The Iowan Pizza Chronicles: June 2016

Venue Outside

The Venue

616 2^nd Ave SE

Cedar Rapids, IA 52401

(319) 200-4140

The Quarter Barrel is located in downtown Cedar Rapids. Its main draw is the vintage video games alongside the locally crafted beer on tap. One will quickly notice that the pizza offerings are all unique. They don't have the typical sausage, pepperoni, and cheese that one might expect from a bar. After talking with some of the management, as far as pizza goes, they intend on only producing thin crust pizza pies. That serves their target market appropriately.

Venue Inside

Seating consists of tables with chairs, or high tables with bar stool chairs. They currently host about 25 classic arcade games. One of the newest games they have, Mortal Combat 2, was played by myself and another friend. I seem to recall myself being a lot better at it in my younger years. Also, they have 2-3 games that do not require quarters to play, which is great for goofing around. A change machine is located conveniently right when you walk in, next to the ATM. For weeknights, feel free to call them for reservations; however, they do not take them on Friday or Saturday nights-its first come first serve.

You can check out the facebook page and menu at https://www.facebook.com/thequarterbarrel/

The Pizza

Chicago Style: No

Venue - Open Concept Kitchen

Crust Thickness: Thin

We had sixteen participants so we ordered ten pizzas! They offer two sizes, 12” for gourmet pizzas and 12” or 18” for a build your own pizza. They offered only one type of crust, which was thin.

Pepperoni – 18”, $18.50.

Buffalo Chicken Pizza – House buffalo sauce, roasted chicken, beer caramelized onion, blue cheese. Topped with celery slaw, sweet potato chips, and your choice of ranch or blue cheese dressing, $14.00.

Blueberry BBQ – Roasted red peppers and fresh mozzarella on a base of blueberry BBQ sauce featuring our house porter. Topped with beer marinated shoestring onion rings, carrot ribbons and greens tossed in citrus vinaigrette, $13.00.

Menu

Shrimp Alfredo – Alfredo sauce, garlic shrimp, Parmesan, scallions, arugula, and fried capers, $14.00.

Crab RanGoonies – Cream cheese vase, with crab and green onion, finished with fried wanton chips and sweet chili. Crab can be omitted to make it vegetarian, $13.00.

Holy Shiitake! - Garlic oil base, lemon herbed ricotta, green onion, local shiitake mushrooms, and beer caramelized onion. Finished with arugula tossed in citrus vinaigrette, $13.00.

Stir Fry – Brown sauce, white rice, broccoli, carrots, crimini mushrooms, red onion, finished with sesame seeds and green onions, $13.

Margherita – House marinara, fresh mozzarella, garlic oil, finished with applewood smoked salt, fresh basil, and balsamic reduction, $12.00.

Roasted Fennel and Sausage – Cumin garlic oil, red onion, fresh mozzarella, goat cheese, finished with arugula tossed in orange vinaigrette, $14.00.

Pesto – Broccoli presto, fresh mozzarella, roasted red pepper, red onions, and roasted cherry tomatoes, $13.00.

The Verdict

The pieces came out in triangular-shaped for the 12” pizzas and rectangular triangular shaped for the 18” pepperoni pizza. The crust seemed to be thin, and a little dry. Personally, I would rather have it dry than wet and soggy; however, I felt that it would have been a little better with some more sauce. The sauce that was present was great-high quality ingredients that you can taste. The cheese was also lacking on some of our pizzas, which was a little disappointing. Because they only made the gourmet pizzas in 12”, I would have liked to see a larger size for the establishment to take on. The crust was great for the size, not soggy, and hand tossed. The ingredients and gourmet options were also very good-uniqueness is a important factor aside from the typical cheese and sausage offerings. Our waiter, Patrick, was also terrific, very helpful for being on a busy Friday night.

The winner of the favorite pizza was a three way tie for the second month in a row! Roasted Fennel and Sausage / Crab RanGoonies / Stir Fry all seemed like great choices. I personally enjoyed the Fennel/Sausage pizza because the tasted reminded me of a Gyro. The Crab Rangoon pizza was also terrific and the stir fry was as well (it was vegetarian, too). If you have some time on a weeknight or even a weekend, stop on by and give one of these 12”ers a try! And watch for the pinball machines, some of the paddles are a little sticky.

Here are our ratings, where 1 = worst and 10 = best.
Overall 8.25

Cheese 6.92

Sauce 8.29

Topping 7.00

Crust 7.79

Venue 9.16

Favorite Roasted Fennel and Sausage / Crab RanGoonies / Stir Fry