The Pizza Locust

People’s taste is as varied as the stars in the sky and everyone has an opinion about pizza. As you can imagine, someone is always telling me about some great pizza place that I have to try. There aren’t many people that I know have enough experience eating pizza that I’ll give much credence to, though.

My father is one of those people. I’ve only been searching for the greatest pizza since the 70′s. He’s been searching since before the Korean War, so when he comes to me and says, “I had a pretty good slice of pizza the other day,” I listen.

He said, “I stopped by a place on 43rd Ave, just north of Bethany called ‘#1 Brothers Pizza’ and had a slice. It was pretty good. I’m going to go back and try a whole pizza.”

I tried finding “1 Brothers” pizza on the web and can came up with what seemed to be a completely different restaurant, but they do say they are expanding to new locations. None of those locations were on 43rd Ave, though. The phone book shows it exists, though.

Saturday night, we stopped in to give them a try. The restaurant is actually two storefronts joined together inside a decaying old strip mall.

Inside it’s a lot cleaner than the outward appearance would suggest. The two “sides” of the place are still mostly divided, and I only got a look into the south side. It seemed that some kids were asleep on that side, so I decided to avoid disturbing them.

We ordered a 14″ thin crust sausage pizza (their smallest) and then I questioned them about the various names around the store. One sign says “#1 Brothers,” the painted window says, “Franchino’s” (see photo and inset), a coupon flyer says “#1 Brothers soon to be Franchino’s,” and yet another says “Franchino’s DBA #1 Brothers.”

According to the someone I presume to be part of a couple who owns the place, she said, “I don’t know why he put that on there (indicating the cook), we’ve always been Franchino’s since we purchased the place. People know us by #1 Brothers so we never got rid of it.”

The painted sign says “Franchino’s – since 1972″. I was 8 in 1972, these people didn’t look so much older than me as to have been running this place since then. Nonetheless, I report what I’m told.

I also asked about the “other” #1 Brothers and was told that the others are run by some other group with no association since these people bought this location. I’m somewhat surprised that the “real” #1 Brothers allows Franchino’s to continue to use their name, especially if they’re starting to expand. I couldn’t even find Franchino’s listed in Dex online or the Yellow Pages. It’s as if Franchino’s doesn’t exist.

So… to the pizza.

Our thin crust pizza arrived in short order and my immediate reaction was, “Is this a thin-crust pizza?” In places it was nearly an inch thick. The crust was done, but puffy everywhere, and although not blackened, it had a burnt taste to it. The cheese, sausage and sauce all tasted like they’d been bought at the supermarket down the street. The crust tasted like it had been made from ordinary all-purpose flour.

Has this ever happened to you? Someone you know says, “Hey, you know we make pretty pizza over at our house,” so you’re trapped into trying it out. If you’re lucky, they don’t use one of those pre-packaged, pre-cooked crusts and they might even have a pizza stone. Nonetheless when they serve it to you, you know they don’t know how to make a pizza, but you can’t say, “Give it up, this is bad,” because you’ll hurt their feelings. Then you have to choke it down and smile all the while.

We didn’t have to choke Franchino’s pizza down, we had the option of leaving it on the table, which is essentially what we did. I managed to eat two pieces, my wife couldn’t even finish one. That left two pieces which we took home just to give to my dad and say, “Eat this. Is this really a pizza you thought was good?”

My dad took the pizza home and re-hreated it, this was his reaction,

No, you wouldn’t know it was made in the same restaurant. About the only good thing about those two slices you gave me was that the crust was completely done. I had lotsa sausage on the day I went there but they must have been running short yesterday unless you two pulled [your daughter's trick] and ate all the sausage off. The sausage I had was not anything spectacular anyway but it was ample. I was going to have pepperoni next time and I think I will still go back next week and order the large size (pepperoni) but not thick. That one last night was thicker than I like really and if that’s what they call thin it makes me wonder if they didn’t have a thick one already brewing that had been cancelled and you were unlucky to have come in at the wrong time.

ps

and I hate pizza scorched on the bottom like that one was last night. The day I went in there it took them thirty minutes to get my thin crust and it was not scorched at all.

We did verify with management that the pizza we were given was a thin crust. Upon looking at the thickness of the pieces, they spun some story about being a hand-spun crust and sometimes they’re thicker than others. From my point of view, it must have been hand spun from two or three crusts to be that thick.

I just don’t know what to say about Franchino’s except that the Pizza Locust doesn’t recommend it.

Franchino’s
#1 Brother’s
#1 Brother’s (soon to be Franchino’s)
Franchino’s (D.B.A. #1 Brother’s)

6222 N. 43rd Ave
Glendale, AZ 85301
(623) 842-2277

14″ Sausage pizza, $10.34 = $0.7 (0.067) per square inch

Conclusion: Not Recommended

Notes:

My father made a second run at Franchino’s this week, this is what he reports back:

Today I went back to Franchinos’ to give them their final chance. I ordered a thin crust pepperoni pizza. The guy at the counter told me they only had a regular like maybe thin or maybe thicker though I pointed out that menu I picked up and gave you. In about 15 minutes I got a pizza loaded with pepperoni, lotsa cheese and sauce, crust completely cooked but not scorched and an inch rim that was nice, crispy and tasty, as all around good as I could have wished for. In fact as Arizonas’ pizzas go, at least a 9.

What can I say? I guess someday when I’m back in the area, I’ll give them another chance.

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