Wednesday, September 28, 2005

Why I don't like national pizza chains

Yesterday I went to California Pizza Kitchen. I avoided that place for the longest time, because the words "California" and "Pizza" don't go together except as follows: "I was in California and I found this wonderful pizza place run by a family from Chicago."

I've been there a few times and it's usually pretty decent, even if their definition of pizza and mine are wildly different.

Anyway, I was there yesterday and tried the Margherita pizza. There isn't much you can screw up on a Margherita. It's crust, sauce, cheese.

How do so many places manage to screw it up?

I don't know what it was, but something in that pizza tasted FUNKY. I would have sent it back, but I was already an hour into lunch and didn't want to waste any more time.

I've noticed that most of the big chains somehow manage to mess up their pizza. You know what it is? Cost savings. If a particular brand of tomato paste is 5 cents cheaper per cubic yard, you better believe the corner will be cut. There's only one explanation for the nasty aftertaste of a corporate pizza: greed.

Why on earth do we trust large companies to prepare our food? This is a world run by MBA's. They don't care if the food is made out of foam rubber drenched in ranch dressing as long as people keep buying it.

The next time you get pizza, find a local place.

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