At first, I was shocked to see the overall rating, but after my first visit here, I could understand why Blaze Pizza in Buena Park (BPBP) was no buena.
This Blaze Pizza in located in Buena Park Downtown (not Downtown Buena Park lol) on the north side of La Palma between Stanton and Dale. Blaze is situated in between Golden Bowl and Ono Hawaiian.
In July, Blaze Pizza gave me a reward for any 11" pizza for $5, possibly to counter MOD Pizza's National Pineapple Day promo of a $5 pizza with pineapple. I was planning on visiting a teahouse nearby to take advantage of another deal and figured why not take advantage of two different deals on the same trip?
Upon arrival, it took about a minute or two before one of the employees greeted me and asked what he could get me. I said I wanted the 11" pizza on regular crust.
After selecting my choice of sauce, spicy red, as well as the cheeses, mozzarella and parmesan, he then asked me which toppings I'd like for both the meats and the vegetables. I like piling my pizza with every topping possible except for artichokes and anchovies, but since Blaze Pizza doesn't have anchovies as a topping, I simply said all toppings except for artichokes. I usually do this so they don't pile my pizza with too much meat at first only to realize I wanted even more vegetables. However, that employee who prepared my pizza piled on the toppings like there was no tomorrow. Don't get me wrong, I'm all for more toppings on my pizza, especially if it doesn't incur an upcharge, but I'm also a believer in the adage "Too much good is no good", one that I've preached in several of my previous reviews.
By the time he finished assembling my pizza, it was like a pizza mountain lol.
There was plenty of seating inside, especially booth seating by the wall. However, the seats had hard backs instead of cushions, which was a little peculiar. The first one at the near corner had one side as a booth seat, but the other side of the table had two chairs, one of which I sat at. It wasn't until I got my pizza that I realized I should have grabbed napkins by the pickup counter first because there weren't any napkins anywhere else. Not wanting to leave my pizza unattended with several other customers inside, I waited until after finishing my pizza before getting napkins to clean my hands.
Blaze Pizza also has the words "Fast Fired" in its name because they cook the pizzas real fast. It was pretty fast, like no more than 5 minutes before the cashier called my name to let me know it was ready. Since I ordered "for here", he kept the pizza on the metal tray, which was a little warm to the touch, so I had to be really careful and not drop the pizza.
The pizza was incredibly inconsistent. I understand with additional toppings on your pizza, the toppings don't get baked evenly, but some of the toppings still tasted like they were never even baked at all! A lot of the toppings had a rather unusual aftertaste that I've not experienced at any other BYO pizza places; like they were pretty grainy in texture for whatever reason.
Some bites saw a ton of cheese, but other bites saw no cheese at all! And the spicy red sauce wasn't even that spicy anyways. There's a noticeable difference if you taste the two side by side when you order a cheesy bread, but this spicy red sauce tasted like the regular red sauce.
I was this close to giving 2 stars, but after filling out a Tattle survey online, I got a call from their manager, who was apologetic and wanted to invite me back at a later time, which I think was after that manager had moved on, at least from BPBP. I still pressed on, hoping the pizza would taste better. It did, but the employees were sloooooooooooow as molasses. The crew members were chatting amongst themselves way too much even when there were a handful of customers inside trying to build their pizzas. Not only that, but I saw my pizza sitting at the counter directly across from the oven waiting to be cut, yet it took 5 minutes before a crew member yelled out my name signifying that my pizza was ready for pickup.
I built the second pizza the same way as the first, but also sans banana peppers. I don't think I requested well done on my pizza the first time, so I decided to request well done this time. I don't think the pizza was that well done since it could have been crispier, but on the other hand, it would have been burnt in some places had the pizza been baked a minute longer.
Luckily, the second pizza was a lot better than the first pizza that I'm willing to upgrade my rating from 2 stars to 3. The toppings were more evenly baked and flavorful, likely because they weren't stacked like the aforementioned pizza mountain. Rather, it was more like a pizza plateau lol. Yes, the ingredients were fewer. However, I prefer fewer, but tastier toppings on a pizza than more, but grainier toppings. I'm still kind of irked at the long wait time though. It took over 30 minutes! :O read more