Parkway Pizza, Minoa

Parkway Pizza has been feeding Minoa, Freemont and Kirkville for 18 years, from a small location on the southern side of the tracks – next to Colonial Laundromat, and what used to be a Smith’s Grocery store. There is just a small bench inside, so this is definitely a carryout and delivery operation only. In good weather, picnic tables are available outside.

The menu indicates that slices are available from opening until 10pm, but on this occasion, a full pizza was reviewed. This was a 12″ medium (a 16″ large is also available), with green peppers, onions, olives and mushrooms on half ($11.16 incl. tax). After about 20 minutes wait time, I hustled home for pictures and tasting.

One of the first things I noticed was a layer of raw flour along some of the edge, and a lot of corn meal on the bottom of the crust. I’ve used cornmeal when baking pizza at home, because it keeps the dough from sticking to the peel. And of course, you need a certain amount of flour to keep the dough from sticking to your counter and your hands while stretching it. But it seems unusual to have THIS much extra flour and cornmeal. Perhaps it was an accident that so much was used, or maybe inexperience. I’ll guess the latter, because the shape of the pizza was a little oblong, and it didn’t quite fit in the box.

Crust texture was a little on the chewy side, well-browned with a subdued crispiness, and just a little bit salty. As happens too often, I found myself searching for signs of sauce, and not succeeding. Some spice flakes were visible under the cheese, so I assume what sauce there was got absorbed into the crust and cheese. Cheese was relatively good, and in reasonable proportion to the crust. Toppings were generally good and fresh, although the mushrooms were from a can.

Still, the overall flavor of this pizza was a little on the bland side. Kind of OK, but uninspiring and with much room for improvement. The Pizza Geek rates it 3 out of 5.

Summary – Pros: crust tasted OK, decent cheese.  Cons: scant sauce, canned mushrooms, excess flour and corn meal.

What do you think? What is your experience with Parkway Pizza? Click the comment link below.

Crust: ***
Sauce: **
Cheese: ****
Toppings: ****
Value: ****
Overall:

Parkway Pizza (web site) – 332 Costello Parkway, Minoa – 656-9000