Papa Murphy's Take and Bake Pizza

Welcome to my first unrecommended item! I realize this is a recommendations blog, so let's say I recommend that you don't get Papa Murphy's pizza. Why not? Let's begin.

First, let's start with the pros. Papa Murphy's is fast. Your order is ready to pick up in ten minutes. That's pretty awesome. Also, their pizza tastes all right. Not an explosion of mind-altering flavor, but better and fresher than frozen pizza*. Papa Murphy's is also cheaper than other large pizza chains, and I'd assume you're more likely to see a flaw (read: loagie from a disgruntled employee) on your unbaked pizza. Always a plus.

Sounds like a lot of pros, right? Well, I guess it is. But here's the thing: I'm lazy**. If I'm going to order out food, I want it to come to me already cooked. And Papa Murphy's doesn't bake your pizza for you. You have to take it home and bake it yourself like an animal. If God intended me to bake my own pizza, he wouldn't keep having all those Papa John's coupons sent to me in Monday's money mailers. Also, having to bake the pizza yourself adds about another 15-20 minutes onto the first-pang-of-hunger-to-stuffing-my-gullet continuum. This negates my "Papa Murphy's is fast" statement in the pros section.

But it still tastes okay, right? Well, technically yes, in that it doesn't taste like scab-covered dirt cakes. For those of you lacking in pizzeria experience (I worked for three and a half years at a local pizzeria when I was in high school/college, thank you very much), most of what makes pizzeria pizza so darn tasty comes from the giant pizza ovens that have been seasoned by the thousands of pizzas that baked before yours. Ask anybody in the food industry and they'll tell you your equipment is just as important to the flavor of your food as the ingredients. But Papa Murphy's doesn't have seasoned pizza ovens--they make you bake your pizza in your clean, unseasoned home oven. Now, I don't know about your oven, but my oven is barely five years old, and it only sees action about twice a month. And even then it's for break and bake cookies, not pizza. A cookie-seasoned oven does not a tasty pizza make. You should also know that by taking on the weighty burden of baking your own pizza, you're opening yourself up to the possibility of undercooking or overcooking your pizza. Tonight I did both. First I undercooked the pizza (the outside edges were cooked but the dough in the middle wasn't--gross!), then put it back in the oven, resulting in an overcooked pizza. I shake my fist at you, Papa Murphy, wherever you are!

As for my claim that Papa Murphy's is cheaper than other chains, it's true. But they're not that much cheaper. I would honestly rather pay 20% more and have a hot, good-tasting***, properly baked pizza delivered right to my doorstep than cheap out and have to bake my own pizza like a Nazi****.

Order Papa Murphy's Take and Bake pizza at your own risk. If you're dead set on ordering pizza from a Papa, I recommend Papa John's. (They have really good crust and killer parmesan breadsticks.)



*Totinos pizzas are freaking tasty. (And they're only about $1.00 each!)

**I have chosen where to eat out based solely on whether the establishment had a drive-thru or not. I have also driven past one restaurant (say, a Panda Express) to go to the same chain restaurant (another Panda Express) because the latter had a drive-thru and the former did not. Yes, I'm American.

***Little Caesar's is an odd exception. Sometimes you want fast, cheap, kinda gross pizza, and Little Caesar's is much better suited for this craving than Papa Murphy's. It's awesome drowned in ranch dressing.

****Every other simile I came up with was potentially offensive to some group or another, given our country's obsession with political correctness. But everybody hates Nazis, right?*****

*****If you like Nazis, I don't really care what you think.