Pie Time, Lake Ave.

I stopped recently at Pie Time, just off Lake Avenue in Charlotte. The site has been home to several pizzerias over the years.
I got there around lunchtime, and a pie was just coming out of the oven. It was a half-cheese, half-pepperoni pie, and I opted for a slice of the latter.
First impressions. Pizza tends to be at its most aromatic when it's freshly baked, and with this one I caught a whiff of garlic. Overall, not a bad looking slice, at first glance at least.
A check of the underside revealed a couple of things. It was unevenly browned,with some areas dark brown and some pale.
The crust was also uneven in terms of thickness, as shown in the bottom photo. One side of the slice, paper thin, the other rather thick, probably close to an inch. Even on the thick side, though, it did not seem to have risen much; it wasn't dense, in a heavy, leaden kind of way, but it wasn't bubbly either. The interior was what I would describe as cottony.
The edge was formed into a cornicione of uniform thickness. It was browned on top, pale underneath, with a crunchy exterior. There was a smidgen of oven soot along one part of the underside.
On top, the cheese was a little browned and congealed. It was chewy, but not very smooth or stretchy.
There wasn't much sauce to speak of. What there was had a thick consistency, with a generous amount of dried herbs (although I can't say whether the herbs were in the sauce to begin with or were sprinkled on after the sauce was applied).
The cup and char pepperoni slices were well crisped along the edge, tasty and not overly oily.
Pie Time pizzas come in 10-, 12- and 16-inch sizes, as well as sheets. They offer 16 toppings. A cheese slice will set you back $3, not bad for a slice this big.
They also do wings, calzones, stromboli, subs and wraps, fish fry, "plates," a few dinners (chicken parm, spaghetti and meatballs and the like), and the usual sides:  fries, onion rings, etc. Although Pie Time's website still shows them opening at 3 p.m., the menu I picked up has them open daily from 11 a.m. to 11 p.m. As I mentioned, I got there around noon and a lunchtime pie was in the oven.
Reading back over what I've written, I get the sense that this review makes this slice sound worse than it was. I started with my first impressions, and I'll close with my overall impression. It wasn't bad, but there were a lot of flaws. No one defect stood out or ruined this slice for me, but put all the little stuff together and you've got a slice that just wasn't too good. I have to give this a D.

Pie Time, 4410 Lake Ave.
434-4766 (phone) 434-5464 (fax)

Open daily 11 a.m. - 11 p.m.

The Alley, Rochester

While the number of local pizzerias seems to be holding fairly steady, pizza as a menu item is popping up all the time. One recent example is The Alley, a restaurant/bar/nightclub in Rochester's East End.
The Alley, which opened in December 2015, is . It's at 1 Ryan Alley, near the corner of East and Alexander. After I spotted an ad for The Alley trumpeting its pizza, I made a mental note to get there, which I did a few weeks ago with my daughter.
We went on a Wednesday, arriving around 6 p.m. That's kind of early in the week, and early in the evening, for the East End, so unsurprisingly, things were pretty quiet when we walked in. In fact, it was empty, save for one employee behind the bar. But he assured me that they were open, and yes, they were serving food, including pizza. So we got a table near the window.
After handing us our menus, he explained that they were unexpectedly shorthanded that night, so at the moment, he constituted the entire staff -- bartender, waiter, and chef. Since we were the only customers, I didn't mind; if nothing else, this would truly be personalized service.
Pizzas at The Alley come in three sizes:  personal, regular and large. I got a regular Margherita, and my daughter ordered a personal meat lovers.
While we waited for our pizzas to arrive, we shared an appetizer of arancini. At The Alley, these fried rice balls are filled with Italian sausage and mozzarella cheese, and served with a side of marinara sauce. They were crisp on the outside, moist inside, tasty and enjoyable. So far, so good.
Our pizzas arrived in due course, and as I usually do, I first checked the underside. It was quite pale. Not a good sign.
Further inspection confirmed that the crust was rather underdone. Not raw, but flabby and a little gummy. "Lifeless" might best describe it.
I could've sent it back to bake a while longer, but the cheese was already well browned, so that didn't seem like a viable option. And I could've just sent it back, period. But I didn't, partly because I was intending to review it, so I figured I'd stick with what I had, and partly because it passed my "good enough to eat" threshold.
The overall flavor wasn't bad. This was really more of a cheese pizza than a Margherita, but as such, it was decent. The sauce had a thin consistency, but the chunks of tomato provided some acidity, sweetness and moisture. The cheese was ample, albeit rather browned, as I mentioned. My pie had also been given a sprinkling of what I'm guessing was Parmesan (the powdery kind you get from a cheese shaker, not freshly grated). Alas, the basil was of the dry variety, and didn't add much flavor, which is why I say this was more of a simple cheese pizza than a true Margherita.
The crust on my daughter's meat lover's pie was relatively thick, which is one reason I generally don't order personal-size pizza. Because of its smaller diameter, the cornicione on a personal pizza takes up a greater proportion of the overall pie than it would on a larger pie. I enjoy a good cornicione, but I like the thinner crust in the center of the pie too, and you often don't get much of that with a small pizza. This isn't a universal rule, by any means, but I've often found it to be the case, and it was here.
The crust on my daughter's pie was also on the underdone side, but that seemed less noticeable with hers, perhaps because of its more abundant toppings, which were pretty good. The pepperoni was crisp along the edges, and the meatball and sausage bits were thick and chunky. In contrast to my pizza, the mozzarella on hers was not browned, but was well melted and stretchy.
A few minutes after bringing out our pizzas, the waiter came by to check on us. I am sometimes susceptible in that situation to the American practice of smiling, nodding, and saying that everything's fine, even when it isn't, and I might've fallen prey to that this time, except that he specifically asked about the crusts on our pizza. So we did let him know that they were underdone. He seemed to have suspected as much, and after apologizing, he told us that he was taking 15% off our bill.
We didn't finish either pizza at this sitting, but I did take the leftovers home. I was able to salvage them for lunch, reheating individual slices in a toaster oven, with a layer of foil on top to prevent the cheese from getting overdone. That at least crisped up the bottoms a bit.
Obviously, something went wrong here. I'm no expert, but it seems likely to me that these were baked in an oven that was too cool on the bottom, but hot up above. I'm guessing the oven hadn't been on for very long, and was not sufficiently preheated.
So no, this was not very good pizza. But having said that, I did appreciate our waiter's concern. In hindsight, it might have been better if he had told us at the start that they weren't quite prepared to do pizza, but maybe he honestly didn't realize. I think he tried to do the best he could, under the circumstances.
Frankly, I debated with myself and a couple of other people, whose opinions I value, about whether to post this review, or whether to go back a second time, or to contact the establishment. Ultimately, I decided just to post the review, as is. In the end, this blog remains a record of my pizza experiences. If I describe those experiences accurately and objectively--and I think I have--the reader can decide what to make of it.
So I end this post with that caveat. This is a review of two pizzas, and one visit. Maybe on a different occasion--a different day of the week, or a different time of day, or with more people on staff--the pizza would have proved much better. But this was not too good. I have no complaints about our service, but I think I need to give this pizza a D.

The Alley,1 Ryan Alley, Rochester
(585) 546-1010

Tue. - Sat. 4 p.m. til ?

Goodman Hots & Pizzeria

Way back when, there was a place called Al's Green Pizzeria, on North Goodman Street in Rochester. It was connected, literally, physically, to Al's Green Tavern next door.
I used to think it was Al Green's Tavern, but no, it was Al's Green Tavern. I'd love to uncover the history behind it, but as far as I know, it was so called because the building was painted green. And apparently it went back a long way, as evidenced by some photos I've found.
I stopped into Al's Green Tavern many years ago, maybe around 2000, give or take a few. I remember it being about as divey as a dive bar can get. Not a modern, pretend dive, with hipsters drinking cheap cans of PBR. I mean a true dive, the kind of place where old drunks go to drink themselves into oblivion and to rot out what remains of their livers, and where it looks like midnight even at noon.
At the time, which must have been long after the bar's heyday, there was also a vague sense of menace. It felt like one of those saloons you see in Western movies, the kind of place where John Wayne or Clint Eastwood couldn't finish one drink before trouble erupted, which usually ended up with somebody lying on the floor with a bullet in him.
Now maybe some of my memory of that visit has become a bit colored over time. But apparently I wasn't totally off base in feeling that way. Let me explain.
Eventually, one of the owners of Al's was charged with crimes, and ended up pleading guilty. According to this story, the bar itself was the site of some related illegal activity. In short, it wasn't a place you wanted to be.
And it wasn't a place I wanted to go back to. That said, it was sad to imagine the bar's descent from what I imagine it used to be, in the days when one of its biggest attractions was "Those Original Baked Virginia Ham Sandwiches."
At any rate, this all occurred well before I started this blog. I don't recall if I got any pizza -- I may have -- but if I did, I didn't keep a record of it. My general impression, as I recall it, was of an old-time, once-thriving neighborhood Italian restaurant, pizzeria and bar, that was dying a slow death amid a changing neighborhood, like an island submerging under a rising sea.
Probably due to those criminal charges, the bar closed. I believe that Al's Green Pizzeria hung on for a while. I think it may have moved or morphed once or twice, but now it's gone, for good.
But every now and then, I've checked on the former site of Al's, because I know that where there once was a pizzeria, a new one will often open up. Some places just seem meant to house a pizzeria.
A few months ago, I discovered that the former site of Al's Green Pizzeria is now home to Goodman Hots & Pizzeria.
I stopped in for a slice a few weeks ago, but none were available. On a more recent visit, they had cheese and pepperoni slices available. I got a pepperoni slice. It was, well, about what I expected, which was not much. It was like basic convenience store pizza, the kind of pizza you see in those warmers on the counter.
Thin crust, a little browned underneath, slightly oily to the touch. The cornicione was well formed but dry. Nothing particularly wrong with the crust, but nothing very good about it either.
The cheese was not skimpy, but it was well browned, and consequently a little dried out. The pepperoni was OK, but unremarkable, and a little skimpy.
The sauce was evenly applied, and again, OK but ordinary. It was a slightly sweet tomato sauce, and did balance out the other components.
And that's about it. Not the worst pizza I've had, by any means, but nothing special. And a far cry, I imagine, from what one might've gotten at Al's Green Pizzeria back in the day.
Or maybe that's just misplaced nostalgia. Who knows? Maybe Al's pizza never was that good to begin with. Inflation aside, if it was worth keeping a five-cent token for a drink, maybe the pizza was little more than a cheap stomach filler. And maybe, in that sense, Goodman Hots has reached full circle.
I debated whether to give this pizza a grade. I know this is a depressed neighborhood, where few people are going to spend much on food, so I wasn't expecting world-class pizza. And the pizza was no worse than a lot of what you'll find nearby, or in similar neighborhoods. And I don't want to hurt the guy's business.
But I also doubt that a lot of potential patrons of Goodman Hots are reading, or care about this blog, so I don't think a bad grade is going to hurt this business one bit. My honest evaluation is that this pizza, considered against Rochester-area pizza in general, rates a D.

Goodman Hots & Pizzeria, 1160 N. Goodman St., Rochester

Root 31 Cafe, Pittsford

I stopped the other day for lunch, with a couple friends, at Root 31 Cafe & Eatery in Pittsford Plaza. It's in what used to be a location of Colie's Cafe, whose Park Avenue location I reviewed in 2012. (There's now just one Colie's, in Eastview Mall, which apparently does not offer pizza. Read the details here.)
According to its website, "Root 31 has partnered with farms that feature pasture raised & grass-fed animals that produce premium dairy, meats, cheeses in addition handcrafted sundries, condiments , jams and jellies. Produce, fruits, and berries all from family farms in the countryside Counties of western NY. The finest ice cream, sorbets, chocolates, vanillas, fruit purees available. Whenever possible we use local, organic ingredients guided by principles of sustainability."
All well and good. I applaud them for that. So how's the food?
This is a "fast casual" place, where you order at the counter and have your food delivered to the table. Root 31 is not a pizzeria as such, but it does feature pizza on the menu. Pizzas here come in two sizes, "petite" and "personal." I was hungry, so I got a personal cheese pizza, which was about the size of a dinner plate.
Before getting on to the pizza, I have to say, I found the prices rather curious. A personal cheese pizza was $8.25. Specialty pizzas ranged from $8.95 to $9.95. But individual toppings on a personal pizza were either $2.50 or $2.90. So if I got a white pizza with one veggie topping, that would come to $10.75. But I could get a "Chef's Style" white pizza, with bacon, onions and other toppings for $8.95. Maybe there's some logic behind that, but if so, I'm missing it.
So I got a plain cheese pizza. At first glance, it didn't look too bad. The cheese seemed a little overbrowned, but the pie looked OK overall.
But things went downhill from there. The underside was rather pale, and the crust was thin, limp, and floppy. When I tried to pick up a slice, it flopped over, and the toppings slid off.
I have given great reviews to pizzas whose slices might justly be characterized as floppy. Some are best eaten with a knife and fork, as I ended up doing here.
But those pizzas had crusts that were slightly charred, aromatic and flavorful. The crusts were good enough to eat on their own. This crust was just dull and lifeless. It seemed undercooked, and it didn't have much to recommend it. This was one of the few times that I have left some of the crust on my plate, and discarded it.
Sometimes good toppings can partially save a bad crust, but not this time. The cheese was rather overbrowned, as I've said. It wasn't hard, but neither was it smooth, and the oil that it exuded had settled into a few pools here and there.
I wasn't too thrilled about the sauce, either. I probably notice the sauce mostly when I don't like it.
As here. As I was eating this pizza, "SpaghettiOs" popped into my mind. The sauce reminded me of SpaghettiOs sauce.
Make no mistake, I have fond memories of SpaghettiOs. But I don't necessarily want my pizza sauce to taste like something that came out of a can of Franco American pasta.
I'm not saying this sauce came out of a can. For all I know, it was made from organic, locally produced ingredients. I'm just saying that the flavor reminded me of SpaghettiOs, with that distinctive tanginess of salt and Parmesan cheese, and not much tomato flavor. Maybe if I'd liked the crust, I would have been more predisposed to like the sauce, I don't know. I didn't exactly dislike the sauce, but it just didn't seem to help the pizza much. A little more tomatoey sweetness and some herbal accents would've been welcome.
One of my companions got a pepperoni pizza. To put it briefly, it was about the same, and she wasn't too happy with it.
Not to pile on, but it also took a loong time after I got my pizza, for her pizza to come out, and I think it was pretty obvious when we ordered that we were together. It would've been nice to get our pizzas at around the same time.
I wish I could say that my other companion's hamburger (which arrived with the pepperoni pizza) partially saved the day. But it didn't. He wasn't asked how he wanted it cooked, and this was well done. A thin patty, with no trace of pink inside, and from his account, as dry as it looked. That's why there's ketchup. I know some places won't do burgers less than well done, for health reasons, but if that's Root 31's policy, it should've been disclosed.
I don't enjoy giving bad reviews. But I have to be honest. If I thought we'd just caught Root 31 on a bad day, I'd hold off. But I don't. So I have to be honest and give the pizza a D.

Root 31 Cafe & Eatery
3349 Monroe Ave., Pittsford
(585) 383-5660 - contact@root31.com

Mon-Sat 9am - 9pm, Sun 9am - 8pm

Dobber's, Canandaigua

I don't get to Canandaigua too often, but I consider it to be in the Rochester area, so I try to stay current on the Canandaigua pizza scene.
With that in mind, I recently got a pizza from Dobber's. It's on Lakeshore Drive, just east of the lake.
Dobber's bills itself as a sports bar and grill, rather than a pizzeria as such, but pizza is on the menu. I wasn't sure what to expect, since they only offer one size, which generally suggests the use of premade crusts. And I think that's what I got, but more on that later.
Dobber's offers three pizzas: the "classic cheese and pepperoni," with a garlic base, marinara, pizza spice, tomatoes, peppers, and Parmesan; the "veggie lover's," with a garlic base, mozzarella, pizza spice, tomatoes, peppers, onions, mushrooms, banana peppers, black olives and jalapenos; and a Buffalo chicken pie, with a garlic base, mozzarella, pizza spice, diced chicken tossed in the sauce of your choice.
I got the veggie lover's, sans mushrooms. I don't have many dietary taboos, but I don't do mushrooms. I don't eat anything that grows in caves, or that's a fungus, or that has the texture of rubber. Or that tastes like mushrooms.
In a nutshell, the toppings were pretty good; the crust, not so much. It was medium thick, generally pale, and somewhat dry. It could've been hand formed - the underside didn't have a machine-made look to it - but it did not have a freshly-baked aroma or texture. It wasn't crumbly or brittle, it simply was not much more than a base for the toppings.
And the toppings were good, as far as they went, but they literally didn't go very far. There was quite a gap between the toppings and the edge of the pie. Had the crust been exceptionally good, that wouldn't have mattered so much, but it wasn't.
On the plus side, where the toppings were applied, they were pretty good. The olives were canned, but I've always been OK with canned olives. The conglomeration of sliced and chopped veggies, atop a layer of well-melted mozzarella, was rather tasty, with a nice interplay of flavors - salty olives, hot, vinegary pepperoncini, milder green bell pepper, and decent chopped tomatoes, atop a bed of smooth melted cheese.
But it just wasn't quite enough to elevate the pizza as a whole. Some people (I'm not one of them, in case you hadn't guessed) are more concerned with the toppings on their pizza than with the crust. If that's you, then you want the toppings spread close to the edge of the crust. And these weren't.
I care about the toppings, certainly. It's the combination of the crust and toppings that makes pizza more than just bread. But for me the crust is where it all starts. And my test is, when I've finished the "topped" part of a slice, to I want to eat what's left - the "pizza bone"? The answer here was no.
I genuinely dislike giving a place a bad review, especially when it's not just a pizzeria.. So again I will emphasize that I am rating Dobber's pizza, not Dobber's as a whole. Dobber's offers way more than just pizza. As I waited for my pizza, I saw a plate of chicken wings go by, and they looked and smelled heavenly. The menu covers all the bar basics, and then some. They occasionally do a "pizza soup," which I would love to try. And there's a wide selection of beers, including their own house brand, Three Huskies.
Pizza aside, I came away with a good impression of Dobber's, overall. The place was clean and well maintained, the service was good, the patrons were friendly, and my impression was of a local bar and grill, in the best sense of that term. I think you could feel equally comfortable going there for a drink, or for a casual dinner with family or friends. (There is no physical divider between the bar and the dining area, and I imagine things may get a little more raucous as the evening goes on, so keep that in mind.)
So, bottom line. I'm giving the pizza a D. This was below-average pizza.
But I hasten to add that if I were in the area, looking for a place to stop into for a drink, meal or both, alone or with my family, I'd have no problem stopping at Dobber's. I just wouldn't order a pizza.


Dobbers Sports Bar & Grill, 401 Lakeshore Drive, Canandaigua, NY 14424

Monday - Friday 11 am - midnight
Saturday 11 am - 1 am
Sunday noon - 10 pm

Luca Brothers, East Rochester

Number 108 Main Street in East Rochester has been home to a pizzeria for some years. In June 2011, I did a post on Chris's Village Way, which I thought was good enough to rate a B, but it's since closed.
In its place comes Luca Brothers.which opened in 2014. I've been there a couple of times now.
I've wanted to like this place, given their stated commitment to authentic Italian pizza, by way of New York, but I haven't been that happy with what I've gotten.
I've had slices at Luca Brothers three times now, and each time I've gotten an underdone slice with a few browned areas underneath. The crust seemed underbaked and doughy. This does not fit with what I think of as New York style or authentic Neapolitan style pizza, which is what they claim to strive for.
In Luca's favor, the slices I've had have been well balanced, and the toppings tasted good. The sauce was nice and tomatoey with a touch of salt, the cheese was nicely melted, and the pepperoni was crisp. But the first thing that hits your tastebuds is the crust, and it just wasn't good.
First time around, I didn't get my slice rewarmed, and I thought maybe that was the problem. Pale and soft crust. Second and third times, I got it rewarmed, but then it just came out brittle, dry and flavorless. It's a shame, because as I said, the toppings were not too bad at all. Just not enough to save the poor crust.
Maybe a full pie, later in the day, would be much better. Maybe at lunchtime, the oven just wasn't hot enough. But I can only rate what I got, and if they chose to put out these slices at lunchtime, well, that's their decision. I hope they start putting out better pizza than this, but I have to give these a D.

Luca Brothers, 108 Main St., East Rochester
(585) 310-7201

Mon. - Thu. 11 a.m. - 10 p.m., Fri. & Sat. 11 a.m. - midnight, Sun. noon - 9 p.m.

Bazil's

If you've ever seen ads on TV for Mario's, you may have noticed that they tend to run with ads for another Italian restaurant, Bazil. That's because they're both part of the same local restaurant group owned by the Daniele family. My impression has always been that Mario's is the more "formal" of the two, while Bazil is more casual.
In late 2011, I did a post about Mario's, and while I liked the restaurant and the food generally, I gave the pizza a C-minus, primarily because the crust was not so good; in fact, I wondered if it was a frozen crust.
So I must admit that I didn't walk into Bazil's with terribly high hopes. And - I'm talking about the pizza here, not the restaurant or the other food - even so, I was disappointed.
Before I get to the pizza, let me mention this. My wife and I were both struck by how similar it was to Olive Garden. Similar decor, same endless salad bowl -- if you'd taken me there blindfolded, then taken off the blindfold and told me I was in an Olive Garden restaurant, I'd have believed it, easily.
My wife wondered why they wouldn't try to distinguish themselves more from a competitor. I figured that Bazil is just following the basic formula for a casual Italian restaurant, and it seems to be working for them, since the place was packed.
OK, on to the pizza. I ordered a "traditional Margherita" with the addition of artichokes. Not everybody likes artichokes, but I've grown to enjoy their salty tanginess on a pizza.
Again, the crust was reminiscent of - and maybe was - a frozen crust. In fact, the whole pizza seemed like a store-bought frozen pizza The crust was thin and dry, with a too-perfectly formed, dry lip around the perimeter. The underside was generally pale but marked here and there by darker spots.
Appearances aside, the proof is in the eating, and this was not good. Dry and flavorless, the crust was like a frozen pizza that's sat in your freezer for too long. If this wasn't frozen, then they must be doing something very wrong in the kitchen, to get it to come out this way.
The toppings didn't help much. The cheese was not so much burnt as dried out, like cheese that's been sitting for so long that much of the liquid has evaporated. Even many of the artichoke bits seemed dry. Sometimes places put on the tough outer layers of the artichokes, but that wasn't the issue here. These were just dried out. A sprinkling of chopped tomatoes and dried basil didn't help much either. Though this isn't that important, the toppings were also unevenly distributed, more toward one side of the pizza than the other.
The sad thing was that the other food we ordered was good. This was another example of a place that makes generally good food, but then adds pizza to the menu, thinking, I guess, that's it easy to make pizza.
Well, it is easy to make pizza. It's just not that easy to make good pizza. It's not the most difficult thing you'd ever do in a kitchen, either, but it takes more than just adding a few toppings to a frozen crust and popping it in the oven.
Is it possible to expect to be disappointed? That might make a good Buddhist Kōan. But I did, and I was.
I liked Bazil, in general. Our other food was good, and the service was very good. We had a good time.
And truth be told, if I hadn't been there specifically for blog purposes, I never would've ordered pizza. Unless a place specializes in pizza or has a reputation for great pizza, when I go to an Italian restaurant I'm generally going with pasta. That's one of the drawbacks of writing this blog - I often feel stuck with ordering pizza, even though my natural inclination might be to get something else.
So I will re-emphasize that my letter grade is not a judgment on the restaurant, but only on this pizza. And this pizza was not too good. It wasn't even average, and I have to give it a D.

Bazil Restaurant, 1384 Empire Blvd, Rochester, NY 14609
(585) 697-2006
Mon. - Thu.4:30 - 9:30, Fri. 4:30 - 10:00, Sat. noon -10:00, Sun. noon - 9:00

SUNY College at Brockport

I've done some posts on pizza at local colleges, including the University of Rochester, Nazareth, and RIT.
I haven't seen any indication that St. John Fisher has pizza on a regular basis that's available to non-residents, so that's not on my radar screen. But the last local college I wanted to check out is SUNY Brockport.
So far, my college pizza tour has been disappointing. None have had any pizza as good as a local prep school, McQuaid Jesuit. Would I finally strike gold at Brockport?
In a word, no.
I started off at TRAX,which according to the Brockport website is "[l]ocated on the ground floor of Harrison Hall, [and] features made-to-order subs, fresh dough pizza, and Buffalo-style chicken wings. TRAX is the most popular retail operation on campus."
Most popular? Surely not for the pizza. From the three pizzas available (one of which was a cheese pie that was clearly past its prime) I chose a pepperoni slice and a specialty, Mediterranean slice. The pies were cut into very narrow slices -- sixteen to a pie, I believe. And they sell for $2.30 to $2.50 a slice. I thought you were supposed to pay less at a state school. Maybe that's just for tuition. Kind of like air fares:  you get a seemingly good deal up front, but then they nickel-and-dime you on everything else, whether it's your carry-on bag or the food.
And both slices were bad, frankly. The crust was soft and oily, and the dried-out gyro-type meat on the specialty slice did it no favors. The cheese was, well, adequate, and the sauce on the pepperoni slice had gone MIA.
Sometimes as I'm eating a slice of pizza, a word pops into mind. This time it was "horrid." I don't mean to slam them unnecessarily, but that word literally came to me as I was eating these. And I didn't finish them. The best advice I can give about TRAX is to make tracks from there, quickly.
My next stop was Carmen's at Union Square in the Seymour College Union. I got a Margherita slice.
I guess it met that description, generally. It was topped with cheese, diced tomatoes and shredded basil, which qualifies it as a Margherita. But it, too, was a disappointment.
Again, the crust was soft, and more pale than the slices I got at TRAX. It wasn't greasy, just soft and unenjoyable. Even the edge, which sometimes can salvage an otherwise bad slice, was soft and chewy. It had the texture of a leftover pizza slice that's been reheated in a microwave. Maybe some people like it that way. I don't.
The toppings were OK at best. A thick but small area of melted mozzarella was topped with some shreds of basil and a few chunks of diced tomato. There wasn't much flavor to speak of in any of it.
Fortunately for Brockport students, there are several better places in town. As with a lot of college towns, Brockport is home to a bunch of pizzerias, including Main Street, Perri's, Avanti, Mark's, Cordello's and Marvin Mozzeroni's. I'm not going to rank them here, but I'd take any of them over these on-campus places.
With good reason, colleges have tried in recent years to boost their food offerings. It's kind of like airlines. People may not choose an airline, or a college, based on the food, but it's a definite plus to serve better food. And among foods that college students don't prepare for themselves (in other words, not including ramen or box mac 'n' cheese), pizza has to rank near or at the top.
If I were a Brockport student or employee, I wouldn't be eating the pizza at either TRAX or Carmen's. There may be good food at Brockport, but this wasn't it. These get a D.
TRAX
Harrison Hall, ground floor
Noon - 1 a.m. daily

Carmen's
Seymour College Union
Mon. - Thu. 7:30 a.m. - 6 p.m., Fri. 7:30 a.m. - 3 p.m.

Cafe Sorelle at Nazareth College

Not long ago, I published a post about the pizza at the University of Rochester's "Pizza Pi" operation. I wasn't too impressed, and gave it a D.
But I figured that the U of R couldn't be the only local college trying to boost its pizza offerings (I did review RIT back in 2010, but I haven't been back since), so I started looking around local college websites. And I discovered that Nazareth College's Cafe Sorelle features Portabella's, which offers "handmade wood-fired pizza and panini."
Hmm. Wood-fired pizza? At Nazareth? Really? I was a little skeptical, but this was obviously worth investigating.
I hate to say it, but my skepticism was justified. First off, take a look at that oven. Do you see any wood in there? Neither did I. Maybe the oven is capable of handling wood, and maybe, at times, it does house a wood fire, but on this visit, it was nothing but a gas fire.
OK, well, I'm willing to overlook that if the pizza's good. False advertising issues aside, a gas oven is certainly capable of turning out excellent pizza.
But this pizza was far from excellent. There were three slice pies available. One of them was a pepperoni pie (pictured), but although I often go for a pepperoni slice, this one didn't look so good. It resembled a typical convenience-store pizza, kind of thick, with dried-out cheese along the edge, and, well, just not very appealing.
So I got a plain cheese slice and a "Greek" slice, both of which seemed fresher, as well as thinner. The "thinner" part wasn't decisive for me, but they did look thinner than the rather stale-looking pepperoni pie.
The top side of these slices didn't look half bad, but the bottom was a different story. They had that oily look and medium-brown color that signals to me that this is not going to be a great slice of pizza. It's the difference between dough that has baked on a hot surface, and dough that has almost fried in the presence of oil. Maybe some people like it the latter way. I don't. Especially with a thin-crust pie.
The underside showed that the crust had been docked, i.e., punctured with small holes to prevent big bubbles from forming. The crust varied in thickness, from very thin near the tip to medium-to-thick closer to the edge.
Things didn't get better on top, I'm afraid. The cheese was leathery. It had melted and congealed, and lost whatever melty smoothness it previously had. The cheese slice had a thin layer of tomato sauce underneath the cheese, but it added little other than some red color.
On the positive side, the toppings on the Greek slice were quite good, with tangy feta cheese and salty kalamata olives. But this was a case of good toppings on a bad crust. And good toppings can never save a bad crust. Contrary to what you would expect from so-called wood-fired pizza, even the edge on this slice was underdone; no charring, crackling or crispness whatsoever.
One of the sad aspects of this pie is that even without a true wood-fired oven, they should be able to turn out a better pizza than this. I've had better slices from convenience stores. I give this a D.
Oh, and while I was there, I stopped by another food location at Nazareth, The Roost, which advertises "focaccia pizza." Their website states that the Roost is "most renowned for their pizza."
On walking in, I didn't see any pizza available, until I noticed  a few cold squares sitting on a counter off to one side. They looked even less appetizing than what I'd just had, so I passed. Maybe they were left over from the day before, although it's hard to believe that they wouldn't toss them at the end of the day. The Nazareth website does state that the Roost is "a great place to stop by in the evening," but it opens at 11:30 a.m.; if pizza isn't made until later in the day, they should say so.
For students, Lourdes Dining Hall also has the Hearth Stone Oven, offering "homemade pizza," but obviously I couldn't try that. I wouldn't expect much, though.
Understandably, colleges are trying to boost their food offerings. I suspect that students today are more likely to have transportation and to live off-campus, and that there are more and better eateries around college campuses these days. And pizza is a must. So I get that colleges want to offer better pizza.
The problem is, it seems like some colleges are just offering better-sounding pizza. "Wood fired," "artisanal," "gourmet," "handmade," "homemade," and so on ... how about just good, basic pizza?
If you're in between classes, and you've only got a half hour to grab something to eat, you're pretty much stuck with what's available on campus. That's probably enough to keep these kinds of operations in business. But if you've got the time and the transportation, there's better pizza to be had, not far away.
Cafe Sorelle, Golisano Academic Center, Nazareth College
Mon. - Thu. 7:30 a.m. - 8:30 p.m., Fri. 7:30 a.m. - 2:00 p.m. Closed weekends.

Pizza Pi, University of Rochester

As college students return to school, I figured it would be a good time to review some of the options on and near the local campuses. I've covered most if not all of the RIT places before - check the RIT label on the left sidebar - so this week I'm covering two options for students at the University of Rochester.
We'll start at ground zero, in other words, right on campus. Pizza Pi is one option at The Commons, which is essentially a food court and your most likely option if you just want a quick lunch or bite to eat between classes.
I think colleges have been making an effort in recent years to improve their food offerings - if you (or your parents) are forking over $20 to $40,000 a year or more, it seems like the least they can do - so I was cautiously optimistic about Pizza Pi.
Alas, it was unfounded optimism. I arrived around noon, so I figured there'd be heavy turnover and fresh slices. And I guess my slice was pretty fresh. It just wasn't very good.
There were a few pies to choose from, cheese, pepperoni, I think a veggie pie and some specialty pie, but I went with a basic cheese slice.
The crust was thin, though not ultra thin. Its pale bottom was dotted with dark brown spots, obviously from the pan in which it had baked. I surmise that where there were holes in the pan, the dough was touching the oven deck, resulting in the heavy browning. Regardless, there was quite a contrast between those browned spots and the rest of the crust.
On the plus side, the crust wasn't oily, and it was actually a little crackled underneath, so it did have a bit of surface crispness. But that couldn't make up for the uninteresting crust, which, though not gummy, smacked of undercooked dough.
Up top, the cheese, like the underside, was dotted with brown spots. Unless you like your pizza well done, it was overcooked. When I bit into the slice, the cheese peeled off easily, like a thin layer of melted and cooled plastic.
The sauce was rather dried out, which made it difficult to properly evaluate its flavor, and there were a few granules of sprinkled cheese on top of everything. The slice was rounded out by a thin lip that was crunchy but uninteresting, with what I can best describe as a flat flavor.
Well. What can I say? The U of R is a fine school, its students pay pretty hefty tuition, and from what I've read, they've invested in some very good pizza ovens. And this is the best they can do?
Well, no, it's not. They can and should do better. It can't be that difficult. I think they owe their students better than this.
Before I finish, let me add that the server was very courteous and friendly. I wish every pizzeria server was that nice. So I had no problem with the staff.
But the pizza rates a D.
Pizza Pi, The Commons, University of Rochester
The Commons dining area is open 8:30 a.m. - midnight Mon. - Fri., and 11 a.m. - midnight on weekends. I'm not sure if Pizza Pi is open throughout those hours.

Charcoal Corral, Perry

Over the weekend, I stopped at Charcoal Corral near Silver Lake. I've driven by this place, a little south of Perry off Route 39, many times and always wondered what it was all about.
Well, what it is, is an 18-hole mini-golf course, a fast-food restaurant and pizzeria, an ice cream parlor, a game arcade, and a drive-in theater. And on Friday and Saturday nights, they have giant inflatables for the kids.
Now obviously that's not going to appeal to everybody. But for a couple with a 10-year-old, on a sunny Saturday afternoon, it was a nice enough way to spend a couple of hours.
We started off with a round of mini-golf, and though I'm no connoisseur, their course was one of the better ones I've played on. If you never play mini golf, you may be wondering how one can one be better than another, but what I mean is that the holes were well maintained, with some interesting angles - not just a bunch of 2x4 boxes - and the grounds were attractive, by mini-golf standards, with an Old West theme, running water, and real flowers. It's not Oak Hill, but it's nice. 
Following the golf game (I won) we headed indoors for lunch. My wife and daughter ordered from the grill counter, while I made a beeline for the pizzeria, which is in a separate room.
I had three slice choices, cheese, pepperoni, and the pizza of the week, chicken-bacon-ranch. I went with a slice of pepperoni.
It was, not surprisingly, basic convenience-store-style pizza. I did see the counter guy stretching the dough by hand, so this wasn't a prebaked shell, but it wasn't particularly good.
The bottom was a little oily to the touch, with a pancake-like bottom. It wasn't awful, but it wasn't great. The interior was OK, with some rising evident, but the crust was pretty much just a base for the toppings.
And the toppings weren't all that good either. Very basic tomato sauce, topped with mozzarella that had melted in place rather than spread together, suggesting that it wasn't the greatest cheese to begin with. The pepperoni was decent, thin sliced and medium spicy, and the whole thing was dusted with dried herbs.
Charcoal Corral does have a surprisingly lengthy menu, with subs, grilled items, salads, and wings. And the adjoining ice cream parlor has a lot of flavors of Perry's ice cream, including, on this occasion, the rarely-seen Fireball. I wasn't in the mood for ice cream, so I passed it up, but it's good, if you like hot cinnamon.
Before I wrap up, let me say that I wouldn't go out of my way to review a place like this, but this is a blog, after all, which means I post about pizza I've tried lately. And since I stopped here, and had pizza, I'm posting about it.
I did like Charcoal Corral generally. It's a nice spot for a family outing, or for a bite to eat - my daughter's sub and my wife's salad were both pretty good, the ice cream was fine, and like the golf course, the indoor areas were clean and well maintained. But the pizza rates a D, I'm afraid. Good enough to finish, but that's about it.
Charcoal Corral and Silver Lake Drive-In Theater, 7037 Chapman Ave., Perry, NY
585-237-3040 (Drive-In 585-237-3372)
Sun. - Thu. 11 a.m. - 11 p.m., Fri. & Sat. till midnight

Glengarry Inn, Fairport

In September 2011, I did a post about The Argyle Grill at Eagle Vale golf course. It was OK, a sort of French-bread pizza that rated a C+. Probably not something I'd go back for, though.
However, in looking over the Eagle Vale website, I did notice that they also have a more formal restaurant, the Glengarry Inn, which also has pizza on its menu. Since the Grill and the Inn are separate facilities, and the menus are otherwise quite different from each other, I figured the pizzas were probably not alike, either. The Glengarry website also describes their pizza as "brick oven pizza," which sounded like a positive sign. So off I went, for dinner with my wife.
The Glengarry Inn has seven specialty pizzas on the menu. My wife assumed I'd go for the "New York Traditional," topped with tomato sauce, mozzarella and pepperoni, but with, for lack of a better term, "gourmet" pizza, I often gravitate toward more interesting-sounding choices. In this case, I opted for the Tuscadore, with prosciutto, black olives, Roma tomatoes, artichoke hearts & mozzarella.
Sad to say, what I got fell well short of my hopes and expectations. As usual, the culprit was the crust. 
I think the photos pretty much tell the story. Not only did this seem like a premade crust, but it wasn't even good as premade crusts go. It was neither crisp nor soft, neither rigid nor supple, but just lifeless, like a stale flatbread that had been heated up for several minutes in the oven. That's really all I can find to say about it.
The toppings were better, but not nearly enough to save this pizza. And even they weren't outstanding - the black olives were, I believe, of the canned variety. Canned olives are OK, in a pinch, but I expected better. Other than that, the toppings were decent, but again, not enough to compensate for the dull crust.
What made this particularly surprising is that the rest of our food was quite good, and I really would like to go back sometime to try some of Glengarry's other dishes. Frankly my wife and I were both amazed that a restaurant that aims this high would even offer such poor pizza.
If you're interested, Glengarry's other pizzas include a Greek pizza with feta cheese, spinach, Kalamata olives, Roma tomatoes, and extra virgin olive oil, a "California" (arugula, goat cheese, grape tomatoes and pine nuts), "Adirondack" chicken (diced chicken breast, wild mushrooms, Bermuda onion, roasted peppers & gorgonzola), a "Sicilian" white pizza with fresh garlic, herbs, mozzarella & ricotta, and a "Mediterranean" with extra virgin olive oil, artichokes, pepperoncini, sundried tomato, and mozzarella.
As I said, I would genuinely like to return to the Glengarry Inn. The menu included a number of tempting beef, chicken, fish and pasta dishes. My wife enjoyed her scallops, and other diners' food looked far more appetizing than mine. Our server was very capable, friendly but not intrusive, the atmosphere was pleasant, refined but not stuffy, and the live piano music was enjoyable. But the pizza? The pizza, I'm afraid, gets a D.
Glengarry Inn, 4400 Nine Mile Line Road, Fairport, NY 14450
598-3820
Mon. - Thu. 4 p.m. - 10 p.m., Fri. & Sat. 4 p.m. - 11 p.m. Closed Sun.

Mama Mittsy's, Frontier Field

Certain things in life just go together, and baseball goes with hot dogs. I can't say I eat a lot of hot dogs, but when I go to a ball game, I almost always have a hot dog (brown mustard and sauerkraut, in case you were wondering).
But in the interests of thoroughness, I've wanted for some time to try the pizza at Frontier Field. Like a lot of ballparks these days, Frontier Field has boosted its food offerings. There's nothing particularly exotic or upscale--you won't find sushi or dry-aged steaks here--but you can get BBQ, roast beef sandwiches, and subs, in addition to more traditional fare like soft pretzels and nachos.
And there's pizza. I've held off trying it, for a couple of reasons. Number one, as I said, I generally go for hot dogs and maybe a bag of peanuts at a ball game. Number two, I figured it would suck. I assumed it would be convenience store-type pizza on a squishy, or crunchy/oily, premade crust.
But then I read that the dough comes from Di Paolo, one of Rochester's venerable Italian bakeries, and, anyway, I just figured it was time to suck it up and have pizza instead of a hot dog, in the interests of making this blog as thorough as possible. So when I attended a Red Wings game the other day, I got a slice.
On the whole, I was pleasantly surprised. And yet I have to give this slice a D. How can that be?
Let's start with the crust. The underside was heavily floured, and scored with screen marks. It was also quite pale, and soft. In terms of thickness, I'd call it thin to medium.
But I could tell that it was made from good dough. If you can imagine somebody being given very good bread or pizza dough and then cooking it at too low a temperature for too short a time, you'll have an idea of what this was like. It tasted good, and had a good, chewy texture, but it had been a disservice in the preparation and baking.
In contrast to the underdone bottom, the cheese was browned. I can see why the pizzamaker took this out of the oven when he did, given the brownness of the cheese. I could theorize, or speculate, about why the top would cook so much faster than the bottom, but for whatever reason, the top was fully cooked while the bottom still had a ways to go.
The flavor was pretty good. The cheese seemed to be all mozzarella, and though it was a little more brown than I would've liked, it wasn't hard or dried out.
The cheese also covered only a small portion of the slice; there was a large gap between the cheese and the outer edge. Either it hadn't been applied close to the edge, or it migrated during the baking process.
The sauce had good flavor, and was well balanced between tomatoey sweetness and tanginess. It did reach the border of the cornicione, but was dried out where it wasn't covered with cheese.
Finally, there's the price. I don't usually figure the price into my ratings, but $3.50 for this slice was too high to go unmentioned. I know everything at a sports venue (hot dogs included) is overpriced, but if I'm going to compare this slice to other pizza in our area, I think that deserves a mention.
So, this had the fundamental makings of good pizza, but it was poorly executed. I'm not blaming the person who made it - I'm sure he was following the instructions he'd been given, and was subject to the constraints of when to show up for work, turn on the oven, etc. But all in all, this was below average for local pizza, so I'm giving it--with some regret at what could have been--a D. For my next Red Wings game, I'm back to hot dogs.
Mama Mittsy's, Frontier Field
Open during Red Wings games

104 Pizza & More, Williamson

On Route 104 in Williamson, about halfway between Webster and Sodus in Ontario County, you'll find 104 Pizza & More. It occupies half of a gas station, but it's a full pizzeria - this isn't just a gas station with warmed-over slices sitting under a heat lamp.
On a recent stop, I got a single cheese slice, which was basically one quarter of an entire (medium, I think) pizza.
The bottom of the slice was very, though unevenly, dark, and heavily criss-crossed by screen marks. The medium-to-thick crust was rather soft. It was topped with a blanket of browned, chewy mozzarella, and a thick red sauce marked by a cooked-tomato flavor.
This was one of those slices that was better along the edge than in the middle. The edge had a nice bit of crunch and some breadlike flavor and aroma, but the rest of the slice was too soft, too well done, and a bit too oily for my taste. The cheese was also cooked past its optimum point, and had become somewhat dried out and lost its stretchiness. On the plus side, the slice as a whole had pretty good flavor, and the components were well balanced.
104 Pizza & More has quite an extensive menu, with seventeen specialty pizzas and 21 toppings, including such unusual items as tandoori chicken, egg, and sweet corn. All pizzas can also be ordered with either traditional, garlic or barbeque sauce. They also do wings, calzones, hot and cold subs, appetizers, and two dessert pizzas (cherry cheesecake and "mad monkey," with pudding, chocolate chips, sliced bananas and cream cheese or frosting).
It's an intriguing menu, and if I were in the area I'd go back to check it out more. But I wasn't wowed by this slice. It had some potential - as I said, the flavor was good, and the edge of the crust, at least, had some good qualities - but it was really dragged down by the overcooking and the soft crust. I have to give it a D.
104 Pizza & More, 3885 State Rt. 104, Williamson. (315) 589-8483

Sun. - Thu. 11 a.m. - 11 p.m., Fri. & Sat. 11 a.m. - 2 a.m.

Jump Club

OK, this is a joke, right? I'm reviewing pizza from Jump Club, a kids' indoor playground-cum-game arcade? Is is April Fools Day already?
Well, look. I went there, and I had pizza, so why not review it? Maybe I can help some other parents facing a decision of whether and what to eat while their child literally bounces off the walls at Jump Club.
I had off from work on Martin Luther King Day, so my wife and I took our 9-year-old daughter to Jump Club.We joined a few other parents in the small dining area adjacent to the "cafe," while our daughter and the other kids climbed, jumped, and bounced off the walls and each other in the play area.
Eventually I started to get hungry, so I sauntered over to the food counter, where I could choose from the usual suspects at these kinds of places:  nachos, burgers, hot dogs, popcorn, and, yes, pizza.

Hunger will drive just about any animal to eat that which he would ordinarily pass up, and so it was with me. You're not allowed to bring outside food or drink into Jump Club, and, if you want pizza at least, that's with good reason. Otherwise, you'd probably grab a slice at Mark's next door. I'm not the biggest fan of Mark's, but I would've much preferred a slice from there.
Not that this was awful. But it wasn't great, and it was overpriced. I frankly don't recall the exact price, but I believe it was over $3. What I do remember is thinking, right after I bought it, that I would never buy a slice of pizza here again.
One thing that annoyed me, too, was that the person behind the counter simply took the next slice from the pie, which also happened to be the smallest slice. Ideally, of course, all the slices will be the same size, but it doesn't always work that way. To me, it's an unwritten rule that if I get a single slice, and some slices are noticeably bigger than others, the person serving me should choose a larger slice. It may mean that somebody's going to get stuck with the smallest slice in the end, but my corollary to that rule is that by the time you get down to the last slice, a new, fresh pie should be available, and you start serving from that pie. That last, little slice from the earlier pie doesn't get served. That goes to the staff's lunch. That may be a completely unreasonable idea that's only a rule in my mind, but what can I say? That's how I feel about it.
So between the price and the diminutive size of my slice, I probably wasn't in the best mood by the time I took my first bite. But I'd like to think that I still had an open mind, as far as the pizza was concerned.
The crust was not terrible, but it wasn't terribly good, either. The underside was dry, which was good - in other words, it wasn't oily - and it had noticeably risen along the edge. But the dimpled bottom (clearly it had been baked on a perforated pan) wasn't crisp at all, and it was very unevenly stretched. Near the tip, the crust was quite thin, and toward the edge it ballooned into a very thick, and wide, band of dough, which was bubbly despite the "docking" (tiny perforations) and which caused the cheese to migrate toward the center of the pie.
That in turn caused the sauce on the denuded outer half of the slice to evaporate, which left behind some color and a dehydrated, tomatoey flavor but almost no moisture. The cheese, meanwhile, was basic aged mozzarella, but it was well browned and had lost its suppleness and stringiness.
Having said all that, well, this wasn't an awful slice of pizza. Maybe it's a testament to how hard it is to truly screw up the combination of dough, tomato sauce and cheese, which as near-perfect a culinary combination as mankind has yet devised. But this was flawed in several respects, and certainly below average for a Rochester-area slice of pizza. It gets a D from me.
Jump Club, 3450 Winton Place, Rochester, NY 14623 — (585) 730-8900
Open Daily 10 am - 8 pm (closed many holidays - check their website for details)