Kind of badass.

Simply stated, there are just certain places you shouldn’t good to get certain things.

Think about it; when you want sushi, you don’t rush to a mini mall in a town of 5,000. I’d advise against venturing to either Dakota if you’re specifically searching for a hot piece of tail (though I once made out with a cute chick from Fargo). Families don’t, or at least shouldn’t, caravan to Washington D.C. just to see “a good baseball game”–even if they live in the D.C. area. In that same vein, very few people go to gas stations with the sole intention of getting a hot slice of pizza. But regional convenience store chain Kwik Trip (of selling milk in bags fame) not only stocks a myriad of pre-made Cheese Mountain Pizza beneath their heat lamps, they really, really push them on people. 

But somehow, I’d managed to resist the the onslaught of radio ads, TV commercials and in-store advertising that makes Avatar seem under-publicized by comparison. Maybe I wasn’t ready to have my mind blown. Maybe I didn’t feel as if I deserved to try Cheese Mountain Pizza. But probably, it was because they look fucking disgusting.

But when I found myself feeling peckish at the Kwik Trip of an off-ramp town I’d never heard of, I was faced with the difficult decision of whether to eat a Power Bar or a past-date chicken salad sandwich (The Sophie’s Choice of gas station dining dilemmas). It was then that I threw caution to the wind, wiped the sand out of my cooter, grew a dick and decided that I would finally traverse the Cheese Mountain.

I cringed before snagging the last two slices of the poetically-named “Four Meat” to go with my Lo-Carb Monster, and I shamefully walked to my car to eat kind of old gas station pizza alone in the parking lot. To take our gay and female readership over the top to an Earth shattering orgasm, I was also wearing a too-tight graphic wolf T-shirt. 

Sitting there in my 2002 Saturn, nibbling a greasy “Four Meat”er, I felt my soul leaving my body. It hovered above me and watched as I crushed both slices in record time so that I could get back on I-94… so I could get back on the road to speed both towards my home and away from the memory of what I’d just done. It was then that it dawned on me: Moments like those in places like that with people like me perfectly embody the reason gas stations sell pizza.

THE GOOD: There were generous toppings on each slice. As to be expected with a pizza called “Four Meat”, there was a lot meat on the pizza. Four to be exact. Four meat. Sausage, really thick pepperoni, chicken and Canadian bacon (actually an entire slice of deli ham) clung to each taxing bite. I’ll be honest; I’m guessing that the fourth meat was chicken. It was a riddle, really.

THE BAD: It was old as shit. The cheese was melted under the heat lamps then re-hardened on the box so I had to pull an Alan Grant just to excavate the slice from the container. The cheese was lukewarm, the sauce was bordering on cold and the greasy toppings were near boiling from heat lamp scorching. Its layers made it like a Neapolitan ice cream of pizza in where, instead of each being a different flavor of ice cream, they were each a different temperature of undesirable pizza. The rest was just grease. The crust almost squirted when I bit into it. I was the bearded, adult, ashamed version of one of those Ann Geddes baby prints.

I nearly poured gas on my skin just to get free use of the Kwik Trip’s chemical shower.

TRY: Planning ahead so you don’t almost run out of gas in an unincorporated township with no restaurants. That failing, I assume the Cheese Mountain take and bake pizzas are exponentially better than the pre-made slices. But if you possess the foresight to plan to buy a take and bake and have the resources in which to cook it, there’s literally EVERY better option for pizza anywhere else… including Kwik Trip’s frozen pizza selection.

RATING: -1 on the pizza scale. Wolfgang Puck on the gas station pizza scale. Bad as it was, it still made Hot Stuff Pizza taste like Piccadilly Circus Pizza by comparison.

I make a-da Italians feel-a bad about dere heritage.

Just like every other college-educated, self-loathing white son of middle class parents who lives in Madison, I read the A.V. Club and The Onion too much. So let me break with what’s expected of me and link to an A.V. Club story in the next paragraph:

When I started considering writing a review of Rocky Rococo’s, Wisconsin’s pre-eminent corporate pizza chain a whole 36 hours ago, I ran across this Inventory running down movies in which the police detective is told he is too close to a case, and couldn’t help parallel (again, no one else parallels their lives to something they read in the Onion, and by no one, I mean everyone) that list with this review. Am I too close to Rocky’s to write a review of the Italian stereotype-furthering chain? Probably.

You see, I worked at Rocky’s for entirely too long, from the fall of 2002 till the late summer of 2007. I literally did every job you could do at Rocky’s, from starting out as a QC– the guy who cuts the pizzas–to getting laid off for two months by a manager who hated me because I didn’t like him (for the record, I never hated him, just disliked him). I then got rehired as a dishwasher, and worked my way back up to Prep—making pizzas—to delivery driver, and then to Shift Manager. I then resigned and worked as a delivery driver again, and made the pizza dough at seven in the morning two days a week.

I mean, I’ve cleaned shit-filled plugged toilets at Rocky’s. I got to help fire a dude from Rocky’s. I’ve technically stolen breadsticks from Rocky’s. I ate roughly 1,500 slices of pizza from Rocky’s (at least five slices a week for four years). I had to throw out old jeans because they didn’t fit any more because of Rocky’s. I had a guy steal pizza from me when I was on a delivery from Rocky’s. I nearly killed a motorcyclist the same shift. I slept in the office at Rocky’s. I’ve seen what their enormous sausage looks like when it’s not been made into patties, and it’s fucking gross. I’ve thrown up in a trashcan at Rocky’s. I sat on boxes of vegetables in the cooler when the air conditioner broke at Rocky’s. I paid for college by working at Rocky’s. I have permanent calluses in the “L” between my pointer fingers and thumbs because I burned my hands every day at Rocky’s.

So am I too close to Rocky’s to write this review? You bet your sweet ass, I am. But one of us pizza-loving fucks has to do it, and since I’ve got some time to kill between now and when I go to work, here it goes:

The Good: Rocky’s is basically the best available chain in Wisconsin, as it straight annihilates Pizza Hut’s butt, Papa John’s john, and Domino’s moldy ball sack. But it used to be a venerable Madison institution, like Ian’s before Ian’s. But after it went corporate in the ‘80s, it lost some of its magic. It’s now basically the place where you take your mouth-breathing kids when they want to play arcade games (at least at the Madison locations that have games) and you don’t want to eat the gonorrhea on a crust that is a Chuck E. Cheese ‘za.

But still, the attention to pizza-making craft is on a higher level than that of other chains. The crust is hand-made, and the toppings are generally fresh and delicious.  The whole-wheat crust might be the best crust on earth, and their sausage is famous the world over (at least from Appleton to Milwaukee and La Crosse), but it’s really more of a meatball. I still get a laugh whenever I think about how all the corporate handbooks said the sausage had to be three fingers. That’s what she said, am I right, guys?

The Bad: The main problem with Rocky’s is the fact that any pizza you buy might be way too doughy and uncooked in the middle. That’s the perils of ordering a pizza that is about 12 pounds of dough. I could never understand how people could order zas from Rocky’s with 8 toppings, because even they had to know that shit wasn’t going to be cooked right. Plus the fact that I am writing this after taking a break to eat a ‘za from Pizza Extreme should tell you something: Rocky’s isn’t going to beat your local place. But then again, that’s coming from someone who has eaten way too much Rocky’s.

Try: I loved a slice called the Motherlode, which is a promotional slice that is available every once in a while, and features stuffed crust. Rocky’s stuffed crust is made with smoked mozzarella, which is basically the best. For non-promotional times, you can’t go wrong with an Uncle Sal’s on whole-wheat.

Rating: Less offensive to Italians than all of the Mario Games (minus Mario Party 5), but equally offensive to that dude named Big Pussy on The Sopranos.

“Some assholes, probably,” I’d speculate while en route to Kohl’s or some better pizza place. 

But while back in Appleton last week, I decided to pay a visit — my second in the past eight months — to both my buddy, and to Nick-N-Willy’s Pizza.

This Canadian-owned corporation (in the same way Gumby’s Pizza and Sinclair gas stations are corporations) apparently has 41 locations in the U.S., and six in The Badger State alone. Beyond that, Nick-N-Willy’s — an Indie in the pizza world — was fittingly an Official Provider of the 2010 Sundance Film Festival. A perfect pairing of pizza very few people have heard of and movies very few people have heard of.

The only other thing I know about Nick-N-Willy’s is that they make, serve and sell pizza with varying levels of edibility.

THE GOOD: If you check out the restaurant’s menu, you’ll find a lengthy and versatile listing of specialty ‘Za. The pizzas run the gamut of ingredients and sauce types. One even has mandarin oranges on it. Imagine, baby oranges on a pizza pie. Fuck me sideways! There are certainly more veggie options than many places we’ve previously reviewed. Plus, everything is fresh. I had fresh cut jalapenos on my veggie pizza during my last visit, and it made a world of difference.

Also, if you hate lines, this is the place for you. I ordered, waited for and ate my entire pizza in the time it took three customers to venture into the place. Ghost town. That said, the speed and quality of service was good — especially when accounting for their lack of actual encounters with customers.

THE BAD: No matter who you are, we can all agree that even sub-par pizza is still great food. I’m not saying N-N-W’s is bad, but it does lack identity. The few morsels of personality this sterile franchise does possess aren’t extremely flattering.

• The pizza sauce tastes like cheesy marinara sauce. I like marinara sauce… on pasta.
• They used cheddar cheese along with mozzarella. What the fuck? Cheddar? Is this Soviet Russia? In the theme of that shitty Russian comic Yakov Smirnoff, is every cheese-related thing at Nick-N-Willy’s the less appealing opposite of what it would be at a normal pizza place? I like cheddar as much as the next 85th weight percentile out there, but when it comes to pizza, keep it at mozzarella, feta, parmesan or goat. Hell, I might even prefer fromunda cheese (fromunda my nuts) over cheddar on my ‘Za.
• No matter if you dine in or carry out, you need to give a name and phone number. Hang on Missy… since 9/11 I’ve been living off the grid. I’ll be God damned if al Qaeda (or jury duty) tracks me down because I ate at a failing pizza franchise twice. Last I checked, it wasn’t Fort Knox-N-Willy’s; let’s just keep our Social Security cards in our pocket — at least until Focaccia Sandwiches come into play.

TRY: Anything with the “Olive Oil Glaze” instead of tomato sauce. I usually base a pizza’s quality on its sauce, but since Nick-N-Willy’s tomato sauce is akin to still-cold Lunchables pizza sauce, I opted for the glaze on my second time in. I found that it really allowed the flavor of the fresh and abundant vegetables to take center stage.

RATING: If Nick Lachey-N-Willie McGee collaborated on a charity softball game/soundtrack and the proceeds went towards making cheddar the official cheese for pizzas at independent film festivals.

Now 50 percent more similar.

So seldom is the world impacted by a truly great change — things like democracy, women’s suffrage, and the Slap Chop. 

More often, a minimal and altogether futile change is brought about, and no real impact is brought to our planet nor anyone residing on it. This is evidenced by an unattractive woman getting highlights put in her hair, a guy going to the gym once a month, and — most recently — Domino’s Pizza COMPLETELY RE-INVENTING ITSELF! 

For those not in the know, Domino’s is a little mom and pop pizza operation. It has played an integral role in my fatass youth by being a welcomed component in such otherwise-shitty events as church lock-ins, Cub Scout meetings, elementary school pizza parties and interventions. My mom usually bought Pizza Pit — so the rare times I got pizza good enough to have commercials where the actors had no discernable regional dialect, I was pitching a Lee Pipes tent.

For my money, I now prefer a unique experience at a local pizzeria over any national chain, but I recently relented to Domino’s claims of an alleged overhaul and decided to give it a try — if only to review it.

THE GOOD: I’m not one of those people who takes up an allegiance with Pizza Hut and declares that Papa John’s is the bane of my existence. All the successful national pizza chains (and Little Caesar’s) have collectively standardized the pizza into an over-cheesed and spiced orb of test-market-approved ingredients. Sure, slight differences exist, but in all, you’re getting a pedestrian pie approved by the populace. Domino’s is no different.

Processed as it is, it’s always been good. But usually anything greasy that’s been molested by fake mozzarella and affable sauce does the trick. Yeah, I still ate eight pieces, then four the next morning… want to fight about it?

To be avoided.

THE BAD: Despite all the company’s drastic changes, the pizza tastes almost exactly the same. So they brushed the crust with butter and put garlic salt on it; do you think that will make me forget about “The Noid” ad campaign? As fucking if! And judging by both the new commercial AND my taste buds, the sauce was painstakingly re-fashioned by adding 16 flecks of oregano to each heaping pot.

The pizza remains ever-edible as always, but where I would’ve usually been somewhat satisfied with Domino’s, I was pretty much just pissed off that I was eating the same old Domino’s again when I could have been eating at Pizza Man — which is now burned to shit.

TRY: The new Domino’s Pizza recipe. If you like the old Domino’s, you’ll love the new Domino’s… because it’s the same thing, only newer and identical. Long story short, if you’re telling people you’re changing, you better go ahead and change: Make all the drivers get an earring, become “The Official Pizza of Porn Scenes Where a Delivery Man is Seduced by a Horny Customer” or launch an implicitly-racist national ad campaign. Anything! Better yet, change the pizza.

RATING: The Office’s clip episode.

Though I, myself, am a Godless heathen, I feel I have a strange connection to Jewish people. I went to prom with a Jewish girl, my best friend on my college dorm floor freshman year happened to be Brew, and one of my best friends/former roommates comes from a Jewish background. 

Show me your latkes!

Moreover, I’m borderline obsessed with Stella, which is comprised entirely of Jewish comedians. I also find myself immensely attracted to Lisa Edelstein, from that lame show House. I even, sadly, own four Neil Diamond albums. All those factors paired with my prize-winning personality has resulted in me attending a Hanukkah meal or two in my time.

In honor of my Jewish friends and DoZ readers, and to gear up for another Hanukkah meal I’m to attend tonight, I thought I’d throw on my writing yamaka and schlep over to the grocery store and review Bagel Bites.

THE GOOD: For those who don’t know, Bagel Bites is the miniaturized infusion of two American food favorites — pizza and bagels. Kids love these things… or at least the fat adolescent lunchbox that was young T. Mario went ape shit for Bagel Bites. My parents rarely bought them (or fruit snacks… WHAT GIVES, MOM?!?) but when they did, I ate these things like they were going out of style. Though I’m pretty sure they were never in style. 

Though they’re kind of a bitch to prepare, and the boxes of nine sold at most markets aren’t nearly enough to satiate the fat 25-year-old lunchbox that is present day T. Mario — the size of the bagel, the amount of sauce and the spread of the toppings is perfectly measured. You know that one absolutely money bite of each pizza slice? It’s the one where the crust is crispy but aware of its place on the ‘Za hierarchy, you get a little bit of each topping held together by an unimpeded blanket of cheese, and your mouth gets absolutely douched by zesty sauce. That’s what every Bagel Bite is like.

THE BAD: 

Fuck this song in its eye with a piece of cold rebar. Rinse, lather, repeat.

Plus, if you ever microwave the things, they have the texture of a leathery ballsack. Never microwave Bagel Bites. I believe it was Plato who said that.

TRY: Get Extreme Nacho flavored Bagel Bites if you’re fortunate enough to find them. They’re only sold in Canada, so good luck tracking those down. It seems like Canada has everything awesome that we don’t: Rush, National Health Care, Sarah Chalke, a peaceful and polite demeanor and, now, Extreme Nacho pizza bagels. I hope we go to war with Canada when if our current war ends, those lucky pieces of shit.

RATING: Before today, I hadn’t had Bagel Bites in over a decade. I loved them then, I still love them now. In terms of a pre-Hanukkah party snack, Bagel Bites Torah me a new one. Truly, the Lisa Edelstein of pizza-like frozen foods.

Despite the rarefied air of, like, every girl’s favorite restaurant, I didn’t relent to the pressure of trying some fancy ass almond-crusted- or lemon pepper-type dish — or even the cheesecake North America has been slinging jizz over since 1978. Single-minded as I am, I was there to eat up some motherfucking pizza.

I don’t go to places like The Cheesecake Factory often. Besides the fact that I’m a sparely-employed journalist who’s too busy being corn-holed to death by student loans to blow $18 on roasted artichoke appetizers, there are a number of reasons I don’t frequent reputable restaurant chains:

A. Most are located in annoying, mall-adjacent areas that significantly increase the chances of encountering shit like the elderly, fuckers who abruptly stop to gawk at nothing in particular even though you’re right behind them, crying kids, people with cellphone holsters, and teenagers with badditudes and overtly loud hooded sweatshirts.

B. You always have to wait to be seated. It could be Tuesday mid-morning… during a tornado warning on the day of an election and I’d still have to wait in the ever-crowded front lobby area for my table. At least you get those vibrating things. Ever put that thing on your lap? It’s almost worth the wait.

C. The menus are too diverse. If I want a burger, I go to a burger place. When I’m hankering for Thai, I go to a restaurant that specifically serves only Thai food. When a place sticks to one thing it knows, they own the fuck out of it. They need to for the sake of staying in business. There’s no “Next time I’ll try… instead” at non-chains, and that ups the ante.

I found the Cheesecake Factory to be a versatile chain exception that doles out tastebud boners regardless of the food type… but have you ever had stir fry at AppleBee’s? That place can make any genre of food sub-par. And TGI Friday’s can munch my rug too. I hate TGI Friday’s.

But since I had never eaten at The Cheesecake Factory before… and I wasn’t paying for it, I gave it a whirl. I swear I looked at the menu for about 43 seconds before my food decision was delivered to me in a way not unlike that naked babe riding the clam in that ”The Birth of Venus” painting. Roasted Vegetables and Goat Cheese Pizza.

THE GOOD: This thin crust pizza came to play. A gorgeous culinary mural of roasted eggplant, red and yellow peppers, tomato pieces, olives, artichoke hearts, onion and pesto tied together with both mozzarella and goat cheese — this 10-inch pizza was both extravagant and delicious. If you’ve never had goat cheese before, get your head out of your ass and try it. It’s like a creamy, less-bitter feta + the cure for polio x the first day of spring. Plus, I’m pretty sure it’s corporate policy that every server and hostess there has to be cute and bubbly.

THE BAD: The high school reunion of toppings made for a greasy and overly-flimsy pizza. It was great… but it got progressively more soggy as I ate. I’m into crispy crust and prefer to not need a shower to clean up after eating a small pizza. To me, a day’s second shower is like the TGI Friday’s of personal hygiene practices. And the place is loud as hell (300 people and Top 40 (s)hits), not to mention it’s pretty Goddamn expensive compared to the weak portions.

TRY: The pizza. In another world, they could have called this place The Pizza Factory. Atmosphere aside, the Roasted Veggie/Goat Cheese ’Za would make a “Good pizza’s I’ve eaten” mix tape if I made one for my best friend or a girl I just began dating. In all, they have about 10 single-serving specialty pizzas on site.

It might not be a place I’ll visit often, but I must admit the pizza at The Cheesecake Factory is actually worth going to The Cheesecake Factory for.

RATING: A naked Jane Seymour offering to do your income taxes.

Along with two other non-pizza sides, we settled on the “Margherita” and “Fab Five” Pizzas. Our insanely hot server jotted down our order, and with a patented service industry fake laugh, an itinerary for our forthcoming journey to PizzaTown was set. After a few minutes, almost as many cocktails and an enjoyable chance to catch up with loved ones, my Milwaukee dream woman (and our pizzas) had arrived.

THE GOOD: The quality of the toppings. The Fab Five’s mushrooms were fresh and succulent, the pepperoni was perfectly crunchy, the onions were perfectly soft. The Margherita was masterfully accented with a dusting of pesto. The toppings gave my heart little boners.

THE BAD: The size… and probably the price. Mind you, these are on the appetizer menu, but still. If my whiskey-addled memory serves, the pizzas (say, 9” of goodness) ran about $12 each. I realize the rent on that fancy, Fonz statue-adjacent locale must be F’ed to death, but chi’mon, meng. Either stretch those babies an extra 2” or cut the cost. Some of us choose to spend the majority of our disposable income on energy drinks and previously viewed DVDs, not wanna-be fancy mini-pizzas.

TRY: ???

Rock Bottom isn’t a place I’d go often. But as far as semi-upscale brewery chains are concerned, its pizza is pretty good. The barely regal facade, the unavoidable house brews and canned hospitality will always be there, but the pizza will make you happy you stopped by – that one and only time.

RATING: E+