Pizza Today - January 2016 - 18

with SCOTT WIENER

man on the street

"Doughn't Let Me Down"
Quality is a never-ending quest - don't rest on your laurels

ate the best pizza of my life on
January 13, 2009. Every detail
of the experience, from the
aroma of the room to the faces of
the couple at the next table, will be
forever embedded in my memory.
Just thinking about the pliant crust
and fruity tomato makes me want to
fly halfway around the world just for
another taste of this destination pizza.
The only trouble is I'd also need a
time machine, because a recent trip to
that very same pizzeria that changed
my life nearly seven years ago has
suddenly left me heartbroken. This
was some of the worst pizza I've ever
had and I'm still working through the

1 8 / P I Z Z AT O D AY. C O M / J A N UA R Y 2 0 1 6

place all along. I must have been blinded
by the hype. My pizza radar is not as finely
tuned as it once was. My friends will never
trust me again. I'm a pretty sympathetic guy,
but it didn't take me long to realize that the
pizzeria was responsible for this disaster --
not me!
I started to think about all the terrible
things that must have contributed to the pizzeria's decline. They've gone downhill. They're
cheaping out on ingredients. The magic they
once had is now gone. They must be under
new management who clearly don't know
what they're doing. All these people who talk
about how great the place is are just sheep
following the masses and I was one of them
-- but not anymore. That's a pretty terrifying
line of thought from a customer who had just
one bad pizza.
The unfortunate course of action for too
many scorned restaurant critic wannabes
would have been to sound the alarm on
online review sites. That's not the way I operate, but my complaints most certainly surfaced during the debriefing with my friends
after we left the pizzeria. I know what you're
thinking: "just point out the bad pizza to the
manager and let her fix the issue right then
and there." But that's a potentially embarrassing process I avoid at all costs. Sometimes
I'd rather choke down a bad pizza than
become known as a nit-picky customer.
If someone had noticed my uneaten pizza
and asked what was wrong, the situation
might have been diffused. Better yet, if the
kitchen had prevented the raw pizza from
ever hitting my table, I would never have had
the opportunity to assume this once mighty
pizzeria had entered its era of collapse. ■

emotional deluge it created.
My initial reaction was one of
denial. "This pizza isn't so bad. I can
just pick off all the extraneous cheese.
I'll eat around the raw parts of the
crust and stash them in my napkin.
My pie is probably just a fluke and
everyone else in the room is enjoying delicious pizza nirvana." I gave
them the benefit of the doubt until
I noticed that everyone else's pizzas
looked just like mine.
By now the damage had been done
and I could feel the disappointment
at the table. After bragging about this
place for seven years, I felt somewhat SCOTT WIENER owns and operates Scott's Pizza
responsible. I was wrong about this
Tours in New York City.

By RICK DAUGHERTY

http://www.PIZZATODAY.COM

Pizza Today - January 2016

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Pizza Today - January 2016