Which Pizza is Best?

It was a day like any other day… except it wasn’t, because 6 different pizzas were being delivered to my house at the same time, for a pizza taste test!! And I don’t mean we ordered 6 pizzas from one place. I mean 6 different pizzas from 6 different businesses were being delivered at the same time. Don’t believe me?

And let me tell you, if you want to really confuse a delivery driver, have them all show up at the same time as their competitors. They were all so confused, because why would we be ordering from all their competitors too? But once we explained we were having a taste test, that changed. They thought it was awesome and wanted to join in. (We obviously didn’t tell them ahead of time, so their pizza wouldn’t be special in any way.) Some even really started trying to talk theirs up! They were all smiles:

Enough with the fluff, let’s get to the nitty gritty. The reason you’re here:

Which pizza is best?

We couldn’t pick any local chains, because that wouldn’t help you, the reader. And we couldn’t go pick them up, as the first one would be cold by the time we got the last one. We needed the pizzas to be delivered, and all at the same time. So that’s what we did. We ordered them all well in advance and specified we needed them delivered at exactly 6:00.

We decided to order just plain cheese pizza. Because this way no one can claim that one company “has a better pepperoni, but you should have tried our sausage.” And a plain pizza is technically the base of every other pizza you order. So if that’s good, by extension whatever topping you like, if you choose the best pizza, it will be better. Also, none of our panelists will vote something low simply because they didn’t like a certain topping. If you want more info on how we make sure our taste tests are unbiased, please click here.

We also thought that the crust can easily give away which pizza was which so we decided to cut the crust off and have it be it’s own taste test too! That’s right, you get two taste tests for the price of one! You lucky dog, you!

Pizza Taste Test Contestants (Brands):

• Domino’s
• Mr. Jim’s
• Topper’s
• Pizza Hut
• Papa John’s
• Papa Murphy’s
  • Yes this is technically not a delivery place, but a take and bake. We had a panelist take and bake it according to the company’s instructions, and then deliver it at the same time.

There are some heavy hitters in there. And I gotta say, there were some surprising outcomes. Brands I had written off long ago making a comeback, and vise versa. As I said, you get two taste tests in one here. Unfortunately we had a slip up and the results of who came in 2nd, 3rd, and so on are forever lost to the cloud. However, we still have the first and last, which is all you really care about, so here they are!

Crust Winner:

Pizza Hut

Pizza Winner:

Topper’s

And here’s your surprise: Papa John’s came in last place for both! So much for those better ingredients and better pizza, huh?

Interesting insight:

Papa Murphy’s was voted either last or first in the pizza competition by everyone, except for one person, and they voted it in the middle. So it’s a polarizing option.

Topper’s is the most expensive pizza. I’ve always told people they are good, as long as you have a coupon. I guess as long as they back it up with the best pizza, then they are right to charge the most. And Pizza Hut’s crust coming in first (it was hand tossed, not their deep dish, in order to match the others) was surprising! Going into the pizza taste test, everyone said they hadn’t had pizza hut in a long time. It’s time to check them out again.

Hopefully this pizza taste test is helpful and your pizza parties will be even better now.