The Pizza Locust

There’s a place called Crazy Jim’s in mid-westerly-Phoenix that is a sort of greek-themed pizza place and it’s pretty good. Not only can you get a pizza, but there’s pitas and such if you’re just not in a pizza mood. (I don’t understand the concept of “not in a pizza mood” but I’ve been reliably informed that non-pizzalocust types do occasionally hanker for something other than pizza.)

So when I learned of Jamie’s Pizza and Pitas over in Tempe, I was hoping to find a place to filled that similar niche.

For starter’s it’s a bit smaller than it looks on their website, and I would consider it to be geared largely for take-out business. For eating in, it’s strictly order at the counter and have a seat. They do have about fifteen seats at four tables and a counter and the staff were attentive and friendly.

The kids had individual slices, Mrs. Locust tried their Lemon Garlic Chicken Pita and I had a 12″ pepperoni pizza.

Lemon Garlic Chicken Pita was reported to be good and “lemony and garlicky” with I took to mean heavy on the lemon and garlic.

My pizza was nothing special, but perfectly suited for a near-college or neighborhood take-out place, but no worthy of a trek across the city for a night out.

Specifically, the pepperoni was very ordinary as was the sauce, although it was strong on garlic. The crust was a bit uncooked. I wouldn’t want to say it was thick, because it wasn’t, but it was dense. And it was the denseness that seemed to cause it to be undercooked in the middle, and have a slightly floury flavor. At a guess, I’d say that the batch of dough simply had failed to rise properly. On the other hand, the crust on the kids’ slices was much thinner and cooked – although since slices are commonly fully or partially pre-prepared and then re-heated just before serving, you can’t judge a full pizza by the slices.

In fact, their slices were better than my fresh pizza.

The final ingredient was the cheese. They certainly didn’t skimp. I’d go so far as to say my pizza was awash in it and it was a salty mozzarella, which would have been much better thinner and browned more.

All of the major shortcomings of my pizza could easily be attributed to a slightly off day – or even just that solitary pizza – it happens. That makes a PizzaLocust recommendation on Jamie’s a tough call. So here’ how I’ll phrase it:

I wouldn’t drive across town for Jamie’s Pizza and I wouldn’t go there for a sit-down dinner, but if I lived or worked in the area, it would be on my list for stopping in for a couple slices for lunch or maybe even a pita or sandwich. (We didn’t have one, but their toasted subs looked good.) Also, if I lived in the area, I’d give them a few more tries for picking up a pizza on the way home.

12″ pepperoni was $8.99 or $0.08 (0.0794) / sq. inch.

Note: $0.40 charge for credit card use, $0.50 for soda refills