Mountain Mike's Pizza (California)
food: 3/5
experience: 5/5
overall: 3.5/5
Funny how a chain called Mountain Mike's is primarily located in Cali. Well, technically we do have mountains so I guess. They also have a few locations outside California in Nevada and Oregon but primarily Mike's is a California chain.
Since Mountain Mike's opened a location right by my house, me being a chain pizza aficionado at the time I had to try it out. Something about the name Mountain Mike's makes you think you're getting good quality pizza. Like some little pizza joint way up in the mountains run by a good ol' guy named Mike who... I dunno, cooks pizza by the fireplace? Or maybe you just picture a mountain of toppings. I have no idea.
My first experience was not the best. Ugh, I hate mediocre food! Especially when it's my favorite, pizza. First, for some stupid reason you can't get a mini pizza with more than one topping, so I had to get a small. Second, their crust tasted really basic and generic. I couldn't differentiate it between Pizza Guys, Little Caesar's, or any other mediocre fast food pizza joint. At least it wasn't as expensive as Round Table but damn Papa Murphy's puts the medium (?) in mediocre and even theirs is better. And cheaper.
I got the Mount Veggiemore with garlic sauce. I mean, the toppings were alright. Nothing to write home about. But I'm a crust kinda gal and this didn't do it for me. So what I did was complain to the manager and surprise! They gifted me with a bunch of store credit. Score. I decided I'd give their pizza one more try, and got a couple orders of wings to supplement.
This time I went for the Everest because it's full of meat, my favorite. I added more meat in the form of LA hot sausage. I think that's Louisiana, not Los Angeles. LA the city isn't known for sausage and it's some sorta Cajun thing I think. Anyway. Here it is.
Again though, mediocre. Mediocre toppings and mediocre crust. I'm a meat fan and the sausage, pepperoni, salami, and LA hot sausage were just dull. The LA sausage was the best, it tasted like spicy link sausage. Good thing I added that on. So I'm definitely done with MM's pizza offerings. As often happens with pizza, Mike's is best enjoyed cold the next day after it's been sitting in the fridge.
Also got their wings. Regular and boneless. Honey garlic for the regular and plain breaded for the boneless.
Their honey garlic sauce is good. I mean it's basically honey. I think it has soy sauce in it though potentially so I can't order it again but it's a yummy combo, honey chicken. Their breaded wings are okay I guess, they're pretty basic. No spices, just breading. The sweet n sour (sorry, hot Thai chili?) sauce that went with them was also good. I got buffalo sauce too but there's way more sauce than there is chicken to dip that sauce in so that went unused.
They were nice enough to throw in a free cookie pizza on this occasion, since they heard I got credit for a bad experience.
It tastes like basic chocolate chip cookies. Whatever. Pretty much exactly as I imagined it would taste which is why I wouldn't have tried it otherwise.
Finally I tried their sides. They got garlic sticks, garlic bread, and mozzarella sticks. They also got jalapeño poppers but I'm not a huge fan of those. Plus they're nine bucks! No thanks. Same with the mozzarella sticks. I can't see paying over a buck for one stick from a fast food. It's just fried mozzarella. I'm sure it's the same batter they use on the boneless wings.
The garlic sticks are made using their signature boring pizza crust. I love garlic though and there was a coupon so fine.
Now I'm wondering what exactly is going on with their crust because these are awesome. Maybe it's the lack of tomato sauce? (By the way skip the marinara, it ruins the flavor.) Maybe all that garlic and cheese drowned out the boring-ness of the crust? I don't know but that this is good.
It's made on the sandwich bread as their half-dome sandwich (see below) but without the sauce and toppings and with garlic, cheese and butter instead. It's whatever, again. Just basic bread you could make at home. The best part is the middle where it's soaked in butter. We don't have too much cheese on top here. Hold the marinara and douse this in ranch to make it palatable. I'd stick to the breadsticks if I were you though.
Mike's has a dessert pizza that looks pretty good. After a couple tries with their crust though I don't think I want any. But it has butter, brown sugar, cinnamon, mozzarella and powdered sugar. Sounds good in theory. Looks good too. But yeah it's still Mountain Mike's crust.
Mountain Mike's is the only pizza joint I know of (chain-wise) that also sells sandwiches. They have traditional deli-style sandwiches and "half domes" which are open-faced pizza sandwiches. Both come with chips. I prefer the doughiness of pizza so I haven't partaken. They also have basic garden salads but let's not fool anyone into thinking Mike's is healthy. We can save that cheap crap for their buffet.
Speaking of their buffet, it's pretty pathetic. It's a weak salad bar and one kind of pizza (the classic combo) with breadsticks. That's the whole thing. Long story short: stick to the garlic breadsticks.
experience: 5/5
overall: 3.5/5
Funny how a chain called Mountain Mike's is primarily located in Cali. Well, technically we do have mountains so I guess. They also have a few locations outside California in Nevada and Oregon but primarily Mike's is a California chain.
Since Mountain Mike's opened a location right by my house, me being a chain pizza aficionado at the time I had to try it out. Something about the name Mountain Mike's makes you think you're getting good quality pizza. Like some little pizza joint way up in the mountains run by a good ol' guy named Mike who... I dunno, cooks pizza by the fireplace? Or maybe you just picture a mountain of toppings. I have no idea.
My first experience was not the best. Ugh, I hate mediocre food! Especially when it's my favorite, pizza. First, for some stupid reason you can't get a mini pizza with more than one topping, so I had to get a small. Second, their crust tasted really basic and generic. I couldn't differentiate it between Pizza Guys, Little Caesar's, or any other mediocre fast food pizza joint. At least it wasn't as expensive as Round Table but damn Papa Murphy's puts the medium (?) in mediocre and even theirs is better. And cheaper.
I got the Mount Veggiemore with garlic sauce. I mean, the toppings were alright. Nothing to write home about. But I'm a crust kinda gal and this didn't do it for me. So what I did was complain to the manager and surprise! They gifted me with a bunch of store credit. Score. I decided I'd give their pizza one more try, and got a couple orders of wings to supplement.
This time I went for the Everest because it's full of meat, my favorite. I added more meat in the form of LA hot sausage. I think that's Louisiana, not Los Angeles. LA the city isn't known for sausage and it's some sorta Cajun thing I think. Anyway. Here it is.
Again though, mediocre. Mediocre toppings and mediocre crust. I'm a meat fan and the sausage, pepperoni, salami, and LA hot sausage were just dull. The LA sausage was the best, it tasted like spicy link sausage. Good thing I added that on. So I'm definitely done with MM's pizza offerings. As often happens with pizza, Mike's is best enjoyed cold the next day after it's been sitting in the fridge.
Also got their wings. Regular and boneless. Honey garlic for the regular and plain breaded for the boneless.
Their honey garlic sauce is good. I mean it's basically honey. I think it has soy sauce in it though potentially so I can't order it again but it's a yummy combo, honey chicken. Their breaded wings are okay I guess, they're pretty basic. No spices, just breading. The sweet n sour (sorry, hot Thai chili?) sauce that went with them was also good. I got buffalo sauce too but there's way more sauce than there is chicken to dip that sauce in so that went unused.
They were nice enough to throw in a free cookie pizza on this occasion, since they heard I got credit for a bad experience.
It tastes like basic chocolate chip cookies. Whatever. Pretty much exactly as I imagined it would taste which is why I wouldn't have tried it otherwise.
Finally I tried their sides. They got garlic sticks, garlic bread, and mozzarella sticks. They also got jalapeño poppers but I'm not a huge fan of those. Plus they're nine bucks! No thanks. Same with the mozzarella sticks. I can't see paying over a buck for one stick from a fast food. It's just fried mozzarella. I'm sure it's the same batter they use on the boneless wings.
The garlic sticks are made using their signature boring pizza crust. I love garlic though and there was a coupon so fine.
Now I'm wondering what exactly is going on with their crust because these are awesome. Maybe it's the lack of tomato sauce? (By the way skip the marinara, it ruins the flavor.) Maybe all that garlic and cheese drowned out the boring-ness of the crust? I don't know but that this is good.
It's made on the sandwich bread as their half-dome sandwich (see below) but without the sauce and toppings and with garlic, cheese and butter instead. It's whatever, again. Just basic bread you could make at home. The best part is the middle where it's soaked in butter. We don't have too much cheese on top here. Hold the marinara and douse this in ranch to make it palatable. I'd stick to the breadsticks if I were you though.
Mike's has a dessert pizza that looks pretty good. After a couple tries with their crust though I don't think I want any. But it has butter, brown sugar, cinnamon, mozzarella and powdered sugar. Sounds good in theory. Looks good too. But yeah it's still Mountain Mike's crust.
Mountain Mike's is the only pizza joint I know of (chain-wise) that also sells sandwiches. They have traditional deli-style sandwiches and "half domes" which are open-faced pizza sandwiches. Both come with chips. I prefer the doughiness of pizza so I haven't partaken. They also have basic garden salads but let's not fool anyone into thinking Mike's is healthy. We can save that cheap crap for their buffet.
Speaking of their buffet, it's pretty pathetic. It's a weak salad bar and one kind of pizza (the classic combo) with breadsticks. That's the whole thing. Long story short: stick to the garlic breadsticks.
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