Our hometown was only 10 square miles, and we had 9 pizza
joints from which to choose! If you had
a hankering for a pizza, one was just a phone call away, anytime from 11 a.m.
to 11 p.m.!
And our hometown wasn’t much different from others within
the NY/NJ/PA area. Whether we were visiting Saugerties
(New York Mid-Hudson Region), Lodi (North Jersey), Stroudsburg (Northeast
Pennsylvania), we found terrific pizza parlors, all which ran “specials” where
you could get a 16-18 inch hot, bubbling, delectable cheese pie with the
perfect crust for 10 bucks or less! It was
a dream come true for a cheese-eating rat like me!
We have been here in the Black Hills for nearly four months, and
since the day we arrived I have been in pursuit of a perfect pizza.
Our first stop was Lintz Bros. Pizza in Hermosa, which came
highly recommended by several folks. My
first thought was what does someone with a German surname know about
pizza? But my pizza craving overtook
my good senses. We traversed in pouring
rain and high winds to arrive at 5 p.m. on a Sunday evening, only to find the
place packed! Popular joint—a good sign
that the pizza is good! A review of
the menu shows there are lots of decisions to make: thick crust, thin crust; gluten-free; extra
toppings; 12”, 14”, or 16”. Then we
reviewed the “specialty” pie list, which included:
- Taco Pizza.
Lettuce, tomato, refried beans, salsa, and everything you put on a regular taco. Looked like a salad on top of a Boboli when we
glimpsed the order of the folks next to us!
- Flaming German Samoan. Canadian ham, sausage, pineapple, sauerkraut, and jalapenos. WHAT! Sounds like they needed to clean out their fridge and instead of throwing stuff away, threw it on a pizza! And these “specialty” pies cost about $24 each!
We settled on a thin crust, 16” pie with just one topping,
CHEESE. It arrived hot, but oddly cut
into “squares” rather than “slices”. It
was tasty, but couldn’t compare to what we have enjoyed in the past, not to mention we were still hungry after we left. And it cost us $16 for this pizza! I initially awarded this pizza just a 3-cheese rating. However, after our next stop, Lintz Bros.
Pizza moved up to a 4-cheese rating.
Pie for the People in Keystone boasts that its two owners
hail from California and New York, so they know everything about good
pizza. WRONG! WHAT A FIASCO!
We ordered the Margherita Specialty Pie. We are pizza purists and have enjoyed this
type of pie at numerous other places.
Everywhere we ordered this pizza previously, it contained Fresh Mozzarella, and
most times it consisted of Buffalo Mozzarella, which has a completely different
texture than regular mozzarella. So
being here in the Black Hills where buffalo are abundant, we were looking
forward to getting the “real deal”. The
pizza arrived so dried out, you could use it as a frisbee, throw it at the
wall, and it wouldn’t even crack! Not
only was it not buffalo mozzarella, it wasn’t even fresh mozzarella! And for this we paid $23, $6 more than a
regular cheese pie! This place gets my
Rotten Tomato Award—the absolute WORST pizza I have ever eaten in all my life!
When Aunt Laurie and Uncle Rob visited recently, they took
me to Eno’s Pizza in Keystone for lunch.
They knew how frustrated I was and how much I was craving a good pizza. Once again, very disappointing. Not to mention we ordered a calzone and it
didn’t even have ricotta cheese in it! A travesty!
A pizza consists of only 3 parts: crust, cheese, and tomato sauce. How hard is it to get it right? Apparently, it is no easy feat for the pizza
establishments in the Black Hills.
Bottom Line: If you
want a decent-tasting, reasonably-priced pizza in the Black Hills area, stop in
the frozen food section of Walmart and buy a DiGiorno’s !
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