Tuesday, September 20, 2016

Mamma Mia Pizza -- 1637 N Garey Ave Pomona, CA 91767

My Meal Cost: $11.97. Health Rating A. Yelp 3 stars



I was trying to get back on a Monday schedule so visited this site yesterday (Monday) at a little after 12:00 noon only to find the door locked and no signs of life around despite a check on Yelp saying that they opened at 10:00 am. I worried that they had closed permanently but decided to try again today (Tuesday) and if it wasn't open to just move on up Garey to the Donut|Chinese Food|Louisiana Chicken place. But to my surprise as I drove up the door was open and I was able to get pizza. I did ask the girl at the counter (whose English was not very good) why they were closed yesterday, but she denied that they were closed at all. I think it must have been a language thing.

Because this is one of the closest pizza places to home, we tried it about 10 years ago and had a bad experience so hadn't been back since. My understanding is that they have changed owners/operators several times since then so it was a little different experience than last time.

The place has no seating and is take-out only with a few chairs for those who wait. The outside is dingy and their anti-graffiti film makes seeing inside impossible (see note from Donahoos). The menu is several sizes of pizzas, wings, garlic bread, nachos, and canned or bottled sodas. Serviceable, but not extensive.


In order to properly judge it against the other pizza places to the south, I ordered my go-to sausage and mushroom pizza as a small (usually a small comes with only 1 topping but they were happy to add a topping) and the chicken wings. They only have one kind of wings (a mild buffalo) but when I asked I was told that the wings came 10 to an order or a half order of 5 (again I think it was a language thing, or perhaps I've now gone to so many places that I'm mumbling). I was told that the wait time would be 12 minutes and that's about what it was.


The girl at the counter was pleasant and efficient. Since I always have a supply of Cherry Coke Zero at home, I decided to not purchase a beverage. So I headed home with pizza and wings. 

The pizza was one of the cheesiest that I've ever had. Lots of cheese. The crust was decent, not too thick and bready, but thick enough to hold that toppings without going limp. The amount of mushroom was a little disappointing but there was sausage in every bite and the sausage was a good mild Italian. Add a little of the red pepper flakes and it was quite enjoyable. Since I was home, The Lovely Mrs. C decided to try a small slice and declared it to be "acceptable but nothing special."

The wings were meaty and juicy but the sauce was somewhat mild for a buffalo wing (but then the menu only said "wings" so they could have had no sauce and who could complain?). It came with some ranch dressing to which I actually added some red pepper flakes to make the wings a little more spicy (I think the sauce is supposed to "tame" the wings but in this case I used it to "untame" them a bit). Of the five two of them were the drumettes so it was properly proportioned.

Overall not great, but not bad either. I do think that on those rare (only a couple of times a year) occasions when we do pizza we'll probably continue to drive quite a way further, often to Claremont and Pizza 'n Such.


UP NEXT: Louisiana Chicken & Golden Wok

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