I have rarely ever been able to throw an Alexander Hamilton to a cashier for a whole pizza. When I have been fortunate enough to get cheap pizza, the product stoops as low as the price, leaving me more upset than if I had forked over a few extra dollars for a tastier option.
The Lantern’s photo editor, Mackenzie Shanklin, suggested Jet’s Pizza to me in a very confident manner. When I said I had never heard of it — the closest shop to me back home is 45 minutes away from my house — she was in disbelief, exclaiming that it had to be propelled to the next review.
I obliged, and to my surprise, I was not disappointed.
In my mind, this pizza struck out looking on three pitches down the middle. It was inexpensive, square-shaped and deep-dish — a recipe for disaster in my pizza-eating endeavors.
However, Jet’s bashed a home run out of the park, taking a slow jog around the bases and admiring the crowd in the process.
My first bite greeted me with a combination of fluffy dough, sweet sauce, cheese and pepperoni and had a fairly decent crunch.
I mulled it over while chewing to try and find a criticism, but all I could come up with was that the sauce tasted slightly out of the ordinary and there could have been more cheese.
Then I set my sights on the deep-dish crust, which had a brown layer of burnt crisp from where it sat in the pan while cooking. At first glance, it looked like a nice slice of garlic bread that would accompany a spaghetti and meatball dinner.
The crust I ordered was advertised as “butter crust,” which I’m assuming means they brush a butter coating on the outer edge to soften the rough texture and add some flavor. I liked the crunch in the thick layer, but the butter didn’t do anything extraordinary for me. It cost Jet’s a couple points in the final score for the level of grease left on my hand.
I don’t know if I would call Jet’s and Little Caesar’s sister companies — similar to Carl’s Jr. and Hardee’s — but man, if they aren’t strikingly similar. Both companies offer cheap, similar-looking deep-dish pizzas and keep their pickup orders in the same shelved heating insulator.
Overall, Jet’s flew me to the moon with its Detroit-style, deep-dish slice for a good price.
Rating: 7.9/10
