Doctor Benzie’s

Tenderoni — Mon, 11 Jan 2010 20:47:45 +0000

Unlike the rest of the Doctors of Za, who came from places with exotic names like “Milwaukee,” “La Crosse,” “Menasha”, and later ended up at UW-Oshkosh, I was actually brought up in Oshkosh’s fertile crescent of booze, boats and substandard housing, and then stayed in town to go to the university where the Doctors of Za first started our mating rituals. So when that pill-head T-Mario starts telling you how Oshkosh has only three great pizza places—Cranky Pat’s (which is just expensive frozen pizza), West End Pizza (which is named as such because you leave the end of your anus in the toilet after you eat it, and anuses flush in a westward direction) and Ratch & Debs (I lived in literal walking distance from here for 17 years and never ate it, so I guess it could be good)—I feel I’m the only doctor than can set that fool straight.

The best pizza place in Oshkosh, which is like saying you’re the smartest person from Arkansas, is Dr. Benzie’s, a place located in what looks like an old dentist’s office on Main Street, far off the strip where the other UW-Oshkosh educated Doctors tried to catch Chlamydia. Which explains why none of them have heard of Benzie’s, and why it burns when Benji Mane pees.

But at any rate, Dr. Benzie’s was formed in a long-ago split between whoever started Ratch & Deb’s and the titular Dr. Benzie, who switched to thin crust while Ratch and Deb stayed with the thick. (It’s not like there’s a Wikipedia for the interpersonal relationships of pizza creators in a city of 60,000, so I am basing this on a half-remembered story I last heard about 15 years ago—I am a professor of research, after all). Before I begin the next part, can I mention how detestable it is to equate pizza making to healing people by posing as a doctor on your menus? I mean, only real doctors with real names and real degrees should be able to call themselves doctors.

The Good: Dr. Benzie’s specialty, apart from sounding like it sells Benzedrine pills, is its thin crust concoctions, its slightly spicy sauce, and it’s natural cheese. It’s a deceptively filling pie; at first they look like something you could mow down in 15 minutes, but the cheese and toppings are more filling than similar thin crust jams. They also boast a robust menu of non-pizza items, finally making it possible to have a sausage, cheese curd, chicken finger and French fry pizza.

The Bad: The pepperoni looks and tastes more like it was created for Kibbles and Bits than any pizza, and the non-pizza items can be soggy when delivered, since they employ like one driver who must make every delivery for the night at once. It’s worth noting I’ve never actually eaten inside of Benzie’s, so I can’t speak to the quality of the restaurant, which I imagine is sketchy. Or not. I prefer to eat Benzie’s in my jammies.

Try: A large sausage, with a side of Benzie’s excellent cheese curds. That’s what she said.

Rating: Somewhere between Dr. Dre, Dr. Octopus and the chorus of the Motley Crue song “Doctor Love.”

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Doctor Benzie’s