Red Zone

This story starts in the first decade of the 20th Century. Well, sort of.

In 1904 or thereabouts, a building was built on East Main Street in Rochester, that became home to Sibley's department store. 

For those who are too young to know, department stores were places where they sold a bunch of stuff--in person, not online--arranged by "departments." They were sort of like Walmart except they had high-end stuff, and nobody was embarrassed to admit they bought their clothes there. And they were often located right in the middle of cities. Where did people park, you might ask? On the street, maybe, but many shoppers didn't have to worry about parking, because there was good, reliable mass transit. 

Eventually Amazon and Walmart drove everyone else out of business, and all the buildings that used to house department stores became vacant or fell into disrepair, everyone who had the means to do so fled to the suburbs, and so on. (OK, I'm oversimplifying, but I'm trying to get to the point, which is to get us back to the Sibley Building.) 

Sibley's was huge for many years, but then declined, got bought by another company, and closed in the 1990s. So now we had this beautiful, historic building in the heart of downtown Rochester with its namesake tenant gone. 

In 2012, the building was bought by Winn Companies, which has since redeveloped the building for multiple uses, including retail, office and residential space. 

Part of that includes "Mercantile on Main," which I suppose could be described as a food court, but that wouldn't really do it justice. Yes, there are a number of walk-up, takeout places, but there's also a bar serving Spanish and Mediterranean dishes, the setting of the Sibley Building atrium is quite pleasant, and you won't find any national chain establishments. I believe they are all local and one of a kind.

To my way of thinking, no food court, high-end, low-end or otherwise, is worth a damn without pizza.  In Mercantile on Main, we have Red Zone, which offers a variety of thin-crust slices.

First time around, I like to stick with the basics, so I got a cheese slice. 

Hmm. There were things I liked, and things I didn't. It resembled a New York-style slice, but judged by that standard it fell short. It passed the fold test, meaning I could fold it and hold it horizontally without it flopping over, and the underside was dry, not oily (a good thing), but it was more browned than charred and it was not at all crackly. I could not only fold it, I could roll it up (not a good thing). Although it's easy to overlook the crust--which is why pizza chains make such a big deal about overloading their pizza with toppings and stuffing the crust, to distract you from how crappy the crust is--the crust is the backbone of every pizza, and this crust didn't wow me.

No complaints about the sauce or cheese. They balanced each other well. The cheese was nicely melted and both were added in good proportions to each other and to the crust. The sauce seemed a bit on the sweet rather than acidic/tangy side.

This is an observation rather than a complaint, but the slice had a prominent flavor of what I will generically call "Italian" herbs. I didn't attempt to dissect them into individual components (oregano, basil, etc.), but it was quite noticeable. At first I thought it was the sauce but there were visible dried herbs on top, so maybe someone just had a heavy hand with the herb shaker. Again, I'm not necessarily complaining, as it didn't overpower the other components and it certainly gave the slice a distinctive flavor. And where pizza is concerned, I appreciate distinctiveness.

I came away from this thinking, this was good, but it could've been a lot better. Red Zone is relatively new, and far be it from me to tell them how to make pizza, but I think a few tweaks would be all it takes to elevate their pizza significantly. 

Just some thoughts, but I wonder about the oven temperature. For thin crust, you generally want high temp, short baking time. Could they crank up the temp a bit? 

I frankly didn't notice what type of oven they use, but for personal reasons I find myself in the Sibley Building occasionally so next time I'll take a look. That may affect what they can do, temperature-wise.

Dough preparation is also a question. Again I will defer to the pros but a long ferment is generally going to result in a better crust. If a pizzeria advertises that they make their dough every day, on the same day that they bake it, that's not a good thing. Dough needs time.

And maybe take it easy on the herbs. If you want to make that a part of your signature, fine. I was good with it. But I'd solicit some opinions from your customers.

I enjoyed my pizza, make no mistake. I just thought, a little bit of adjustment and they can go from pretty good to very good or great.

 Red Zone Pizza, at Mercantile on Main

240 East Main St., Rochester

Mon. - Fri. 11 a.m. - 2 p.m.