Prime Time Pizza - February 11, 2023
With Chip still recovering, we opted for another carryout experience this weekend. A local friend mentioned about a decade ago that one of his favorite pizzas was Prime Time Pizza, just a few miles (8, to be exact) up State Route 66 from us. Ten years later and we hadn't tried it, so we decided it was time. We invited our friends Jen and Tom to join us.
Normally you would think a pizza joint that has been around for so many years has to be pretty good, right? But because it's the only option for so many miles, I didn't have super high expectations.
We pulled up to a building that had clearly seen better days (this is becoming a trend). I peered in the door on the right and saw the kitchen, so went in the left door. There was a tiny waiting area with two coolers - one for soda and one for bread - and a Dutch door where the cashier sat overlooking the kitchen.
The customer picking up a pizza was having a conversation with the cashier about delivery options. "I didn't know you delivered!" the customer exclaimed, and a male voice called out from the kitchen "Oh yes, we deliver up to 7 miles." I'm guessing that they decided on a 7-mile cutoff so that they wouldn't have to deliver to our suburb (remember, we're 8 miles away), but it could be for some other reason entirely. The woman paid for her pizza and we were up.
We'd ordered a large sausage and mushroom pizza, a medium BBQ chicken pizza, and an order of fried zucchini. The total came to only $39 - a great value. When I handed the cashier my Wells Fargo credit card she said, "what a pretty card!" I thought that was a strange statement, but she followed up with "We just got our new child support debit cards and they are UGLY. They are bright green and they say Way2Go now instead of PA Debit. Yeah, way to go, you have a deadbeat dad!"
Chip let out a laugh. We giggled about it in the car, too; we had no idea there were such things as child support debit cards, but of course there are and Way2Go does seem like a pretty inane name for them.
Shortly after we got home our friends arrived, and we opened the boxes. Our first look at the food was favorable. The zucchini, in particular looked perfectly breaded.
And in fact, it tasted as good as it looked. The zucchini was the perfect thickness, and the breading was hot, seasoned well, and stayed on perfectly whether biting or cutting the zucchini plank. We all agreed that the zucchini was a winner.
Opinions on the pizzas, however, were mixed. The BBQ chicken pizza, which we'd all been looking forward to, was a bit of a disappointment. We'd asked for light sauce on the other pizza but we think they did light sauce on both because we could barely taste the BBQ sauce. The chicken was plentiful, but the cheese was, as Jen put it "too chewy." It was a combination of provolone and mozzarella and it was really dense without much pull. Chewy but not gooey.
Avery, however, loved the BBQ chicken pizza. And he commented "I think this is the best crust that we've had so far." I was surprised by that, because I found the crust good but not special. Upon reflection, I realized that the only other crust I've tried so far that I liked better was Jioio's, because it was so unusual. So I can't really say that he's wrong...
Avery didn't like the sausage and mushroom pizza, but I really liked it. The sausage was...wait for it...NOT spicy! And I'm not certain how they prepared the mushrooms, but it seemed almost as if they'd been marinated or broiled or browned before throwing them on the pie. They were absolutely delicious. All of us agreed on the mushrooms.
As with the chicken pizza, the cheese was dense and a bit chewy. I didn't mind it; in fact I was happy to see a decent amount of cheese after last week's skimp fest. But the crust was an anomaly; a little too floppy to hold a slice in your hand, and yet too firm to cut with a fork. An attempt to do so only slid all the toppings off the crust.
And while I didn't find it too saucy (asking for light sauce was the ticket) of course the slice that Chip chose was fairly saucy, which colored his opinion of the pizza overall. He bit into his piece and a big glob of sauce fell out.
Overall, this was a solid pizza experience with fresh, relatively tasty, and inexpensive pizza. The zucchini was the best we've had so far, but the dense, chewy nature of the cheese means that Tom and Jen won't likely go back and I'm not certain that we would either. But if you're in the 7-mile delivery radius, Prime Time Pizza is probably worth a try.
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