large moniker. It was more like a medium. For more than 2 people, I’d definitely recommend more than 1 pizza.”

Laura does not like corn bread crust, so the establishment immediately loses some stars. But is every pizza made with cornbread crust? Also, why apologize for your opinion when writing an opinion-based review? The ingredients were fresh and tasty, but the pies were too small. I’m not sure I get it. Is a two star review always so muddled and confusing? Based on the content of the review, I would’ve given the place a 3-star rating. But let’s see some other 2-star gems. Dave S. similarly complains about the size of Pizano’s pizzas:

“The were probably the smallest and most overpriced large pizzas that I have ever had. They were not even that good. I paid nearly $90 for four pizzas that were supposed to be large but were more like mediums in the real world. Come on with the toppings guys, these pizzas were very, very bare. I was not really impressed with them at all.”

Uh, woof. Notice his comment about “real world medium pizzas.” What does that even really mean? What is the gold standard size-wise for a large pizza? Are we talking deep-dish or thin crust? This is all getting very confusing. Let’s confuse things even more by adding Dave S.’s reasoning behind his two-star rating:

Crust = very good

Toppings = very skimpy

Quick Delivery = Nope, very slow

Friendly Service = “Leave the attitudes at home, I am paying you good money here”

Price = Not worth it at all

So he hates the price, the service, the delivery time and the toppings. And he only likes the crust of the pizza? This looks like a 1-star rating to me.

Also, I’ll also add that the whole, “I’m paying you GOOD MONEY, so ACT like it,” bit. If you write that in a review, you’re asking to be treated like a jerk.  Yes, you have paid these people to offer you a service, but don’t act like you paid their future kids college education off.  This pizza delivery person is  a human being.  You tip them 15-20% and shut the door in their faces.  What more do you want?

Perhaps Christina S. will be more honest with her ranking?

“I picked Pizano’s because it’s close to the Contemporary Art Museum and had a four-star rating. Yelp, you’ve done me wrong…Our deep-dish pizza was thin, watery, and undercooked, and my fettuccine dish was totally unappetizing. The nail in the coffin was the smoking policy, though. No smoking within 15 feet of the bar. Well, my friends, the bar runs along one side of the dining room and the building itself is no more than 20 feet wide. What a joke.”

Alright, now we’re talking! Food that is awful and looks awful! A watery deep-dish pizza is a blasphemous thing indeed, and a critique of the establishment’s smoking policy which is now rendered moot by Illinois’s smoking ban in restaurants and bars helps lower the bar. The location is lauded as well, making this a solid two-star rating.

Using a small sample size has shown us some small truths about Yelp, namely that you can’t really trust a rating.  People have different levels of taste and shifting palates, and Phil’s 2 star rating could be Janet’s 5 star meal-gasm.

I plan to further delve into my conspiracy theory that half of every restaurant’s positive reviews are written by employees.  If you have any first-hand accounts of any such heinous acts of deception, you can email me at hugedays@gmail.com.

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(New Domino’s Pizza in full color)

Consumerist is reporting on the recipe change as well, with info from Domino’s explaining:

“2010 will be our 50th year in the business, and we are kicking it off with the most aggressive promotion in the history of our company,” said Domino’s Chairman and CEO David A. Brandon. “This is the biggest product introduction we’ve done since…well, pizza.”

The primary changes to the pizza are the crust, sauce and cheese:

• Crust – A garlic seasoned crust with parsley baked to a golden brown.
• Sauce – Sweeter, bolder tomato sauce with a medley of herbs and a red pepper kick.
• Cheese – Shredded cheese made with 100% real mozzarella and flavored with just a hint of provolone.

The decision to change the basic recipe for Domino’s pizza is a bold one for sure. As USA Today notes:

Analysts were hard-pressed to name a major chain that has tried such a change to its core product. “I don’t know of any (restaurant) company that has attempted this,” says consultant Howard Gordon.

The new pizza recipe is based off of several years of testing, and seems to be a high risk/high reward situation. While some loyalists may not go for the new taste, the early buzz I’ve seen on Twitter is very positive – people are digging the new sauce, and seem to think the new crust is one of the better crusts they’ve had.  There is strong potential here for Domino’s to re-introduce its pizza to the public at large, and potentially win over some new customers who may not have liked the taste of the old pizza. More interestingly, the pizza recipe change represents the strategic move of listening too, and responding to consumer complaints, demands and preferences. You aren’t crazy about Domino’s pizza? Well ok then, we’ll do some research and make it better for you.

The new pizza recipe has already popped up in most stores this week, and will be in all of them by the end of the month.  I haven’t tried the new pizza yet, but hope too in the next few days.  Any So Good readers tried the new Domino’s pizza recipe? If so, or when you do, please let us know what you think!

Full Disclosure: Domino’s is a client of mine and my employer, and I provide them with social media consulting and strategic advice.

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Pizza has been a large part of my life, as you can tell by my posting history.  Today I don’t want to strictly speak of pizza, but of pizza expectations.

The Rolling Stones once wrote, “You can’t always get what you want.”  And Charles Dickens once wrote, “WTF?  I went to this pizza joint in Andersonville and tried to order a pepperoni pizza and they wouldn’t make it for me.  So much for my great expectations!”  A blessing and a curse, people are curious about this small pizza joint because of an article in a men’s magazine.  That’s it.  Of course, a lot of people just skimmed it, which is, well, quite evident from the behavior of customers I witnessed.

1. If you want a pepperoni pizza, go to Domino’s.

One guy who sits down near my group of friends is threatening to do just that.  He’s incensed.  He read that stupid article in GQ and wants the best pizza in America, damn it!  The staff sighs and points to the chalkboard, where 3 pre-determined pies are available for order.  On a given night (depending on the availability of fresh produce and meat), there is usually a veggie pizza, a meat pizza and a white available to order.  All are $20 plus a pizza.  They don’t make pizza on demand.  The guy gets up with his girlfriend (who is hilariously mortified) and leaves.  The waitress shrugs and tells us it happens at least three times a night at this point.

2. If you want a short wait, go to Pizza Hut

If you go to the Yelp page devoted to Great Lake, most commenters complain about the wait.  Waiting half an hour to forty five minutes for a pizza is, seemingly, forever.  Hmm…why don’t we look at home-made pizza recipes online and see how long they take to cook?  Well, most recipes have a pizza cooking for 20 to 30 minutes.  So, wait.  Because the GQ article predisposes you to the idea that the wait is long, waiting a completely normal amount of time for a pizza to cook is too long?  A freaking Digiorno takes 23 minutes, for christ sake.  You’re here to eat quality food, not a fucking Marie Calendar’s Insta-meal.  Waiting an extra 15-20 minutes never killed anyone.  Unless you’re insane and under the assumption that eating uncooked pizza is great.  Or you eat raw dough.  Weirdo.

3. If you want to make snap judgements

Go to Yelp!  There are millions of them!  In fact, I’m thinking I should start combing the catacombs of the webbernet looking for the worst and most obnoxious Yelp! reviews out there.  You know the ones I’m talking about:

Karen M. – This place sux!!!  My mom’s pizza is SOOOOOOOOOOOO much better.  And the service was trble.  Awful.

WHO GIVES A SHIT?!  You don’t go to a restaurant to eat your mom’s pizza.  And as I will point out in the upcoming weeks, the reason it doesn’t taste like your family meals is because YOU SPENT AT LEAST FIVE YEARS BEING EXPOSED TO THE COOKING IN YOUR HOME.  You build up a natural affinity for your mother/father’s cooking (as long as it doesn’t suck butt), and it tastes specific and wonderful.  It should.  But when you go out to eat at a specialty pizza shop like Great Lake Pizza expecting everything to be traditional and just like home cooking, you should just cut yourself some slack.  Stay home.  Order in from Sarpino’s, they have those trucks and their fliers are everywhere!  Kick back and enjoy your perfectly bland experience as you watch reruns of “Farscape.”

Because heaven forbid that anything is new or different!  You might just have to complain to an online review site and potentially ruin other people’s experiences with completely groundless claims of mediocrity.

I guess what I’m trying to say is that Great Lake is a fine pizza establishment with wonderful pizza made with farm-fresh produce and meats.  Just order it for pick up if you’re a pansy and can’t wait a bit.

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When it comes to food, I am very open-minded.  I will give just about everything a try.  But as Dirty Harry once said, man’s got to know his limitations.  Enter, the Pizza Cone. 

I know that the sharp folks in R&D think that America wants food “on the go” and “quick to prepare” (and yes, I did make air quotes just now) but is this really the answer that we have been looking for?  Also, is the unconventional cone shape for the pizza supposed to give a space-age feel that is supposed to distract people from thinking that it is an open-ended hot pocket?  And don’t even think of saying ‘pizza of the future’ either.

We have all tasted microwaved pizza, and we know the results.  This idea?  Not so good.

And as we all know, nothing says ‘winner’ like a pizza from a vending machine.  Barf.

H/t to Eat Me Daily for the scoop.

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(Photo via Dan Perlman)

How do you feel, reader?  Angry?  Hurt?  Kind of fat when you think about how much pizza you’ve consumed?  Well, you’re not alone.  Since the dawn of pizza (or time, whichever came first), people have made it their business to proclaim their regional pizza the greatest in the world of worlds.  A lot of this amounts to pride in their hometown, which isn’t a foreign concept to me.  Growing up in upstate New York, outside of Utica, I ate two kinds of pizzas: circular thin pies and thicker square pies.  I naturally gravitate towards the former, probably because I don’t feel bloated after two slices of the thick pie.

When I lived in NYC, I worked near an amazing shop called Koronet that had GIANT slices for a buck fifty.  That’s not bad when you’re broke as shit out of college.  Now I live in Chicago, and although the allure of a thin slice of pizza exists, it is a dream not made for this reality.  Getting pizza by-the-slice in Chicago is a rare thing.  Not an impossibility.  But people prefer getting a pie, and I can’t say I haven’t conformed my taste to Chicago’s style.

I haven’t been to California yet, but I’m sure I’ll hate their pizza.  Freaking pear on pizza?  If I want pears, I’ll eat a goddamn pear.  If I want pizza, I’ll be as close-minded as I damn well please about it.  Give me meat or veggies on that pizza, preferably both please.  Otherwise, get your terrible Wolfgang Puck-endorsed toppings out of my personal space.

Ah, that felt great.  Now I would like to give So Good readers the chance to do the same.  Vote on your favorite regional pizza, and use the comments to either lambaste someone else’s pizza, trumpet your own pizza’s superiority, or just criticize me!  Fun for all ages!  Also, make sure to watch the results.  I will be insulted if California-style beats Chicago or New York.  California, consider yourself pwned.

NYC Pizza – giant tombstone slabs with a minimal amount of sauce and cheese.  They are giant and cheap, and they usually come by the slice.

Chicago Deep Dish Pizza – a true goliath that starts with crust, then finishes with cheese, toppings and sauce in that order.  More of a casserole than pizza to some, heaven to others.

California-Style Pizza – usually akin to NYC pizza, but with hilariously off-beat toppings like pear and Gorgonzola or Mango Tandoori.

Sicilian Pizza – popular in the aforementioned Utica, NY, this pizza has the same cheese-first-sauce-on-top approach of Chicago, although it employs pecorini cheese with anchovies or endives.

New Haven-Style Apizza – weird New England pizza, oh, excuse me: apizza.  That’s not a typo, even though the spell-checker tells me it is.  They call it apizza, and sometimes they don’t even put cheese on it.  SACRILEGE.  It’s essentially NYC-style thin crust, sometimes served with clams.

St. Louis-Style Pizza – yeast-less-thin-crust pizza that is crispy like a cracker, sweet Sicilian-influenced sauce and an interesting choice for cheese: the tangy Provel.  Cut into squares they refer to as “Party Cut.”  Yeah, I’m giggling too.

Note: There is a poll embedded within this post, please visit the site to participate in this post's poll.

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Good lord that’s one hideous looking pizza. Now I understand the use of black olives to make her hair.  I also understand that some people like black olives. But I ask you: do you really like black olives enough to eat that many in each bite? I submit that you do not.  So just to re-cap about the pizza:  A) Looks horribly disgusting, and B) most likely tastes equivalent to shoving an entire can of black olives into your mouth at once.

But what makes the article about this new pizza absolutely awesome is this quote from the bakery’s product development chef, Toby Thorogood:

“There are photos of Susan Boyle everywhere and I started thinking how much she looks like a pizza with that round head of hers.”

Lets go through the list of reactions one might have had when they first viewed the Susan Boyle YouTube clip. For some, their reaction was “wow, she has a beautiful voice.”  For others it was, “what an inspiring story.”  But for Toby Thorogood, the reaction was, of course, “that lady’s head looks like a pizza.”  Nice.

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H/T to Asylum.

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There are 5 types of pasta available:

• Three Cheese Mac-N-Cheese – A blend of two cheddars and mozzarella tossed with penne pasta and baked.
• Italian Sausage Marinara – Penne pasta tossed with  Italian sausage smothered in marinara sauce and topped with provolone cheese.
• Chicken Alfredo – Cuts of  all white meat chicken and penne pasta baked with creamy Alfredo sauce.
• Chicken Carbonara – Cuts of all white meat chicken, bacon, onions and mushrooms mixed with penne pasta and baked with creamy Alfredo sauce.
• Pasta Primavera – Baby spinach, diced tomatoes, mushrooms and onions mixed with penne pasta and baked with creamy Alfredo sauce.

WalletPop is reporting that tomorrow, April 29th, you can get a free bread bowl pasta lunch between 11 am and 2 pm at all participating Domino’s stores.

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Idea:  Take the Big Three pizza toppings from any NYC pizza-eatery (Parmesan cheese, oregano, red pepper flakes) and combine them in one easy-to-use container.  You now have Pizza Zing! And yes, if you didn’t know what the Big Three Pizza Toppings were, you’ve never eaten New York City pizza.  And if I may go one step further, if you reveal this to a native New Yorker, you will most likely be pelted by shoes.  Beware the truth, it hurts. Like thousands of New York City shoes, raining down from the heavens.

Presentation: It’s essentially a modernized Parmesan cheese container, as it should be.  Its ridiculously bright yellow and red color scheme makes me think about eating pizza, which is strange.  Perhaps this container has a hypnotizing effect? So yeah, bonus points for making me wonder if I’m getting programmed a la Manchurian Candidate.

Favorite Visible Catch-Phrase: FLAVORFUL HEAT!  Oh wow.  LOVING THIS CATCHPHRASE.  Let it roll off your tongue.  Use it as your Facebook status.  Let’s get together and create the new meme: FLAVORFUL HEAT. Just as one can apply Pizza Zing to any food, apply Flavorful Heat to any situation or person. Trust me, this is the new FAIL.

Taste: We made an incredible mistake in ordering a deep dish pizza from Edwardo’s, one of the great Chicago deepdisheries. Myself and my companions applied vigorous amounts of Pizza Zing to the pizza, making sure to fit the word ZING! into the conversation as much as possible. This was fun. However, I would not advise one to apply Pizza Zing to top-of-the-line pizza products. It’s powerful stuff, and the 7 spices completely overwhelm the 2 “hearty” cheeses the bottle advertises.  I mean, throwing red, jalapeno and cayenne pepper into the spice-blend is one thing, but adding in habanero as well? Overkill in my honest opinion, especially for those with an aversion to truly spicy seasoning. Remove the habanero, and lazy people every may indeed rejoice in a spice combo that will aid in pizza-loving.

The Verdict: While spicy and flavorful, Pizza Zing lends itself to the frozen pizza crowd.  On a Tombstone, Digiorno’s or Red Baron, this topping would help kick the flavor up a notch. Will it replace my Frank’s Hot Sauce or Sriracha hot sauce? No, probably not. But if you’re jonesing for those pizza seasonings, and find yourself bereft of a local shop that sells slices, Pizza Zing is right up your ally.

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Via Buzzfeed and No-Name247.

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One of these videos is titled, “Kicked out of Pizza Place.”  As of this morning it has received almost 200,000 views in about 5 days.  The guys at Mediocre Films do good work – or I should say, they do funny work.  They have quite a few funny videos and the guys they use in their films are likeable and good at what they do.  The two guys that appear in this video for Pizza Hut have an amusing banter between them, similar to the guys in recent Sonic ads.

The premise of the video: a guy goes and sits in local pizza shops, then calls up Pizza Hut and has a pizza delivered to him while in another pizza shop.  The video is amusing although the premise is a little assholish – hey local pizza shop owner, I’m gonna order a shitty pizza instead of your own pizza! Haha!  While it’s nice to see Pizza Hut go a little cutting edge, there is essentially no brand visibility or even brand awareness in the ad.  Pizza Hut isn’t mentioned, and you only know he’s ordering a Pizza Hut pizza if you recognize the uniform of Pizza Hut delivery drivers. Check it out:

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Via Food Beast.

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But where I criticize companies for boneheaded moves, I also praise them for a job well done, and Papa John’s has been working some magic in the last three days with their attempts to build up the number of Papa John’s fans on Facebook, surging from around 10,000 fans on Sunday, to more than 164,000 at the time of this post. Damn. How could anyone possibly increase their fans on Facebook that fast? Well, it’s because of an offer for FREE pizza:

Hey everyone loves something free right? Not hard to get someone to click a link to become a fan if they know they are getting a free pizza out of it. Bargain shopping and coupon websites and blogs were abuzz and Papa John’s added 120,000 fans in the first 24 hours of the offer.

Of course with all things “free” there is a catch – to get a free medium cheese pizza, you have to first make an online pizza purchase.  As the board of the Facebook fan page proves, even when you offer something free, someone is going to bitch – a lot of people feel that saying “free pizza” is deceptive, because it’s really buy one get one free, and are also complaining because the offer says “free medium pizza” but then they limit it to a medium cheese - then again, maybe these people are just morons and don’t know how to read fine print. Either way, there are some amusing comments left on the fan page:

Really super lame “offer.” No longer a Fan.

i gotta buy a pizza to get a pizza?? cmon…i woulda bought a pizza anyway, cant we just get a free pizza without a catch??????

BOOOO… FALSE ADVERTISING!! They kept going on and on about a free pizza if you join this group. Come to find out, you have to BUY a pizza in order to get one for free…. They should have said it was a Buy one get one free offer!

free cheese?? u kidding right?? WOW, thanks Papa john…i love me some cheese.. /sarcasm

Ok, is this a free pizza or a BUY ONE, get one free deal? It better be FREE!!!

Can’t please everyone all the time.

With over 164,000 friends, Papa John’s Facebook fan page now has more fans than Domino’s (141,000) but is far short of Pizza Hut (386,000).  Overall, a smart promotion and very impressive effort by Papa John’s who have suceeded in adding more than 150,000 fans in less than 3 days.

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Now comes the news that the owner of Italian Fiesta Pizzeria, cited in So Good’s post as one of Obama’s favorite restaurants, has been invited to DC to serve up pizza during some of the inauguration festivities. Check out a report below on the news that this pizza joint has hit the big time:

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