I hate Subway. It’s nothing against the chain itself – I just find sub-sandwiches boring and bland (or maybe that’s because of the way I make mine). It’s some of the dullest food you could ever eat in my opinion, right up there with eating Corn Flakes without sugar. Every time I find myself begrudgingly at Subway, however, I just have to appreciate the concept of letting the customer oversee the making of their sandwich. Even though I never enjoy the food as much as I want, I loved going through the line and specifying what I want. Seeing it happen right in front of me always results in a great feeling of power, control and peace of mind that you know you’ll get exactly what you ordered. I just wished I loved the food they were making for me.
On the often-forgotten part of the menu, Subway has these small personal pizzas that they’ll bake for you, and they’re not half bad, but I always found their selection lacking (there’s only two choices – cheese or pepperoni). I wondered why they didn’t allow for the same thorough process of hand crafting pizzas as they do for sandwiches. “There needs to be a Subway for pizza,” I would think to myself every time I visited.
And then, God answered my prayers.
PizzaRev is located in Jackson between Best Buy and, coincidentally, Subway, on 1150 Vann Drive, and it’s one of my favorite restaurants ever.
PizzaRev’s name is an abbreviation of the phrase “Pizza Revolution,” and what an appropriate name it is. This restaurant takes the concept of Subway and applies it to the making of pizza pie. No more ordering your pizza and having to wait for another one to bake because some absent-minded cook got your order confused – now the power to control what goes on your pizza is entirely in your hands. If you’re a pizza enthusiast like me and you don’t go here religiously, you need to change that immediately.
Allow me to explain how this place works by telling you about the first time I visited with my dad a few years ago. As you walk into the glass doors, the place looks clean, sleek and modern. Even if you’ve never heard of this place before, as soon as you enter, one thing is clear: this place is legit. Sometimes I contemplate hanging out inside the dining area just to take in the atmosphere, but I don’t, because hanging around in a restaurant alone without buying anything is a jerk move.
My dad and I curiously walked towards the start of the counter at the right of the building, glancing overhead at the hanging blackboard-style menu as we went. My dad was a bit confused. He wanted to buy a large for us both to share, but there were no size options on the menu. Naturally, the first question from his mouth when we got to the person behind the counter was,
“What kinda sizes you got?”
“Eight inch, sir,” The employee replied.
“… You got any other sizes?”
“No, sir. Just an eight inch.”
My dad was confounded, and stood there for an additional two minutes further clarifying that this establishment did indeed only serve one pizza size. The employee assured us that this humbly-sized pie would fill us up. Despite being let down in the moment, we ordered anyway.
The first decision you make as a customer is: what kind of crust do you want? Original thin, or double dough? Figuring I needed the extra bread for my appetite, I went with the double. Little did I know it was one of the only times I’d get a double, because the thin crust at PizzaRev does more than enough to fill me most days.
After they press your dough, you get to make every decision about what goes onto the crust: the sauce, the cheese, the meats, and the veggies. They have all the variety you could want and more with every ingredient. They have every kind of meat, two more sauces than you’d ever think to put on a pizza, any vegetable and any other topping you could want (yes – even pineapple for you heretics).
They then take your special-made pizza, which you now perceive as you own food-child (you just saw its birth as a dough platter then watched it slowly morph into a fully matured pizza that you’re proud to call your own), and stick it into a giant oven using a huge spatula. Unlike other ovens that might be obscured from view, nothing more than a glorified at-home oven, this huge fire-and-brick oven is right behind the line, allowing you to see your pizza bake in real time along with every other pizza ordered within the last ten minutes.
We sat at our table and waited. We weren’t sure if we were going to have to retrieve our pizza from the counter, but we didn’t have long to contemplate that possibility, as both our pizzas were served to us in about ten minutes. The waiter called out while he was walking towards us, “Randy and Randall?” and gracefully placed the platters before us.
Up until this point, you may be wondering what the point of a restaurant like PizzaRev is. How is it any different from a pizza buffet where you can request pizzas? You’ll never truly know that difference until you bite down into one of Pizzarev’s dishes.
Every small detail up until this point matters. You reap the benefits of being your own pizza-artist as you taste everything in its fullness. The sauce, the cheese, the bread and the toppings are all incredibly fresh and tasty. The difference in taste that happens when your pizza is heated up by a fire is astounding. It makes all the pizza from places like Domino’s and Papa John’s feel like cheap rip-offs.
I’ve never had pizza from renowned places like Chicago and New York, but even still, I’d be willing to put this pizza up there with the best of them.
I was so full by the time I got to my last piece, but I still ate it out of a misplaced sense of pride, and a duty to finishing what I started. My dad didn’t have the same drive to finish. He was too full. We wiped our mouths and leaned back in our chairs, facing each other.
“That was really good,” we both said.
My dad left with a to-go box of three pieces, and I left extremely satisfied. So much for doubting the stomach-filling power of the humble PizzaRev pizza.
