Spinato's Pizza - Official Review!

As always, 1 Crying Lucky = Bad, 5 Crying Luckies = Good!

Since my plot to locate and consume new and interesting savory pies last weekend was foiled by the early closing time of the shop my bike was at, my resolve to find pizza was at an all-time high.

Enter Spinato's Pizza. I was excited to discover a Chicago-style pizza joint here in the sauceless, thin-crusted wastes of the Sonoran desert. My excitement grew when I realized that there was a fun route to get to this fine pie purveyor.

As I've said many times before, "twisty" and "Phoenix" are almost mutually exclusive. The few curvy sections of road I find here in town are noted and filed away in that special part of my brain next to my teen-aged memories of topless beaches in Sweden.

That's a story for another day, though. For today, we'll focus on the pizza and the reasonably enjoyable ride to get to it.

When I was figuring out the best path to Spinato's, I was tickled to discover that I could work in no fewer than three nice, curvy stretches with reasonably short stretches of boring, straight road between them.

For those of you here in Phoenix, start on Rio Salado headed west. Rio Salado is one of my favorite roads, because it's so close to my house, and there's a gnarly 15 mph curve that is no end of fun. Hang a right onto Priest, and ride past the zoo. This stretch is fun, but tricky because there's a stoplight around just about every curve. I always want to go about 80 mph along this road, but the abundant stoplights and asshats keeps my speeds reasonable. Eventually you hit Indian School road. Go Left. Hooray! Curves for a block or two! Then go right on 32nd St. This is boring, but eventually you hit Lincoln. Take a left. Hills!! Curves!! YAY! Beware, however, of the sudden increase in traffic. I don't know where they came from, but it seems most of Phoenix hangs out on Lincoln when they aren't being assholes somewhere else.

We arrived at Spinato's with a powerful hunger. Alas, there was a wait. You might think that's a good sign. We discovered, however, the people who wait at Spinato's are the same folks who wait at Applebee's.

To be fair, Spinato's is better than Applebee's.

We got the cheesy garlic bread to start. It was ok. The marinara sauce tasted like Prego to me.

Then we got our highly anticipated, thick-crusted, sauce-drenched, cheese and meat-covered Chicago-Style pizza. We got the "Super Six," which is sausage, pepperoni, mushrooms, peppers and ham. It was oddly sweet. Baldy-Beard commented that ours smelled like it had strawberry jelly on it.

It kind of tasted like it, too. It was that sweet.

The crust was reasonably thick, and crunchy. Personally, I don't like crunchy thick-crusts. I know I was the odd one out on this trip, however, so if you like your crust thick and crunchy, you'll be set.

The service was good, and the restaurant was brightly decorated in green, white and red. Personally, I would have preferred it wood-panelled and dark, but I guess the yuppies aren't into that yet. Thank God.

Speaking of yuppies, there were a couple of requisite yuppie Harley riders present. They didn't know what to make of the Triumph and Vespa.

I don't think I really need to go back to Spinato's. They were thoroughly adequate, however, and the ride to get there was most excellent. Thus, they get 3 Crying Luckies.