Attempt #23 - Parlor City Pub and Eatery

The Venue

1125 3^rd Street SE

Cedar Rapids, Iowa 52401

(319) 247-0000

Parlor City Pub and Eatery is a locally owned bar/restaurant with a mid-sized dining area.  Some mentionable aspects of Parlor City include their Juicy Lucy burgers (with cheese in the middle of the meat patty), pizza, and beer specials; Parlor City is notable for the fact that they do a great job of bringing in local music talent from the community on select nights.  The city of Cedar Rapids has poured in a lot of money in the surrounding area since the great flood of 2008 in hope of reviving the impoverished area.  The district of Cedar Rapids is called New Bohemia (New BO), since a lot of Czech’s migrated to Cedar Rapids in the 20^th century.  Across the street from Parlor city is newly constructed a New BO park along with a city-wide all-year-round, indoor, local New BO Market.  Parlor City has been in its current location for a number of years, so it is by no means a new comer to the community.  Their pizza menu can be found online at http://www.parlorcitypub.com/food.html. 

The Pizza

 Chicago Style:  No

Crust Thickness:  Pan

Our group consisted of 9 participants; so we ordered four large specialty pizzas.  Each of these 16” large pizzas cost us around $18.  They come in large (16”), circular hand-tossed crusts.  We only tried their thick crust, but they also serve a thin crust.

All Meat - Sausage, pepperoni, Canadian bacon and Mozzarella cheese (Large [16”], thick crust, $18.25)

Large (16"), Taco ($18.25)

Bacon Cheeseburger - Hamburger, bacon, onion, and our house sauce (Large [16”], thick crust, $17.25)

Taco - Our crust is topped with a refried bean and salsa sauce, then loaded up with seasoned Taco meat or diced seasoned Chicken, tomatoes, onions, black olives, jalapeños and nacho cheese tortilla chips. Sour cream and salsa on the side (Large [16”], thick crust, $18.25)

Rueben - Thousand Island dressing, piled with Mozzarella, Swiss cheese, sauerkraut and Corned Beef (Large [16”], thick crust, $17.25)

The Verdict

Large (16"), All Meat ($18.25)

Large (16"), Rueben ($17.25)

Large (16"),  Bacon Cheeseburger ($17.25)

The pizza was cut into typical triangle slices.  The crust held a bready (almost chewy) consistency.  The toppings were very well distributed on the pies, in fact this establishment has our top rating of the category for toppings-not too much and not too little.  The traditional pizzas turned out to be a bigger hit than the gourmet selections, with the All Meat coming up to a close second next to the group’s favorite, Taco.  Normally, most meat pizzas are rated low because are they typical and boring.  The meat was flavorful, and the traditional sauce/cheese was excellent.  The Taco was extremely good as well…well deserving of the first choice selection for this Pizza Attempt.  It had fresh jalapenos, with a lot of lettuce, onion, tomatoes.   In a way, I felt healthy eating this form of pizza, it was the “greenest” Taco pizza I’ve ever had.  The tortilla chips were minimal (in comparison with Happy Joes, which practically dumps an entire bag of chips on your pizza).  The Rueben was disappointing…some did not care for the sauerkraut, and others complained that all they could task is bland cheese and dough.  The Bacon Cheeseburger was average…great on the first three bites, since it really does taste like a cheeseburger, but after that it got to be a little filling.  The value for the pizza was fair, a little under $20 for a pizza.  Kitty-corner from Parlor City is the Chrome House, whose pizza vastly different compared with Parlor City (thin vs. bready).  We were a bit surprised of how good Parlor City was, since we were expecting the same style of pizza as Chrome Horse.  After trying their pizza, I would recommend this place to anyone who wants some good pizza near downtown Cedar Rapids.       

Here are our ratings, where 1 = worst and 10 = best.
Overall = 8.00
Cheese = 7.66
Toppings = 9.33
Sauce = 6.44
Crust = 8.56

Slice of All Meat

Slices of Taco and Bacon Cheeseburger

Venue = 8.44