Nestled within the Market Square strip mall, a new pizza place opened this weekend named OMG Pizza. It was opened by a friend of mine who has had years of experience managing pizza joints and finally decided to strike out on his own. Last night a couple of friends and I decided to go check out the place that he has been working hard for months to get into existence. 
Upon entering the place, we immediately noticed the movie posters on the walls of iconic geek favorite movies, generally of the sci-fi variety. The decor was nice, nothing overly spectacular but it was nice. The employees are dressed in black outfits with name tags outlined in green that are reminiscent of mechanic outfits. The employees themselves all had a bit of a punk flair to them which seemed somehow appropriate as well.
We decided to forego some of the more interesting pizza choices, like Chicken Cordon-Bleu, for this trip and instead order the more tame OMG Supreme which had the usual fare that the name suggests. The pizza came out in a timely fashion in a plain white box.
Upon first look, I worried that the large 16″ pizza wouldn’t be enough to truly feed the three of us who were splitting. However, this pizza was very deceptive and each of us were full after only two slices. An often unheard of feat at other places. The ingredients were perhaps the freshest that I have ever had at a take restaurant. I was thoroughly impressed with the quality of ingredients that the owners were able to acquire. I did have issues with the pizza sauce personally, and one of my friends seemed to concur, I found it to be rather fruity for my tastes, but my other friend seemed to enjoy the sauce so this may be more of a personal preference. The crust was to me to be the real gem of a pizza, it was a nicely crispy crust that was covered with a buttery garlic sauce that made the crust feel like a bread stick when you were done with your pizza.
Overall, I enjoyed the pizza barring the sauce. I think it would have been a worthy pick up in and of itself. But there was one fairly big problem with it. The price. A large 16″ pizza cost us $25 including tax. With the two sodas and the blue slushy that we had for drinking, we totaled $30.50. We added another $4.50 for a tip, though I don’t think normally I would have done this on a carry out dinner. I feel tip for this type of service is down in the 5%-10% range rather than the full 15%, but these were friends.
While I am more than willing to pay a premium on a pizza with fresh ingredients at an independent pizza restaurant, I felt that it was a little steep for what we got. I didn’t feel that they had done enough to really distinguish themselves to warrant this high price. If I look at the price of their normal pizzas, it is $16 for a hand-tossed 16″ pizza, interestingly costing slightly more per inch than the smaller pizzas. I don’t expect that it would be as cheap as the national chains, but I do think that they should stay in the ball park. As it stands, these pizzas were closer to twice the price of the chains than the same price.
There were many small things abounding at OMG Pizza that I chalk up to a new opening. The decorating wasn’t quite done, there was no menu posted as of yet, you had to look at a brochure that they had taped to the counter. There were no plates if you decided to stay and eat at the restaurant. The owner was talking about how they were still going to put up more posters and other decorative touches. Their website also doesn’t seem to have anything other than that they will begin hiring a couple of months ago. But these things I can kind of brush aside. I understand why they happen to a new place, and I assume that they will get fixed in a little time.
All that being said, I will probably still get a pizza from OMG Pizza from time to time. It would be a special treat, and probably not even one we enjoy every month. I am interested in trying out their sandwiches and other specialty pizzas.
I look forward to seeing how the store will do. It will be interesting to watch them progress. I think their location is great. They have a Game store just a couple of stores down so the fact that they cater to geeks will do well. There is also a movie theater really close so I could potentially see people stopping by after a movie. And in the entire strip there isn’t really any other real food that one could eat at so they have a distinct advantage here. However, there is a wealth of pizza places in the Madison area already to choose from so it may be difficult for OMG Pizza to find a place in the soup that is our restaurant culture.
I wish them luck.