Ruck's Pizza Kitchen, Lima: Sheet Pizza

Pizza aficionados may tend to discount "sheet" pizza, as little more than a quick, cheap way to feed a bunch of people. With an individual pie, we imagine the pizzaiolo tossing the dough, hand-crafting the pie, and tending to it the oven. A sheet pizza seems too ... easy. You spread the dough on the sheet, top it, stick it in the oven, and pull it out. Done.
While there is a lot of bad sheet pizza out there, there's no reason it can't be good. So-called sheet pizza is an American descendant, or perhaps cousin, of Sicilian-style pizza, and nobody ever accused the Sicilians of not knowing how to make good pizza (well, perhaps some Neapolitans have, but I'm not aware of it).
All that's a lead-up to this. At my wife's behest, I was recently tasked with picking up a sheet pizza for an event she was running, and I went with Ruck's Pizza Kitchen in Lima.
I reported on Ruck's last May,when I got two slices. They were good enough to rate a "B". But I know that a pizzeria's slices are often not a good indicator of how good their sheet pizza will be, and vice versa.
Not so here; this was good pizza. I'm afraid I neglected to take any photos of the underside or the sides of the individual slices, partly because within seconds of my opening the box, the pizza was set upon by a horde of hungry teenagers.
In contrast to some sheet pizzas, this was not oily, nor did it have the fried-dough-like crunch that is all too prevalent with that style. The crust was firm underneath, and the interior had a faint aroma of fresh bread, with a good chew.
The pizza was topped with a medium-thick sauce, which had a basic tomatoey flavor accented by dried herbs. I generally don't like heavily cheese-laden pizza, and this was just about right for me. The cheese seemed to be straight mozzarella, nicely melted, just enough to play off the crust and the cup-and-char pepperoni, which was crisp but chewy.
So no, sheet pizza need not mean bad pizza. This was a very nice job by Ruck's. I gave their slices a B, and I'll give this a B as well. It was an above-average example of an underappreciated style.

Ruck's Pizza Kitchen

7294 W. Main St., Lima, NY
585-582-6552

Mon. - Thu. 11 - 9, Fri. & Sat. 11 - 10, Sun. noon - 8

Ruck's Pizza, Lima

Just when I've nearly run out of pizza places to try, a new one comes along. One of the latest is Ruck's Pizza Kitchen in Lima. It's near the crossroads of 15A and 5 & 20.
Apparently Ruck's opened in 2014, but I only recently learned of its existence. I assumed it had gone into the now-closed Mark's location, but it's actually a door or two down, closer to the intersection.

I stopped in around lunchtime on a recent Saturday and got a pepperoni and a Buffalo chicken slice. They were pretty big, and one would have been enough to satisfy my hunger after a morning hike, but I wanted to sample a couple different varieties.
The crust was medium thick, a little charred on the pepperoni slice, paler on the Buffalo chicken slice. It's been my experience in general that the crust on Buffalo chicken pizza tends to come out a little different from that on "regular" pizza, so that didn't surprise me.
The pepperoni slice was heavy on the cheese, and a little oily underneath toward the tip, i.e. the center of the pie. I liked the crust overall, which was reasonably crisp and bready.
This was a fairly weighty slice, mostly due to the mozzarella cheese. It was laid on in a thick melted blanket. The texture straddled the line between stretchy and chewy.

The thin slices of pepperoni were crisp along the edge, as they should be. The tomato sauce was slightly sweet and mildly seasoned. Overall, a good, basic slice of pizza, typical of the Rochester style.
The Buffalo chicken slice was wider than the pepperoni slice. I don't know if the pies were sliced differently or if it was just luck of the draw. But it was nearly a quarter pie, whereas the pepperoni slice looked to be about a sixth.
As I mentioned, the underside was relatively pale, but it was mostly dry to the touch, and it had a nice, chewy interior. On top, the slice was topped with small chunks of chicken, a thin layer of mozzarella, mild Buffalo sauce and a swirl of blue cheese dressing. It was good, but if I were to order a whole pie, I'd probably ask for at least a medium-hot wing sauce. But for a slice with the flavor of Buffalo wings, this was a pretty good example.
Ruck's offers pies in 10, 14 and 18 inch sizes, plus sheets. You can easily customize your pizza, with thin, "regular" and thick crust, red, white or "pink" sauce, and 20 toppings to choose from. They also do 18 specialty pizzas, including a "585" (basically a garba- I mean "trash" - plate on a pizza), and "Ruck's favorite," the "Golden Boy," with "Golden BBQ sauce," chicken tenders, steak and cheddar.
They also do hot and cold subs, wings, calzones, salads, quesadillas, fish fry, and a few more items. In short, Ruck's pretty much covers the basics, and then some, for a local pizza joint.
I was generally happy with these slices. They were well made, flavorful examples of Rochester style pizza.
I have in the past avoided rating Buffalo chicken pizza, largely because the whole approach to that style varies so much from one place to another. As for the pepperoni slice, it was pretty good. Some charring, breadlike crust, crisp pepperoni and a good balance of cheese and sauce. Not quite at the top of my local list, but good enough to rate a B.

Ruck's Pizza Kitchen

7294 W. Main St.
Lima, NY
585-582-6552

Mon. - Thu. 11 - 9, Fri. & Sat. 11 - 10, Sun. noon - 8

Detour Winner

Chris, who left a comment on May 2 at 10:10 a.m., has won himself a free pizza from Detour Pizza in Lima.
Chris, please send me your mailing address at rocpizzaguy@gmail.com, and I'll get your gift certificate out to you. I think you'll like this. And when you use it, please let them know that you got it from the Rochester NY Pizza Blog.
I'll have another giveaway coming up soon, so stay tuned.

Detour Pizza Interview and Giveaway

NOTE (1/27/16): Detour Pizza has closed.
I recently had the pleasure of sitting down with Tom Harrington, the owner of Detour Pizza in Lima. Detour opened about three and a half years ago in a former florist shop on Rt. 15A, just south of 5 & 20.
Tom has a long history in the food service industry. He started off washing dishes at Peppermints in Avon, then moved on to Pizza Land. He’s done some catering, worked for Empire Beef in Henrietta, and delivered Wonder Bread.
After a stint at Kodak (hasn’t half the local population worked for Kodak at some point?), Tom got a job with the NYS Department of Transportation.
But Tom long wanted to open his own place, and when a flower shop/greenhouse became available in Lima, he bought it and converted it into a pizzeria.
Given the building’s prior history, this necessitated a lot of work. Ovens, tables, refrigerator, everything had to be brought in. But Tom was able to buy some equipment at auctions at a reasonable price, and get things up and running.
The “Detour” name, by the way, came from Tom’s wife one night over dinner. And it makes for great signs outside the building. Given Tom’s DOT employment, the name is especially appropriate.
And talk about hands-on: Tom lives in the building, upstairs. That may sound convenient for him, and it is, in a way, but it’s also indicative of the tough road he’s laid out for himself. In the winter snowplow season, he’s getting up at 2:30 a.m., plowing till late morning, then getting back to the pizzeria, where he helps out during the lunch period. He’s in bed by 8:30, and if he’s lucky he won’t get called out again before midnight.
It’s largely because of that huge time commitment that Tom doesn’t make his own dough. He gets frozen dough from Al Cohen’s bakery in Buffalo. He explained that he'd rather have a consistent, good product from an outside source than to make everything in-house, with potentially uneven results when he can't be there to oversee things.
I’m no expert, but I do know that you can freeze dough, for a few weeks at least, with no ill effects. And I can completely understand Tom’s reasoning that if he can’t be at his pizzeria all the time, he’d rather have a consistent product that’s made elsewhere than try to make his own dough of possibly variable quality. I enjoy making my own dough at home, but I often freeze some, with good results. So I don’t have a problem with buying frozen dough, as long as the dough is good to begin with. And Al Cohen's is a well-respected bakery, known especially for their rye bread. (Now a frozen crust, that’s different. But this is frozen dough, not a frozen crust.)
The sauce is made in-house, using a recipe that was developed after sampling sessions with friends who agreed to serve as tasters. And it’s a good sauce, tomatoey, with a nice balance of acidity, salt, and sweetness.
Detour’s pizza is, by design, pretty middle-of-the-road. Tom’s intent was to suit the widest range of customers, and I think he’s done a good job at that. The crust is on the thin side of medium, and the pizza is well balanced, with enough sauce and cheese to complement but not overwhelm the crust. Pizzas start off on a screen, and are finished on the oven deck, yielding a crust that's pliable but firm and slightly chewy.
If you stop by, also consider Detour’s chicken wings. Tom uses “jumbo” wings, which give you more meat per wing. They’re on my to-do list for next time.
For the time being at least, Detour Pizza is closed on Sundays, so Tom can spend some much-needed time with his family. The other six days of the week, they’re open until 8, and until 9 on weekends.
See for yourself what you think of Detour Pizza, for free. I’ve got a large one-topping pizza to give away to one lucky reader. Just leave a comment after this blog post.
Leave your comment by noon next Friday, May 9, to be guaranteed an entry. One entry per person, please.
If you win, I'll need your full mailing address. You can either email it to me now at rocpizzaguy@gmail.com, or wait to see if you've won. I will post the winner here, on facebook, and on Twitter., on May 9.

Detour Pizza, 2019 Lake Ave. (Rt. 15A), Lima
624-3060
Mon. - Thu.  11 a.m. - 8 p.m., Fr. & Sat. 11 a.m. - 9 p.m.

Detour Pizza, Lima

If you happen to be driving along Rt. 15A in Lima, and you see a detour sign, think twice before you go heading off in another direction.
Then again, you may want to turn off the road at that point, since you may have arrived at Detour Pizza (or maybe it's Pizza Detour - it's hard to tell from their logo), which opened recently about a quarter mile south of Rts. 5 and 20.
The sign out front advertises New York style pizza, so I was eager to try this. What I got was not quite what I would call New York style pizza, but it wasn't bad.
There were two kinds of slices when I stopped in around lunchtime, pepperoni and veggie. The latter appeared to have mushrooms on them, which are one of the few foods I cannot abide, so I got two of the pepperoni slices. They came with a 12 oz. drink for less than $5, which is a pretty good deal.
The crust on these was thin to medium, quite thin toward the tip of the slices (that is, the middle of the pie), but gradually thickening nearer the outer edge.
The underside was reminiscent of some slices I've gotten at some Pontillo's locations, with distinct blackened areas here and there, suggesting a particularly hot oven deck. (As an aside, sometimes you see pizzas with a lot of charring around the edge of the pie, but I think that's more common with pizza from a wood-fired oven, since the heat from the fire radiates from the back of the oven toward the pizza, inches away from the flame. The charring here seemed to be more the result of conductive heat passing directly from the oven deck to the bottom of the crust.)
The crust had a nice balance of chewiness and crispness, with a little crackling, and a texture that got crunchier toward the outer edge. I noticed a light dusting of corn meal.
These were quite cheese-laden slices, with a thick layer of melted, chewy mozzarella. The sauce was not too prominent, but from what I could taste of it, it seemed to have a sweet tomato flavor with a bit of herbs in the background.

I've posted Detour's menu on my Facebook page, but in general, they serve up a basic lineup of pizzas (13 toppings, in 13", 16", and 25" x 18" sizes), wings, grilled items, subs (on Martusciello rolls), salads and sides. There is a small amount of seating inside, and delivery is available.
I wouldn't call this New York style pizza, but that doesn't mean that I didn't like it. Yes, it was thin, but as I've said before, thin does not equal New York style. An authentic New York slice is foldable, of uniform thickness except at the very edge, or cornicione, with a crisp, somewhat charred bottom, and enough of a backbone not to flop at all at the tip, when held, folded, at the outer edge.
I didn't actually subject these to that test, but the tips were a little floppy, because they were so thin, and because of the weight of the cheese. But I don't like to get too hung up on labels, and I don't rate pizzas based on whether they conformed or not to a given style. I only mention this to say that if you see the "New York Style" sign out in front, know what to expect.
What you should expect, based on this visit, is good pizza, kind of a cross between New York and Rochester style, generally thin, with a hefty layer of cheese, not a lot of sauce, but good flavor, and a reasonably crisp crust. I found it a bit unbalanced (a little less cheese and a little more sauce would've been welcome), but a lot of people like cheesy pizza, and this was good enough to rate a B-minus from me.
Detour Pizza, 2019 Lake Ave. (Rt. 15A), Lima, NY
624-3060
Sun. - Wed. 10 a.m. - 9 p.m., Thu. - Sat. 10 a.m. - 10 p.m.
Delivery available 11 a.m. - 1 p.m. and 4 p.m. - 9 p.m.

Pastaria Pub, Lima

NOTE:  Pastaria Pub is now Fanatics Pub & Pizza. Ownership and staff are unchanged. - RPG, Aug. 31, 2013
Italian restaurants are hit-or-miss spots for pizza. Some have it, some don't. Among those that do, some are very good, at others ... well, stick to the pasta.
So when I learned a few weeks ago that the Pastaria Pub in Lima had pizza on the menu, I was eager to check it out, but unsure of what to expect. What I got was some pretty good pizza, whether from a restaurant or otherwise.
The crust on my 12-inch pie was fairly thin, with a mostly medium-brown underside that was dotted with darker, nearly-charred spots. It had a slightly toasty flavor. The underside was dry to the touch, and the slices were pliable enough to fold, and firm enough not to require a knife and fork.
This was a pretty cheesy pizza, not overly so, but the well-melted cheese had a definite presence here. It appears from the menu that the Pastaria Pub usually uses a mix of mozzarella and provolone, and this cheese did strike a nice balance between texture and flavor, with the stringy chewiness of mozzarella and the slight tang of provolone.
The sauce stayed much more in the background. It was there, I could see it, and it added some moisture to the mix, but I had a hard time picking out its flavor.
Along its edge, the pie was formed into a medium-thick lip, which was somewhat crunchy. The thickness of the cornicione also allowed the dough's bready qualities to come through more.
The Pastaria Pub offers 14 pizza toppings and 10 specialty pizzas, including a chicken carbonara pizza with grilled chicken, bacon, alfredo sauce, mozzarella and provolone. All pizzas can also be ordered as individual-sized flatbread pizzas. The rest of the menu runs toward standard Italian fare, with an obvious emphasis on pasta, as well as steaks, chicken and fish, sandwiches, burgers and wings, plus nightly specials. The space is divided between a neighborhood pub/bar area and a two-level dining room. Service was friendly and attentive.
I'd like to say that this was good for restaurant pizza, but while that's true, it would be damning with faint praise. So I'll just say that this was good pizza. For my taste, it was just slightly out of balance - heavy on the cheese, light on the sauce - and the crust was very good, but fell a little short of greatness. But those are relatively minor demerits, and overall this was a tasty, well-made, enjoyable pie. I'll give it a B+.
Pastaria Pub, 7281 West Main St., Lima. 624-2080
Lunch, Tue. - Sat. 11:30 a.m. - 2 p.m., Dinner, Tue. - Thu. 4:30 - 9 p.m., Fri. & Sat. till 9:30 p.m., Sun. till 8 p.m. Pub open Sun. - Wed. 3 p.m. - ?, Thu. - Sat. 11:30 - ?