Saturday, January 3, 2009

Panzera's Pizza

Location:  3794 Fairlington Drive
                  Columbus, OH 43220

Panzera's is a Columbus pizza tradition, now with two locations.  The Grandview location has been open for almost 50 years, but both locations offer a good pie, sub, or even traditional Italian dinners!

Service:  Excellent.  Upon walking in, we were given a warm and enthusiastic greeting in addition to an update on the bowl games.  The staff also encouraged us to return with the promise of coupons for special events!  Now that's service.

Environment:  Not a whole lot to say because this location does not offer dine in eating.  The Peetz Police are always impressed and awed when we are able to see large and impressive pizza ovens.  The building was clean and we left excited for our pie.

Crust:  Panzera's offers a thick crust (for an additional $0.75) as well as their traditional thin crust.  Today we tried both of the crusts, as we were feeling the need for an extra arrest.  The thick crust seemed to be just two thin crusts put together, but it still tasted pretty good!  Both crusts were soft for the majority of the crust with just a bit of crunch as you approached the edge.  The crust had some toasted cheese on the outside too.  Yum!

Sauce:  Neither of the pies had a lot of sauce on them.  The sauce that we could taste though had a very unique flavor.  A mixture of fresh tomatoes, oregano, and peppers, our palates were pleased.

Cheese:  The cheese on these pies didn't stretch as much as the Police like to see, but it had a good flavor and texture to it.  The cheese was slightly chewy, but not to the point that you get tired of chewing it.  There was plenty of cheese to go around, pleasantly loaded on these fine pies.

Peps:  These peps were pretty good!  Nothing out of the ballpark, but these peps came with a minimal amount of grease and were cupped to perfection.  The peps remained soft and were nicely mixed in with the sauce and cheese.

Value:  Panzera's offers their pies for a decent price.  A single topping 14 inch pie will set you back $12.25 with additional toppings costing $1.25 each.  The salads are very cheap, as are the "a la carte" options of Italian dinners.  Finally, Panzera's subs range from as little as $4.50 to $6.00.  Nice!

Overall:  Panzera's offers a choice pie at a reasonable price, while hosting numerous other dining possibilities and over 15 topping choices.  We'd also like to add that we sampled a few of the other toppings and all were fabulous, especially the sausage.  It was even sliced kind of like the peps too!  The Peetz Police left this pie joint with a solid silver badge.  Nice work Panzera's!