Food Depot Bar & Grill

On Sunday 6/21, we ordered two pizzas and an appetizer from Food Depot Bar & Grill in Grimes.  Ryan picked up the takeout and was displeased at my demands for him to take a photo of the storefront, but he did it anyway.  I needed photos of something other than pizza since I no longer am documenting the restaurant setup and ambiance.

After we reviewed their menu, we ended up going for a Canadian Bacon pizza (totally unlike me but it sounded good) and a BBQ Chicken Pizza (we are suckers for BBQ Chicken, and chicken is my personal fave meat atop a pizza). 

I'm a little embarrassed that we ordered two -we definitely thought these were the smaller (all they offer are 14", and I guess I thought they were like 10" or something? <shrug emoji>). We were eating leftovers for a few days.

They had a few other specialties on the "Depot Pizza" menu that intrigued me, like the Chicken Alfredo and Cheeseburger (but pickles -- ew -- pickles on pizza -- double ew).

The thin crust was tasty.  It had a bit of chewiness to it but I didn't mind it, because the outer slices had the super yummy crispy cheese that I love so much. 

To quote Ryan, the pizzas had a "good cheese volume" and he actually was glad we didn't get to eat it fresh out of the oven, because sometimes super cheesy pizzas are slippy when they are hot.  It was good to eat about 20-30 minutes out, still warm, but the cheese had settled into some durability.

The BBQ sauce was delectable.  I can't find anything on the website about whether they make it in-house or where it's from.  At any rate, it was a perfect tangy/sweet combo that you (well, I) want in BBQ sauce.

In the end it ended up being nice that we had enough pizza to last a few days because this was the type of pizza that was really enjoyable cold and leftover.  In our opinion, pizza should always be judged on its next-day quality, and this did not disappoint.

Finally, we had the Broccoli Cheese bites from the app menu.  They were awesome! They were fried, and a little bit soft from the cooked broccoli, but we like broccoli in most forms over here, so we didn't complain. Of course Jack dipped his in ranch, because Jack pretty much lives for dipping food in ranch.

If thin crust is your jam, we recommend this place.  It's honestly nothing "special" but we enjoyed our pizzas and I'd be down to hit up this bar someday when the world is a bit safer.

We both rated it a solid 4/5.  Happy to be back on the pizza grind!  Next week we are thinking we need to make the trek out to Ankeny.  So many spots on our list are out there, and we avoid it because it's on the total other side of town from us -- but we might plan for a picnic or something and hit up a park with our pizza.  Stay tuned!

We're Back!

The last time we went out for a stop on the Zza Moines tour was March 14, 14 weeks ago. That’s also the last time we went out to eat a restaurant, period.

That same weekend in March I got inspired and spontaneously started another blog called Life in Social Isolation.  And while the pandemic is still reeling in the United States, it’s become clear that our shock has worn off a bit. That shock was writing motivation for me and almost a dozen guests whose stories I spotlighted on the blog. So I decided to start talking about pizza again. 

Reviewing the data set for Zza Moines was a slight bummer as I realized Papa Keno's in Drake neighborhood recently closed permanently. I was disappointed Ryan didn't get a chance to try it. I had it one day during a lunch break from a business meeting down at Drake and it was pretty yummy!

At any rate, while I can’t leave the level of reviews I was when we were dining in, I still want to try all the Zza and tell you about it. Probs lucky for y'all that my posts will be shorter without me talking about the ambiance of the restaurant. 

Over the past few months we've adapted a new little tradition of pizza Sunday. We eat in the living room, which Jack loves because he can mix playtime with pizza time. We had some takeout pizza from our fave, 7 Stone Pizzeria, but Ryan has been working a lot on his homemade deliciousness!  (That is, until the yeast ran out).

Ryan's pan pizza. 

We picked up the Zza Moines tour tonight with takeout from The Food Depot in Grimes. Stay tuned for the review!