Baconsale Episode 61: Ranking Pizza Chains – Better Ingredients, Better Podcast

Ding dong! Get the door, it’s Baconsale!

This episode is coming to you Hot-N-Ready as Kent, Joel and Jacob are ready to rank and tier your favorite fast food pizza places. We’ve methodically tested slices, pieces and pies for the past few months from some of most popular pizza chain restaurants in the United States — you know, for science — and now we’re ready to tell you our results.

So sit back, press play, avoid the Noid and enjoy this cheesy combination of opinion and fact.


Listen to the final music track without commentary here!

24 thoughts on “Baconsale Episode 61: Ranking Pizza Chains – Better Ingredients, Better Podcast”

  1. I think you guys mentioned a pizza chain episode back during that Fast Food for Thought episode.. So this has been a long time in the making (and it did not disappoint!).

    It took 5 minutes and 50 seconds or so for the first poo joke, I’m surprised it took that long.

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      1. Sometimes it happens. You have a poop joke that you just can’t hold in anymore and it comes out unexpectedly – like when you eat pizza from certain restaurants.

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  2. Me Playing Along:
    Did Kent get fired?
    I like the forced Bell Curve for the tiers.
    Dominos – Tier 1
    Costco – Tier 1!!!! Their oily pepperoni is the best!!! No napkins, put a couple packets of parmesan on it and it will soak the grease right up. There are never flies or dirty people at my Costco, or any costco I’ve been to, I don’t know where you’re going. Maybe Sams Club has flies and dirty people, but not Costco.
    Pizza Hut – Tier 2 – Remember Pizza the Hut from Spaceballs!? That was gross.
    Totally disagree with you guys about Ham and Pineapple, that is a great pizza.
    Pizza Pie Cafe – Haven’t eaten there.
    7-Eleven – Tier 3 – Gross. It sounds like nobody orders the pizza, so he has no idea what to do. It sounds like the pizza is a front for 7-Eleven laundering drug money or something.
    Pappa Johns – Tier 1 – Top Tier 1!!!
    Little Ceasars – Tier 3 – I think I’m like Jacob. I have an idea of it’s quality being like that of the little ceasars of my youth. So, it is still tier 3 until I get a chance to try again.
    Sams Club – Tier 2
    Sbarro – Never Eaten it so I can’t rate it. I always tried to find the Steak Sandwich shop
    Pappa Murphy’s – Lower Tier 2 – If I’m baking the pizza, I would rather make it all myself from scratch. I do not like bake it yourself pizzas. Or go frozen Freschetta Pizza.
    Chuck E Cheese – Tier 3

    Good Episode Guys!

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    1. Thanks, Drew.
      To answer your first question: Kent was let go during a company-wide reorganization, sadly. It sucks, but we’re making Baconsale work. Now, onto happier things:
      I agree. Costco IS better than Sam’s Club.
      Pineapple is gross.
      Let us know if you change your opinion of Little Caesar’s after you try it again.

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      1. Sad Kent! Does he still come back to the office for the podcast over lunch or does that bring back bad memories? That stinks, but we hope y’all can keep the podcast going despite not working together anymore, and who knows maybe it will help since you won’t be able to talk about the topics in advance anymore.

        Now I know this isn’t a nationwide chain in the states, but where do you rank Telepizza? My memory tells me it is Tier 1 or high Tier 2, but then my memory had me eating a lot of not so good stuff in Portgual that I thought was great (and some not so good stuff that was really not so good, like Irma Piedade’s pudim in Pombal). I did go to one local pizza place outside Coimbra once and ordered the bacon pizza. It came with raw rashers of bacon/prosciutto laying on top of the cooked pizza. It was gross.

        I did a study abroad in Brazil and went to a pizza place where they served the pizza rodizio style. Hot and fresh pans of pizza were constantly coming out of the oven and circulating around the room. You just stopped the server and got a slice of whatever they had, or made a request for something. They even had some amazing dessert pizzas with Nutella or cinnamon sugar.

        But if you ever go down to Phoenix, AZ, one of my favorite pizza chains is Barro’s Pizza. Anytime I go back, I have to get at least one meal there (and Los Compadres for Mexican food) – most recently I was only driving through Phoenix at lunch time, so I stopped at both Los Compadres for a Chimichanga and then Barro’s pizza for a slice of Pepperoni.

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      2. We still get together at the office for lunch for now, but we may have to move to nighttime recordings soon, and who knows what kind of crazy things we’ll say at night.
        Also, Telepizza was a tier 2, at best.
        I still will occasionally cook an egg on top of my pizza, just in honor of Portugal.

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      4. (I figured out how to put my own pics in as comments – first I have to publish them to my crewdutler.wordpress blog, who knew I had one?) That pineapple pic is from Halloween several years ago when the local supermarket was out of pumpkins, I did the next best thing.

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  4. My rankings:

    Dominoes: Tier 2, it’s an upper tier 2 but its not done anything to impress me. The Tier 1’s on my list keep bringing me back for more, Dominoes never has.
    Costco: Tier 2, love having my helping of grease with just a hint of Pizza.
    Papa Murphys: TIER 1, you can’t beat the Chicken Bacon Ranch Stuffed Pizza. I’ve gotten food poisoning from it before and I will still put it as the #1 overall pizza from any of these places. (It did horrible things to me, and I still crave it)
    Pizza Hut: Tier 2, I wish it was still a nice sit down experience. Side-Note we had a couple of these in Hong Kong where I served my mission, the chinese do some weird things with pizza… If I was judging it off of the corn, mayo, and shrimp pizza I had there this would put Pizza Hut as a Tier 3 and would give Chuck E Cheese a run for it’s money.
    Pizza Pie Cafe: Tier 2. It’s ok. It’s coupon bait, but they have a couple of things that are pretty good.
    Little Caesars: Tier 1. I love Little Caesars Pizza, like Jake said, you know it’s low quality but it tastes SOOOO GOOD! Only way it could be better is putting the garlic sauce from Papa Johns on it.
    Chuck E. Cheese: Thank you for reviewing this. I will probably never go to this place ever again, I haven’t been there since I was 8 and I hated it then. It’s good to know I never need to worry about whether or not that was a correct perception.
    Sams: Tier 3, honestly this is just a victim of the bell curve you instituted and the fact that I like Sbarro better than Sams. I’d give this a tier 2 otherwise.
    Sbarro: Tier 2. I haven’t had this for a couple of years but I remember enjoying it a lot actually. Plus, like Michael Scott I love getting me a “New York Slice”.
    7-Eleven: Tier 3. I’m really grateful you survived this experience. Terrible things happen to people who eat 7 eleven food.

    Side Note- my top 3 pizza places would be The Pie in Ogden (the one in SLC isn’t as good), Bear Lake Pizza (Conquered the 28″ old Ephraim twice with friends), and I can’t remember the name of it but I had legit Chicago style pizza in Chicago and it is sooooooo good.

    Worst pizza ever- I had a homemade oyster pizza some really nice people in hong kong made for us… it still had the shells on the oysters… I think I saw some of them move.

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    1. “It did horrible things to me, and I still crave it” – sounds like our podcast. ZING!
      The pizza is that bad in Hong Kong, eh?
      Papa John’s garlic sauce. . .on Little Caesar’s pizza. . .? That, my friend, sounds like a million dollar idea!
      You conquered the Ephraim? I survived the Merlinator! Gotta love Bear Lake.

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      1. Pizza Hut pizza and homemade is bad in Hong Kong. They did have this place called Pizza Box that was pretty good.. But looking back I’m not so sure if it was actually good, or just by comparison.

        The first time the Ephraim was conquered it was me, Spencer (who actually got me started listening to Baconsale) my little brother and our buddy Casey. It took an hour and a half and I was the only one that didn’t regurgitate the pizza at the end. They’ve kind of skimped on it the last few years, the second time we did it, it wasn’t even close to as daunting.

        To be honest papa johns garlic sauce is the only thing that sets them apart from the other places. Without that their stuff is unimpressive.

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  5. Hey Joel or Kent, who is Amy? Ive been trying to deduce if we finally found out the name of Jacob or Kent’s wife but I can’t figure it out. Plus Joel was throwing in gluten intolerance stuff and then I just got all confused.

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