Stoney's Pizza (Sunset Beach)

food: 2.5/5

experience: 3.5/5

overall: 3/5

I decided to have a birthday party for myself randomly because I was craving pizza and didn't wanna finish one off by myself. It was just gonna be a pizza party at first but then I remembered my birthday was the next week so I figured it'd be a good enough excuse. And I figured why not combine it with the beach since it's my favorite thing so I came here, to Stoney's, a place I constantly pass by on the PCH coming to, from, and through Sunset Beach.

Take-out only, of course. They still offer by the slice during the scamdemic but I ordered a whole pie. The large 18" because I presumed I'd be feeding about six people. Only two of us ate about half of it and the ants got the rest, but not before all the sand got in it first. Sigh. Never make plans without counting on everything going wrong. Anyway, here it is:

Half white, half Mr. Hand. The white pizza has mozzarella, ricotta, romano, oregano, pepper, and garlic oil with no sauce. The ricotta is what makes it good honestly. Otherwise it's pretty meh. I couldn't taste the other flavors. And the Mr. Hand is the most expensive thing on the menu. But I was obligated to get it solely because of the reference to one of my favorite movies, Fast Times at Ridgemont High. See here. Of course most people, especially my age but uncultured people in general, will never get this reference and it is a damn shame. A damn shame I tell you. The Mr. Hand is a supreme with the works, which means pepperoni, sausage, peppers, mushrooms, bacon, onion, garlic, and I think that's it. Unfortunately their actual crust is not that great and that's what sells a pizza for me. The crust is limp on the soft parts and the edge isn't very flavorful. It reminds me of Round Table in flavor and that's an insult coming from me. Also, sadly, they didn't fulfill my simple request of cutting the pizza in twelve for six people so we ended up with eight huge plate-sized slices that I had to cut with a plastic knife. Lame. They do have a deep-dish Chicago-style pizza but apparently deep-dish is typically made with cornmeal so it's off the list forever for me.  And they have gluten-free which is automatically a no from me. It's cheaper because it tastes like crap.

They also offer calzones but they're made with the same lame pizza crust. As is the stromboli. I'm not sure if they still have it but they used to have a six-pound calzone challenge which the mayor of Huntington Beach attempted.

A calzone is just a pizza folded in half from my understanding. So it really hinges on a good crust. And their crust is lacking, as I mentioned. For what it's worth they say they hand-crush their tomato sauce each day. It just looked like regular tomato paste to me and tasted as much so I don't know about that.

They also have cheesy garlic sticks, which are just the pizza crust covered with garlic and cheese. They have chicken wings (bone-in and boneless) with eight different flavors including pineapple habanero and mango habanero (mm and mm). They have garlic knots, cinnamon sugar nugs, fries (including pizza fries covered in marinara, mozzarella, and pepperoni), pizza hot dogs...

Unfortunately when you can't get your signature item right I don't want to return. So I will leave those up to you to try. They used to have a meatball parm sandwich which looked dank but they took it off the menu among other things (like the previous "spent grain" crust). Not sure about these new owners. Wish I had tried them before ownership changed, might've been better.

I will say, Stoney's, I noticed the lack of masks. And I approve. For that reason your rating doesn't go down.