Attempt #56 - Sam's Pizza (Iowa City)

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.

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/

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

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

Cheese 6.00

Sauce 7.80

Topping 6.80

Crust 5.80

Venue 6.80

Favorite Sam's Special

Large Thin Sausage, Mushroom 16" Pizza $16.74