Mark's Pizzeria, Lyell Ave.

From their many area locations and frequent TV ads, we’re all familiar with Mark's Pizzeria. Mark’s started out in Palmyra in 1982, and today has grown to about 40 locations in Western and Central New York. Its 16 Monroe County locations make Mark’s among the biggest local/regional chains around Rochester, and about the biggest that I’ll review. (I have no interest in reviewing national chains, although I might do it for laughs sometime.)
One difficulty in reviewing chains is that you never know if the pizza you get at one location is going to be representative of what you’d find at the others. A place like Domino’s may be able to maintain uniformity throughout its stores, but ironically, smaller chains sometimes seem to have trouble with that. But I’m not about to check out 16 different Mark’s, so I just picked the one on Lyell Avenue more or less at random.
I got two cheese slices, part of a deal that gets you 2 slices and a 20 oz. drink for $6, although I should mention that the soft drinks cooler was nearly empty when I visited. The pizza slices were fairly greasy, and that is consistent with my memories of the handful of times I’ve eaten Mark’s pizza in my life. The undersides were browned and soft, and the slices were foldable, but floppy. The crust was on the thin side, but with a wide, thick, puffy lip along the edge. The lip was a little crisp and had a certain breadiness to it.
The sauce was pretty much a background player here, but had OK flavor, very middle of the road, neither especially sweet, acidic, or herbal. The thick layer of congealed, browned cheese was quite greasy, and a lot of that grease had soaked down to the underside, which was actually shiny with oil. (Not that I like my cheese really stringy, but it occurred to me that these slices didn’t much resemble the one they always show in Mark’s TV ads, with long strings of mozzarella as the slice is being lifted from a pie.)
Mark’s has some 20 pizza toppings to choose from, and several specialty pizzas, none of them especially exotic or bizarre. They also offer wings, salads, hot and cold subs, calzones, burgers and sides.
I wasn’t too impressed by this pizza, but it wasn’t all that bad either. It’s one that, to me, has the potential to be quite good, but on this visit at least, didn’t live up to that potential. The sauce had good flavor, and the outer lip showed some nice breadiness, but the soft, floppy, greasy crust and thick layer of browned, oily cheese brought it down. It’s the sort of pizza that might be satisfying if you’re really hungry or in the mood for a heavy, greasy slice, but for my money there are better choices elsewhere on this stretch of Lyell Ave. I’ll give Mark’s a C-.
Mark’s Pizzeria, 1074 Lyell Ave. @ Glide St. 458-2310
Sun. - Thu. 10:30 a.m. - 10:00 p.m., Fri. & Sat. 10:30 a.m. - midnight
Pizza Guy note:  this location of Mark's has now been replaced by Paradiso Pizza. 

Pudgie's, Irondequoit

Pudgie’s Pizza, Pasta & Subs got its start in Elmira in 1963, and began franchising around 1972. Today its shops stretch from Mansfield, Pa. to Rochester. The two Rochester Pudgie’s, on North Goodman St., and on Titus Ave. in Irondequoit, across from the House of Guitars, have been locally family owned and operated for the past three decades.
I actually stopped at the Goodman St. Pudgie’s a while back, but due to some obvious miscommunication between me and the counter person, I ended up with a “cheese stick” instead of a slice of pizza. So following that abortive attempt to try Pudgie’s pizza, I recently made it up to the Titus Ave. location, which is a "Pudgie's Express," meaning, I guess, that it's strictly takeout or delivery. The Irondequoit Pudgie's forms one apex of a pizza triangle, with Cam’s and Bay Goodman, which are across Titus Ave. from Pudgie's, about a block and a half apart.
I got one cheese and one pepperoni slice. They had a medium thick crust, with a browned, somewhat oily, cratered underside and a soft texture.
The slightly sweet sauce was applied pretty liberally. It had a “cooked” flavor and although it tasted to me as if it had come out of a jar, the flavor was pretty good nonetheless.
The cheese was lightly browned, and formed a solid, but thin layer across the top. The three slices of pepperoni were unremarkable.
Pudgie’s offers a pretty wide variety of pizza toppings, though no “specialty” pizzas as such. Besides their regular 12- and 16-inch pies, they also have 12x12 “deep dish Sicilian” pizza, and thin crust is also available on request. Non-pizza items include the aforementioned cheese sticks, strombolis and calzones, wings, hot subs, fried sides, and a Friday fish fry.
This was one of those pizzas that tasted fine, but fell short, for me, in the crust department. I’m just not a fan of crusts that have that soft, browned, slightly oily underside instead of a nice crisp exterior. So on the whole, it was all right, in a fast-food kind of way. And I will say that the slice that I saved for later made for good next-day refrigerator pizza, as the healthy coating of sauce kept the slice from drying out. Not bad, then, but it didn’t wow me, and I’ll give it a C+.
Pudgie’s Pizzeria Express, 696 Titus Ave., Irondequoit (takeout and delivery only) 544-1310
Tue. - Thu. 11 a.m. - 10 p.m., Fri. & Sat. 11 a.m. - 11 p.m. Closed Sun. & Mon.
Other Rochester location (which offers eat-in facilities) at 1753 N. Goodman St., 266-6605
Pizza Guy Note, Aug. 26, 2010:  the Irondequoit Pudgie's is no longer in business. The Goodman St. location remains open.

Ricci's Family Restaurant, Latta Road

Despite its name, Ricci's is not what I would call a “family restaurant.” Family-run and family-friendly, perhaps, but not a “family restaurant.” They don’t serve breakfast, and there are no gyros on the menu, so that right there pretty much disqualifies it from the family-restaurant category.
Not that I'm complaining. No, it's just that Ricci’s, which opened in 1970 as Ricci's Pizza, is really more of an Italian restaurant, and it’s one of the suprisingly few around here that includes pizza on the menu. I stopped by for dinner recently and got a medium, with pepperoni.
My pizza, which arrived on a shiny, silvery platter, had a medium-to-thick crust that was quite a bit thicker along the edge. The underside bore screen markings, and was baked to a golden brown.
The crust had a little crispness, and the lip was crisp and crunchy. Not surprisingly, since it had just come out of the oven, it had a fresh bready aroma and flavor.
The bright red sauce was moderately applied, and had a tangy, tomatoey flavor. There were some hints of oregano, but I’m not sure if that came from the sauce itself or from the dried oregano that had been sprinkled over the pizza.
Atop the sauce was a solid blanket of melted mozzarella, which was still semi-liquid and stringy when the pizza arrived at my table. Interestingly, the thin slices of pepperoni, which had a mild flavor and were moist and chewy, lay under the cheese. I’ve seen that before - putting the cheese on last, over the other toppings - but I’m not sure that I like that with pepperoni. With a vegetable topping, like bell peppers or fresh garlic, I can see it, since it might keep them from drying out or burning, but pepperoni, I think, benefits from sitting on top of the pizza, so that it can crisp up a bit.
Ricci’s pizza offerings are modest, compared to those you’d find at a full-fledged pizzeria, with “only” ten toppings available. Pizzas come in small, medium and half sheet sizes.
The rest of the menu is dominated by Italian dishes, with a variety of pasta entrees, and all the local favorites like Chicken French, Parmigiana, and Cacciatore, plus greens and beans, calamari, tripe, veal piccata, and shrimp scampi. But it also includes steaks, burgers and hot sandwiches, wings, soups, and a Friday fish fry. There’s a modest dessert menu, and Ricci’s also serves beer and wine.
This was some pretty good pizza, but it occurred to me that when you get pizza at a restaurant, other than a restaurant that really focuses on pizza, you’re apt to get something a little different from what you’d tend to get from a pizzeria. I’m thinking here specifically of the crust and the baking process. I’ve never worked at a restaurant, but I imagine that most of them don’t have specialized pizza ovens, and chances are that the ovens they do have are not set to (if they’re even capable of reaching) the kind of temperature that you would typically find with a commercial pizza oven.
In other words, you’re unlikely to get a really crisp, charred crust on a restaurant pizza, again, with the exception of places like Rocco or Tony D’s that have specialized ovens for that purpose. So you have to bear that in mind when you order, and I’m taking that into consideration here too. This pizza did not have an especially crisp, well-baked crust, and I probably wouldn’t look to Ricci’s for takeout. But it was flavorful, it wasn’t greasy, and it did have some pleasing bready qualities. I’ll peg this one at a B-.
Ricci’s Family Restaurant, 3166 Latta Rd. at Long Pond. 227-6750
Mon. - Thu. 11 a.m. - 10 p.m., Fri. 11 a.m. - 11 p.m., Sat. 4 - 11 p.m., Sun. 4 - 9:30 p.m.
Pizza Guy's note, 11/19/09: I'm told by a reader (whom I consider a reliable source, though I have no confirmation or corroboration of this) that for their first 25 years or so, Ricci's baked their pizzas in cast iron pans, but switched to pans or screens in the mid '90s. The ovens, however, are the same stone deck ovens that Ricci's has been using since 1970.