ACME Pizza (Restaurant Review)
Y’all! I LOVE PIZZA.
Ok, but who doesn’t, right? Pizza can have so many variations that it’s almost impossible to get it wrong. Or can you?
Well, I recently found myself craving a good deep dish pizza. I know what you’re thinking. Where are you going to find a decent Chicago style deep dish in the middle of southern North Carolina? Well to my surprise I found Chicago style deep dish pizza in the middle of nowhere southern NC, Holly Springs to be exact.
You see, I love pizza. I love it in all shapes, colors, and sizes so I will take it anyway I can get it. I suppose I could say that about many things in life but that is a different story and I am a lady that does not kiss and tell. But back to my point, I had a craving for deep dish pizza. I had heard people talk about ACME Pizza and how good their deep dish pizza was so I had to find out for myself. It took me months to finally find the time to make my way to Holly Springs in search of this pizza but I finally did it. Now, I may be exaggerating a bit because Holly Springs is only about a 25 minute drive from Raleigh but for someone who barely has any time for themselves like me it’s hard to find the time in between, work, pilates, walking the dog, cleaning and trying to be a functional member of society to take an hour of my time to drive out for dinner.
Getting to ACME Pizza was not very difficult, it was pretty much a straight drive from Downtown Raleigh to the location. The placement of the restaurant was a bit odd because it appeared to be in a shopping center but there wasn’t much of anything else around it. When we walked in the restaurant was a bit empty, which I suppose it’s a good thing because we wouldn’t have to wait so long for our food. Now, I’m not claiming to be an interior decorator by any means but I am gay so I have opinions when it comes to decor and this decor was lacking. You could say it was a little cheesy there was a sign that had us cracking jokes and rolling our eyes throughout the whole night, “Wine is Sunlight Held together by Water.” I know, eye roll!
We were promptly seated and the waitress was so friendly. She definitely made the dinner experience pleasant. The menu was pretty extensive so we had to take a minute to look over everything. Chase, Jorge and I have been on a fried pickles kick as of lately so we were pleasantly surprised to see fried pickles on the menu. We of course had to order them with an extra side of ranch. Sadly, we dug into them so quick I forgot to snap a picture but I can assure you they were delicious.
Now for the tough part, with the menu being so expansive it was hard to choose what kind of pizza we wanted. There were so many options! The menu has all kinds of non-pizza options too. Not only do they serve pizza but they also have burgers, pasta, calzones and stromboli. The pizzas themselves were a bit pricey with a plain small starting at $17.95 and the specialty starting at $21.70. Luckily they were able to do half and half so my boys ordered half a BBQ Chicken Pizza with was grilled chicken, red onions, mozzarella and a sweet BBQ sauce. I ordered the other half as the ACME Special which was fresh spinach, mushrooms, mozzarella and parmesan.
We finished up our fried pickles and waited…and waited…and waited…
About 30 minutes later the pizza finally arrived. I suppose I can’t complain about the pizza taking so long considering that it has to cook all the ingredients and it is pretty thick but then again I am also inpatient so if you decide to check this place out be sure to order some appetizers and eat them slowly because you will probably have to wait some time for the pizza to cook.
The pizza finally arrived at our table and it was decent sized. We ordered a large which set us back a little over $30 dollars. Maybe we should have waited a little longer to let the pizza set or something because as soon as we took the first slice everything started to run. I love a good cheese pull but this was like a whole pizza pull. It was so cheesy!
My mouth was watering as I laid that slice on my plate. Being the proper lady that I am I used a fork and knife to dig into it because there was no way anyone could pick up a slice of this pizza without everything going all over the place.
The pizza was pretty good. The crust had a nice crispy crunch on the exterior and the inside had that delicious gooey cheese. You can definitely tell they used fresh mozzarella because it melted well and it had a nice creamy taste to it. Sadly because there were so many veggies the bottom became a little watery so everything was kind of soggy by the time I went for the second slice. The pizza sauce was good but it wasn’t anything I would go home and rave about. It was a basic tomato sauce. A bit on the watery side with big chunks of tomato.
My boys enjoyed their side of the BBQ pizza though they had the same opinions about the sauce. They also thought that the BBQ sauce was a little too sweet, not that it isn't expected of a BBQ sauce but it didn’t do much in terms of flavor enhancement.
Overall our experience at ACME Pizza was mediocre at best. The decor was questionable, the staff was friendly but the service was slow. I’d say that if you are really in the mood for a deep dish pizza give it a try but don’t expect your mind to be blown. Pizza is pizza after all. On my scale of “Yass Gawd to No Ma’am” I give ACME pizza a “Meh.”