In the works: Evergreens, Domino's

On my regular Tuesday walk to Easy Joe's, I spotted something new. No, the Evergreens window wraps have been up for several weeks now, next to Jimmy John's, so that's not new. (A salad place? To compete with Sprout? You know me better than that. You don't win friends with salad.) But look next door...

Domino's? In Pioneer Square? "Does that really fit in the area?" I thought to myself. "I mean, what other major chains are there?"

And then I thought a little more... about Subway. And Starbucks. And Taco Del Mar. And Jimmy John's. And even Halal Guys. Yeah, I guess Domino's does fit.

Sometime soon, Pizza Professionals and RPM Pizza will have a new competitor. Sure, it's not a great pizza, but it's cheap pizza, and sometimes, quantity is better than quality. Wouldn't an extra slice be great to pull from the refrigerator as you head for the train, even as the grease and cheese fight each other for control of your digestive tract?

It's just signage so far. There's probably several weeks or months until you can buy full pizzas for under $10, but options are good, no?

Oh. Not that option. That's just not right.

March 5: RPM Pizza is back

"Have you been to 13 Coins yet?"

"Is 13 Coins open yet?"

"We're having a team get together at 13 Coins. Sorry you can't make it."

Lunchtime today, I was going to go to 13 Coins. It didn't happen. I decided to wander past RPM Pizza to see if they still had their sign in the window announcing that they'd be rising from the dead in February. I've seen enough restaurants claim to be reopening, so I was going to take a photo of the sign, be snarky, and say something like "guess it's still February a week into March."

No sign. I saw a couple of people inside the darkened space, so pressed my face against the door to get a better look. The guy at the cash register waved me in.

No snark. A week into March. They. Are. Open.

RPM Pizza (July 2017)

Better yet, get in there quick because they've got a special on $3 slices, and the slices are huge -- like 1⁄6 of a giant pizza huge. For the price of a meal at 13 Coins, you could probably walk out with enough pizza to last you a week. This photo is from when they opened in July, but yeah, it's still that big. Back then: $12.46. Today: $6.33.

Today was their first full day open. They're still waiting for their liquor license, so no PBR yet. The lights are dim. The pizza was, unfortunately, not quite as good as before -- so instead of OMG THIS IS THE BEST PIZZA IN SEATTLE GET IN MY FACE it's more like HEY THIS IS GREAT PIZZA OM NOM NOM NOM.

I think they tossed some extra cheese on top when they re-heated it, which didn't blend correctly, and -- much to my disappointment -- soaked up the tidepools of grease in the pepperoni disks I had so much affection for in my previous visits. There's a little more

With only two people working up front, it was easy to see that they're still training. The dough-spinner was telling the cashier that if someone asks what kind of crust, it's not New York Style, it's Seattle Style. That's not a bad description. The inner third is still floppy like New York, but the outer two-thirds is crisp and crunchy and generally pretty good. Not quite Pietro's St. Louis-style crisp, but still mostly crispy. (Aside: if a Pietro's were to open nearby, I might as well shut down this blog, because that's all I'd eat until the day I died.)

A co-worker of mine has had mixed results there in the past with proper topping dispersal. Sometimes the toppings went almost over the edge; other times there was more than an inch of crust left once the sauce and toppings were eaten. I encountered no such problem today. Distribution was perfect.

I'm so glad they're back. My fingers are crossed that they've got the bumps that caused them to close smoothed out. Nearby Pizza Professionals is good, but not great, and their recent price bumps left me wandering in search of better options. RPM is the better choice.

RPM Pizza and Records 
240 2nd Ave. S. 
Pepperoni slice, RC cola, $6.33