Critic's Review
I used to get a pizza virtually every Sunday; Settling in with a pie and a bottle of Chianti to watch The Sopranos was a ritual. I had the Mad Men finale on tape, so I needed to get a pizza from some place nearby. I decided on Pie-Zan's. It was time to give them another try.
They've been touting a "reader poll" award, which really irritates me, because anyone with a brain knows that some of the worst restaurants in town have won reader polls.
The first pie I got here, when they first opened, was really good. The second one, not so good. I ordered a large pie with half sausage "14 or 18 inch", they asked; I went for the 18". No mention of a special.
So when I arrived, I saw a big banner "Monday Special: Large Pizza $6.99". Of course that's only 14" pizzas. Why would a place do that? Why not $4 off all pizzas on Monday? What's the point of sticking it to people who don't like tiny slices? It's really twice as much for an 18" pizza as a 14"?
The big issue here is that 14" is not a large pizza. It's a medium pizza. Semantics is fine, but why create a policy that makes your customers order something that they don't want so that they don't feel like they've been ripped off? It's just bad business.
I got home, and opened the box. The pizza looked fine.
Taste-wise, the pizza was good. The complaint about this pizza was that it was too thick; the thin crust pie wasn't thin enough. It effected the foldability, and gave me too much bread with every bite.
Not bad, but despite the propaganda, definitely not the best pizza in town.
6/5/2011 Review
Formerly Big Wheel Pizza, these guys bought them out in August and brought their own recipes and concept to Downtown Fort Lauderdale. The best thing about capitalism is that mediocre places like Big Wheel get taken over by people with better ideas; and better food.
Meatballs are their specialty, but its really a full pizza restaurant Italian menu. Something they have here that you won't find at many places is their Fireball; a meatball infused with habanero pepper. If you're not a pepper aficionado; habaneros are the really hot ones.
They have a variety of subs with some combinations peppers and meatballs; but I wanted to try both the regular meatballs and the Fireballs. I asked for a Meatball Parm sub with half regular and half Fireball and they were happy to accommodate me. I also ordered a slice to try out the pizza; and to verify that it wasn't the same recipe as Big Wheel.
While they have some stools and a counter; its really a take-out place.
Finally the food was ready, and it smelled pretty good in the car. The counter dude told me that they had marked the hot meatball half with some sauce so I could prepare myself for the heat.
As you can see, the regular meatballs and the Fireballs appear to be the same. But they're not. The Fireballs are very spicy, but not so hot that you feel compelled to run for a drink of water. I liked the spice, and I also liked the regular meatballs. The sauce was very good, and I thought the slice was good enough to buy a pie.
They have 18" pizzas, which is always a plus.
It's a pretty nice looking pizza. I was pretty happy with it and I give them some pretty lofty ratings. And then one lazy day I didn't feel like driving too far for a pizza so I ordered another.
This pie wasn't nearly as good; too well done, and it really had no taste. Did they change the sauce? It was notably bland. Pretty cardboardy. Inconsistent, or did they change something? I can't say for sure.
Tip to business owners. Nobody is forcing you to use the delivery platforms. If they're losing customers for you by delivering bad, cold food hours later than expected, maybe try hiring a delivery guy like the old days?