Steve, Danny, Kelly and I ended up at Arris’ Pizza after a failed attempt at trying another place in town (it had closed). I’ve been to Arris’ in the past but it has been a while.
We got there right before the big lunch crowd appeared and I think we may have gotten the last table. I remembered from previous visits that this is a popular place and there is often a wait for a table.
Kelly got a Gyro since he didn’t want to share pizza with the rest of us. I believed he liked it pretty well. We other 3 decided on 2 large pizzas – one split ½ and ½ so we could try a variety of ingredients. We ended up with the following: Full House Special ($16.25) and a ½ Sweet & Sassy and ½ Black & Blue Supreme ($16). We thought 2 large pizzas would be just enough for 3 hungry guys, but there was about ½ of a pizza left over even after eating more than we should have – they were pretty substantial.
The House Special is the one I focused on and it was the one that had Arris’ homemade Greek sausage – which was the highlight of the pizza. The sausage is in rather large chucks and for the most part, each piece of pizza had one large chunk of sausage on it. The sausage had a mild flavor and the Greek seasonings made for a really tasty topping – the large pieces added to the experience. Other toppings included ground beef, pepperoni, green peppers, onions and mushroom. This was my favorite of the 3 styles we had this day.
I did not try the Black and Blue as I do not like blue cheese – that pizza had black olives, blue cheese, tomatoes, and the Greek sausage. I also had a few pieces of the Sweet & Sassy – Canadian bacon, breakfast bacon, pineapple, onions and jalapeños. One of my favorite pizza combos includes pineapple & jalapeños. However, I didn’t care for this pizza as the two types of bacon overwhelmed the other ingredients – leaving the pizza too salty and too smoky for my tastes.
The crust on the pizza is better than average. It was almost like a thin crust ‘Chicago-style’ crust which is more flakey than doughy. It was not crisp all across the bottom, but the edges were nice and crispy and it did hold itself up when you picked up a slice. The crust had a really good flavor – especially the crispy edges.
Speaking of slices & edges – Arris’ does the square-cut style when cutting their pizzas – I don’t like that! I feel like I get ripped off when I end up with a square piece from the middle of the pizza that has no edge crust on it. Fortunately for me – Steve and Danny volunteered to eat the middle pieces so I could always get some edge crust on my slices.
Service wasn’t outstanding but it wasn’t terrible either. At times workers other than our server checked on our drink status and got us refills.
The dining room is fairly large and they have tables spaced out to accommodate groups (there were several on the day we went). There is a small bar area with tall tables in the corner. There is also a wide open kitchen that lets you watch what is going on in there.
Overall, the pizza was a hit and miss for me – a hit on the pizza with Greek sausage, a miss on the pizza with bacon. I’m sure I would like their more standard pizzas just fine. It was also a miss for me on the ‘square’ cut slices.
1332 East Republic Rd – (417) 881-7260
Link to Arris’ Pizza Web Site (with menu)
