Stop 029: Abo's (Centennial)

  

Abo's Pizza

Location:  7475 E Arapahoe Rd, Centennial, CO 80112

First off my picture is accidentally awesome!  See how it looks like the girl on the Westword Magazine is hoisting the pizza plate? 

I want to start off by saying that there are at least 2 total dicks that work at Abo’s, and I met both of them in my 15 minute visit.   Trust me, it’s  hard to have an opinion about your service when you order pizza by the slice because the window of forming a negative opinion is miniscule... but this pair of jackass teens showed that you can be rude, arrogant, and flat out sloppy while simply jocking a register and warming up a couple slices of pizza that have already been prepared.  Anyways, let’s talk about the product.   Abo’s offers decent NYC style pizza,  nothing  amazing here, but Abo’s is at the same quality level as your average NYC corner shop, around the corner from the NYC pizza shop that your friend says is the best because it is on the way from his/her apartment to the subway and its the only one that he/she consistently gets,  therefore it is heavily endorsed...

Which by the way,  I love reading pizza reviews of people from NYC because somehow that makes them experts on pizza  even though 75% of NYC slices taste the exact same; which is decent, but nothing that would warrant the use of the word phenomenal.  In fact, most NYC corner shop slices would receive a“3” on the Denver Pizza Train rating system

Abo's uses enough cheese and distributes their pepperoni in an acceptable ratio.  Their crust gave me no reason to run to the mountains and praise the lord, in fact one of my slices cracked in half after my first pull, forcing me to finish it in 2 separate conquests.  Abo's uses a decent sauce, which I kicked into 2nd gear  by using  a fair shake of Abo’s very own hot sauce (pictured above).  Abo's hot sauce has pretty good chemistry with their particular brand of pizza.   However,  I understand that when a consumer uses too much hot sauce on their pizza, they might just be hiding from the fact that their pizza has no game.  One huge strike against Abo’s is their  location, buried deep in a strip mall engulfed by steady suburban traffic around the corner from a hellish strip of I-25.  Although, in their favor is a mini-mini arcade that hosts a Last Action Hero pinball machine.  

Stop 028: Woody's (Golden)

Woody's Pizza and Watering Hole

Location:  1305 Washington Ave. Golden. CO 80401

It would have been absolutely asinine for me not to try the all you can eat pizza and salad bar for $11.38!   Let’s get the non-pizza items out of the way quickly… Woody’s has free popcorn, which I dislike based on the fact that I worked in a bar that had free popcorn, and when it’s free, the numbers break down like this.    50% makes it in the mouth of the consumer, 35% ends up on floor, and 15% in various other odd spots.  Their salad bar was decent, and featured a solid pasta salad with artichokes, that found its way onto 2 of my 4 servings.  The salad bar also offers made from scratch beer cheese soup, but due to my limited experience with that product, my overall baseline was determined to be too weak for assessment.   Let’s talk about the pizza!  I ended up housing 7 slices in 4 servings, which proves that I enjoyed the product.  They use 100% mozzarella cheese, and it is distributed in proper fashion.  The crust is garlic kissed, and puffy enough to be considered for bread stick potential when you reach the end of your slice.  The sauce has enough presence to participate in the flavor, and they use agreeable toppings.  The all you can eat deal presents a fair rotation of pizzas at all times, making sure to keep a respectable mix of classics, multi toppers, and specialty pies.  My servers name was Scooter (which rules) and he happened to be very friendly, just like everyone on their staff.   You might want to go during off hours, or you can expect to wait.  One last reason to love the all you can eat for $11.38 is that it is offered ALL DAY, EVERY DAY!