Rather, the year-old by-the-slice hot spot brings back memories of what was probably the worst period of my life. I was working second shift (including weekends) in the one city I swore to myself I wouldn’t stay following graduation. My commute had me driving over an hour daily, and past my college dorm room and three apartments I inhabited while pursuing my Bachelor’s Degree — dreaming of more. I gained weight; I looked in the mirror every day a was embarrassed of the person I saw, which – in turn – found me inflicting irreparable damage to my (former) relationship, my friendships and my career path because I couldn’t even keep myself happy.

Still, the recent Stevens Point transplant that was Polito’s Pizza in Oshkosh was good enough to at least dull the pains of looking out at South Scott Hall through their window and thinking to myself “How did I get here?” on my lunch break. It was a palatable piece of an otherwise unsavoury experience… like Heather Graham getting naked in a movie in which she must also act.

THE GOOD: The mere fact that Polito’s exists is a good thing. My entire college career, the location which now holds the pizzeria held the charred remnants of a burned down Hungri’s Sub shop. A few years ago, some fuckface from Qdoba’s corporate office told me the burrito chain was considering occupying the space – but it fell through like so much cilantro lime rice and pico de gallo when eating a Qdoba burrito. If Polito’s hadn’t of ballsed up, I’m confident the building would still be a vacant eyesore and the Polito’s staff would be working at the Reeve Union Marketplace or some shit.

Pizza-wise, it’s your standard by-the-slice place. There’s a rotating roster of the usual za (Pepperoni, Spinach and Feta, Sausage, Margarita, Cheese, et cetera), but there’s also more adventurous types like Mac and Cheese, Gryo, Bacon Cheeseburger, and Chicken Alfredo to name a few. The slices are large for the price ($2.25 to $3.25), and the pizza sauce is a salty treat which enhances the use of fresh mozzarella. Keep in mind, you can order entire pizzas too.

THE BAD: A bad aspect of obtaining your pizza on a slice to slice basis is the chance that you’ll wind up with an old and/or dwarf slice. You may walk in with the intention of deflowering a Mac and Cheese slice, but find the only remaining Macs resemble Della Reese’s most recent pap smear instead of the tasty collection of carbs you’ve been craving. Or maybe instead of being handed the gigantic Pepperoni slice that’s larger than any other on the pan, you’re given the tiny ass one directly across from it. These are risks you take when not purchasing an entire pizza made to order. But, when fresh, Polito’s holds up quite well.

TRY: Garlic Knots! Why Knot (pats self on back)? They’re doughy little bitches sprinkled with garlic salt and generously painted with butter. After an order of Knots with marinara dipping sauce and a Polito’s slice — and suddenly you feel like you’re not in Oshkosh anymore, rather, somewhere exotic, beautiful and full of wonder. Like Neenah.

Also, like Pizza Shuttle, they feature a pizza eating content where two fatfuckz are tasked with the demolition of a 12-pound, 28” pizza in hopes of winning money. Last I heard, nobody has won this yet.

RATING: If the Polito’s customer wearing the Milwaukee Brewers uniform represents Pizza Hut and Wolfman in the middle is Papa John’s, then this hot-as-fuck rendition of Little Red Riding Hood on the left is Polito’s Pizza in Oshkosh. Now that’s one hood I’d love to be riding red.

                ******************
By the way, I don’t want to kill myself or anything. I just thought it was a fitting and accurate intro. OH GOD! I HAVE NOTHING! NOTHING!!!

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.”

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.

As a college student, I was one of the Oshkosh location’s inaugural cooks. It was a fun enough college job, and I worked with a group of great people. But I was also laid off during the holidays and routinely sent home an hour into my shift to save a few bucks; I reeked of oregano after every work day; I was scheduled to cook for Town Motel prostitutes and tactless frat rejects on the weekend night shift (6 p.m. to 4 a.m.) when I could’ve otherwise been getting shitfaced or having unprotected sex with my pro-choice then-girlfriend.

I was eventually fired from my $7.00/hr job at Cranky’s a scheduling oversight, thus ending a smelly, often frustrating, but unforgettable period of my life. I wouldn’t do it again, but I’m happy I worked there both for the memories it provided and – more so – for the opportunity to regularly stuff myself on the Fox Valley’s best pizza.

In 1955, Pat Earle and then-friend Frank Pierri brought pizza to downtown Appleton from Chicago, opening Frank & Pat’s. The duo was rumored to have a nasty falling out, prompting Earle to later open Cranky Pat’s in Neenah.

Though both Earle and Pierri have since died, their thin crust take on Chicago ‘Za continues to dole out boners and sopping wet panties to Northeast Wisconsinites to this very day. They shred the cheese and make the sausage in a shed behind the Neenah location, and cook the pizzas in an archaic – yet high quality oven that’s stood in the location from the very beginning.

Though most of the menu items have gone unchanged, Cranky Pat’s has adapted to the times. In fact, the Neenah location’s bar room is one of the premiere (and only) stages in the area to catch both local and touring acts. Locations have also popped up in Oshkosh and Neenah in recent years. 

THE GOOD: The sauce. I’m inclined to believe that if one were to pinprick a Saint and taste its blood, its taste would resemble that of Crank’s sauce. It’s delightfully salty and dominates the pie. The fresh mushrooms are incredible too. 

THE BAD: The price. If nothing else, I was fortunate to have worked at Cranky’s in college because I would’ve rarely been able to pay for it otherwise. It’s expensive as fuck, ranging from $11 (for a small cheese) to $26 (for a large Pat’s Special). You get what you pay for, but with pizza even half as good available for 75 percent of the price, it might not be something you’ll be willing to pay too often. And to obtain a frozen pizza (available at area grocers), you’ll need to mortgage your home or sell your first born into indentured servitude.

TRY: The midnight buffet and the Cranky Sticks. Avoid the late night Perkins crowd with Cranky’s pizza buffet (Thurs-Sat). A mere $8 for all you can eat pizza is well worth it, plus – unlike at Perkins or George Webb – you can get booze with your meal, while supporting a time-honored local legend.

RATING: My prolonged exposure might make me biased, but food alone, Cranky Pat’s get our highest (and first) rating yet – 12 Thumbs Up!