Its pizza is much better than its fugly logo.

I like to pay out-of-season visits to places like Lake Geneva.

For some reason, things like saltwater taffy, novelty T-shirts with something pissing on something else, and the presence of water manage to bring in tourists from around Wisconsin, and a plethora of self-important fuckheads from Illinois in summer.

But in winter, the place takes on a whole new persona — like a sleeping city of sorts. Or like Sheboygan with more stuff to do and fewer sexual assaults.

With the aforementioned FIB-influx, Chicago residents — who would probably melt if ever forced to eat a thin crust pizza — have used their loud-mouth influence to bring a bunch of stuffed pizza joints to Lake Geneva. Down panderingly-named routes like “Wrigley Street”, “Curtis Enis Run” and “Honk your Horn Because the Guy Ahead of you Didn’t Run a Red Light, and You’re in a Hurry to Watch the Cubs NOT Win the World Series Again Boulevard”, you’ll see Chicago-based chains like Geno’s East, and various other purveyors of the stuffed pizza shamelessly using the word “Chicago” in their names.

When my pal Vince invited me to his hometown of Lake Geneva to meet him for some stuffed Za at Original Chicago Pizza Co., get drunk, talk about Sons of Anarchy and make fun of Corey Hart at length, I gladly accepted.

THE GOOD: Where do I start? Our stuffed pizza, called “The MOB”, found Italian Sausage generously stuffed in the pizza, along with chunky amalgamation of sauteed green peppers, onion and fresh mushrooms. It was cheesy as shit, and the crust (though abundant) was a surprisingly welcomed addition to the package with its golden crispiness. The best part was the sauce. Bar none. At first glance, it looked like a fat chick’s heavy flow period… all black and pepper-flecked with the occasional mushy chunk of what appeared to be stewed tomato. But it tasted almost twice as good. And it was everywhere. I totally got Red Wings by the time I was done… and, like usual, I loved it. Odd coloring aside, I rank the sauce in my all-time top 20. Plus, it was a way more “authentic” Chicago-style Za than anything you’ll get from those dickless corporate neckties at Giordano’s. Except the whole not being anywhere near Chicago part.

On a non-pizza note, all their pitchers of beer cost the same ($8.50)… which is a total rip if you’re getting Miller Lite, but a steal if — like us — you opt for Spotted Cow.

THE BAD: Location. OCPC is inconveniently nestled beneath a shitty looking tattoo parlor and across from the broad side of the local Post Office. We snagged a window seat in the 20-capacity, bar-from-Uncle Buck-looking bistro, and the scenery ranged from a public facility’s Westerly brick wall and an annoying pack of girls who just got matching hummingbird tramp stamps and the kanji symbol for “unoriginal” on their ankles. Beyond that, the names of the specialty pizzas make “The Pak’r Back’r” seem like a work Kafka by comparison. If “The MOB” isn’t bad enough, they seriously have a pizza called “The WINDY CITY” and a sandwich named “The WRIGLEY FIELD HERO” (Bartman?) on the menu.

TRY: Parking in the City Hall Parking lot, then walking back to Main Street if you’re going to be in Lake Geneva over night. For starters, you won’t get a parking ticket. Also, I found $20 on a snow bank. We used it to get hammered at Champ’s. 

RATING: 

My first bite.

At the recommendation of DoZ reader Adam, I found myself pestering my friends to bring me to a downtown Giordano’s location when I was in Chicago last weekend. Like almost everything else in Chicago, the famous pizzeria chain had a line out the ass and the occasional self-important fuckface who threatened everyone’s enjoyment of the experience. But — also like Chicago — Giordano’s Pizza also had enough great and impressive things incorporated to make it well worth the time, excess money and inevitable frustration expended in the process.

Saturday, after a short bus ride, a trip on the L in which the monotone P.A. utterance of “Nature Center” made me laugh like a moron, and a 10-block hike that found my host tripping a bunch and stepping in dog shit, we arrived at the crowded corner eatery as visions of deep dish danced in our heads. Obviously, there was a 20-minute wait, but we were able to place our order (a large pepperoni and mushroom-stuffed deep dish) at the counter immediately, making up for the delay.

THE GOOD: Holy shitballs, the pizza was cheesy. It strung off each slice –almost comically so — and would, at times, clog your throat with its unwillingness to separate. It was like auto-erotic asphyxiation in pizza form. David Carradine would’ve loved the place. Beyond that, the sauce was both abundant and zesty; the toppings were plentiful, the crust was fluffy and the mushrooms were fresh.

At one point, I made my friend laugh, and she totally spat all over the five remaining slices of stuffed pizza. The pizza was so good, I didn’t even care. I still ate two more pieces. And for the price ($24), three people left uncomfortably full.

THE BAD: Giordano’s is kind of chain-ey. That makes sense, it being a 55-restaurant chain and all, but I felt like I was sitting down for a Xtreme Jack Daniel’s Fajita Shooter at an outlet mall T.G.I. Friday’s instead of renowned stuffed pizza in downtown Chicago. Kitsch “art” and iconic re-prints were a plenty. Hoards of breeders with kids in tow, and a fanny-packed guild of obvious tourists (such as myself) crowded the dining room. Names of famous people with Chicago ties were painted on the beams and wall’s borders. We sat in a Jim Belushi-adjacent booth, which was 10 times more disgusting to me than eating someone’s spit was.

The worst aspect of the restaurant was, without question, the service. The crowded, overtly-affable pizzeria it is, it’s obvious the place is busy as shit. But the host called us up to claim out table, and literally yelled at our group for arriving exactly three seconds after he said “last call.” Dude was a total dickfive (one larger than a  dickfore) to us. Doesn’t he know how difficult to negotiate your way through a narrow hallway when it’s stuffed with fat people from Indiana holding shopping bags? Admittedly, our server was very nice though.

TRY: Get the stuffed pizza. Chicago is one of the most unique and reputable pizza locales in the world. Sure, Giordano’s is a chain with a more standardized take on Chicago-style deep dish, but if you find yourself in the joint, you’d better not get a fucking Hot Chicken Ranch Sandwich.

RATING: A Hurricane Ditka of deliciousness.

Search the East side of Oshkosh, WI for Ratch & Deb’s and you’ll find something just as fucked up and inexplicably awesome — Ratch & Deb’s deep dish pizza.

I returned to Oshkosh over Thanksgiving to have lunch with a friend. Oshkosh is a place I attended college, where I majored in English and minored in whiskey-drunk public urination, and a locale in which three of my bikes were stolen (a fact I directly attribute to my present chubbiness). I’ve stated my hatred for Oshkosh in previous reviews but as evidenced by places like Cranky Pat’s, Red’s, and West End, the dickhole of Winnebago County knows its way around a pizza.

Try as it did to test my proverbial gangsta, I found Ratch & Deb’s to perpetuate Oshkosh’s off-putting pizza affinity all the more.

First off, there’s no place to park near this piece. Cast at the corner of busy ass Bowen St. and Merritt Ave. (neither of which have on street parking), my friend and I parked on a side street like two blocks away from the restaurant and walked to the understated edifice. Once she and I were inside, the place was empty, save for a woman playing video poker and enough gaudy Packers memorabilia to make that guy at Lambeau who wears the Lombardi Pope hat puke blood while simultaneously shitting himself and going blind. Puzzled at the scene before us, we waited as our to-be waitress finished a few more hands of video poker.

“Two?” she questioned unapologetically. “Sit anywhere.”

We sidled up to a blocked off bar-adjacent booth and took a look at the surprisingly exorbitant pizza menu. There were over 20 toppings available. We opted for the deluxe deep dish and, with the sheer selflessness of a man half-expecting at least a handy, I relented to the lady’s choice of the requisite six toppings: Sausage, green peppers, extra sauce, black olives, tomato pieces and onions.

Order placed, we patiently awaited our deep dish while talking of the important things: Love lost, life’s constant transitions, the impending collapse of print media, the folly of “scissoring”, and the like. Unbeknownst to us, the pizza would have us creaming our respective jeans in the minutes to follow.

THE GOOD: Holiest of all turtlewangs, this deep dish was incredible. Not only was this fucker morbidly obese in its thickness, it was loaded up with toppings. Every bite yielded a taste of each of our six toppings, which I consider a rarity amongst deluxes. The saucy was almost spicy… in the best way. The pie was filling too. I (with the corpulence of a man with a pizza review Web site who’s had three bikes stolen) was only able to eat three slices before throwing in the towel. Much of the za’s filling capabilities can be attributed to the cheese, which was both abundant and stringy as a MF — almost annoyingly so. Almost.

THE BAD: The pizza took rather long to bake (half hour) and was $17, but I assumed that when I opted for the deep dish. To be pissed about a six-topping deep dish taking long to bake and costing $17 is like bitching because your car got wet at the car wash, or demanding a refund at the theater because the Alvin & the Chipmunks “Squeakquel” ruined cinema forever. Expect it. Beyond that:
1. The extra sauce was more like small dollops of sauce. As a sauce lover, I would’ve loved more.
2. No parking. Minor, but if you’re elderly, a toddler or some kind of weird dwarf or something, the walk could be a bit taxing. 
3. It’s in Oshkosh. It’s not just in Oshkosh, it’s in a shitty part of Oshkosh, which is like saying something is “the worst part of AIDS” … OK, maybe a sliiiiight exaggeration there.

TRY: The deep dish, meng! It’s worth $15-$17 and a 30-minute wait at a hideous restaurant without nearby parking located in a city you’d probably hate. It’s that good.

RATING: The pizza equal of watching tacos explode in slow motion.