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| Venue |
The Venue
441 S.
Gilbert St.
Iowa
City, IA 52240
(319)
337-8200
Terry
French bought Sam's Pizza back in 1991. From what I understand, it
was at one time possibly connected with the Sam's Pizza in Cedar
Rapids (unconfirmed). If so, this explains why they may have a
Chicago Style offering, and even its taste reminded me so much of
Sam's in CR.
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| Menu |
The venue itself contains a full service bar, a large aquarium, an ATM
machine, along with an old arcade game, about 12 booths and 4-8
tables, and a pool table in the back. For the Tuesdays night we
attended it was pretty empty, even with all 1 topping thin crust
pizzas were 50% off. I
felt that the venue itself need remodeling – the fish aquarium had
scraps all over it, the tables were worn down. Aside from those
details the service took a long time to place our order and once that
occurred we had to wait even longer for our food (this could have
been possibly because they had poor planning and started the Chicago
style pizza after the thin crusts were finished and brought out to
us).
You
can check out their website at http://www.samspizzaic.com/
or on facebook at https://www.facebook.com/samspizzaic/
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| Large Chicago Style Sam's Special (Sausage, Mushroom, Onion, Pepperoni) $22.99 |
The Pizza
Chicago Style: Yes
Crust Thickness: Thin &
Thick
We had five participants
so we ordered three pizzas,
which only came in one personal size. They offered 9”, 12”, 14”,
and 16” for thin crust, and Small, Medium, and Large for “Chicago
Stuffed” pizza. We went with two thin and one “Chicago Stuffed”.
Sam's Special – Sausage, mushroom, onion, and pepperoni (we substituted this instead of Green Peppers), Large, Chicago Style, $22.99
Pepperoni
–
Large, Thin Crust, $13.99
Sausage
& Mushroom –
Large, Thin Crust, $16.74
The Verdict
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| Large Thin Pepperoni 16" Pizza $13.99 |
The Chicago Stuffed pizza was heavy,
bready, and its sauce was quite sweet. It was not as heavy on the
cheese as other Chicago style pizzas have been in the past, which
made it seem a little dry. The crust was thick and bready, but a
little burnt on the bottom; in fact, I couldn't even cut mine with my
knife without jamming it in very hard.
The thin sausage and mushroom was about what you would expect from a
typical pizza place, nothing that stood out,except the excess of
fennel in the sausage. The thin pepperoni was terrible-it was soggy,
and the crust almost seemed under-cooked. The cheese slid right off
of it. Drunk-man pizza, no doubt.
Here are our ratings, where 1 =
worst and 10 = best.
Overall 6.40
Overall 6.40
Cheese 6.00
Sauce 7.80
Topping 6.80
Crust 5.80
Venue 6.80
Favorite Sam's
Special
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| Large Thin Sausage, Mushroom 16" Pizza $16.74 |
