Bubba’s Pizza

I think my desire to like Bubba’s pizza is born of the loss I feel for The Leaning Tower, the restaurant that formerly occupied this space. Alas, it is not to be.
We ordered bacon cheese fries and the special: a large 5-​topping pizza. If I’d have known, I would have ordered sausage, sausage, sausage, sausage and sausage for the toppings, just to get a decent amount on the pizza. Instead we ordered ricotta, garlic, spinach, banana peppers and sausage. While delivered in an interesting presentation of ingredients, it was mediocre at best. And we realized too late that they had forgotten the spinach. The bacon cheese fries were slightly better. We should have stopped there.
If you are looking for okay, it’s not a bad place to eat. The enthusiasm of the staff cannot make up for the lackluster food.

I have never had new york style pizza where the sauce is cooked in lines on top of the cheese, and I grew up in New York. I like my pizza to have sauce and cheese in every bite. Not much taste to the sauce, not enough spices. Will not be back.

I just signed up for Unilocal for the sole purpose of coming to Bubba’s (horrible name, but if you called yourself Alfredo’s NY Style Pizza with a location based in Tallahassee I wouldn’t take you seriously then, either, so… play on, playa) defense from everyone whose taste palates range from Papa Johns to Mama Celeste. This pizza may not be perfect but it’s closer to authentic than most. I like that when I say garlic as my only topping, they take my life’s mission to have the breath of a Khaleesi dragon seriously and load it up, and that decorative swirl of sauce is basically life giving where other pizza shops make the marriage of sauce and cheese a crime scene. Also, Cooking Class 101 for everyone who relies on the delivery guy more than their own oven: The sauce is swirled on top of the cheese, rather than below (that gross crime scene, remember?) and what happens when liquid gets heated, kids? Right, it evaporates, which is why it becomes «pasty», I think I read. Still tastes good to me, but I eat with my mouth and not my eyes, personally. As for the crust, I like a good carb but the man of the house doesn’t eat leftover crusts because he’s a better person than me and knows how to rationalize food pyramids. This part of our relationship works because I don’t care about divided triangles and I want your bread, whether you’re my lover, mother, or the next table over. THIS FOOL STARTED EATING THE EFFING LEFTOVER CRUST. Thanks, Bubba’s, for ruining a perfect love story with your understanding on how to properly pizza a pizza crust. So anyways, while I’m busy dividing our assets over this betrayal, you should try this place out, but make sure you call the right location and not give directions for ten minutes only to find out that you’re talking to Panama City the entire time. Not that this happened. This week.

BOTTOM LINE: This is a solid 2.5 that rounds up to 3. I can only believe Bubba’s will improve over time.
We ordered two small cheese pizzas, one large veggie pizza (hold the olives), one five-​count «inferno wings», one small «Bubba’s Inferno» pizza, one order of cheesy bread and it turns out that garlic knots came free with the large pizza.
The two small cheese pizzas arrived with what I suspect is slightly diluted tomato paste swirled on top of the cheese. While this is a creative touch, it allowed the sauce to be tasted in isolation and I thought it had the distinctly pronounced taste of basic tomato paste with maybe 10% water added. It’s what it tasted like to me — I’m not stating it to be fact, just opinion. Ironically, had the tomato sauce been conventionally ordered beneath the cheese it’s quite likely this would have passed somewhat unnoticed. I thought the crust was good — the «handle» had a good consistency.
The veggie pizza was OK, although the mushrooms were raw prior to putting the pizza in the oven. The same went for the tomatoes and the green peppers. This was my wife’s/mother-in-law’s pizza so I don’t remember how the other vegetables were.
The «Inferno Wings» were a curiosity. It seemed as though the wings were baked, bowl-​tossed in a fairly flavorful (yet thin) sauce, and then plated with three 2″ carrot lengths (imagine a two-​inch thumb-​diameter carrot piece quartered lengthwise, and then one of those lengths held back). Most noticeable was how runny the wing sauce was. I got the impression that after being tossed in the bowl, the sauce was drizzled over the wings in the plate. (Check out the photo).
My Bubba’s Inferno pizza fell short of its potential. The center was soupy/​watery. All the veggie water had no place to go but on top of the pizza. I know that this small adjustment would make me enjoy it far better. Draining the wetlands in the center of the pie would have gone a long way. The ingredients looked good on paper, but I wrongly assumed they would have been cooked in advance. I strongly suspect the banana peppers were pickled, then sliced. That added to the dampness.
So — ultimately, the tomato-​paste tasting sauce, coupled with the exceedingly moist (check out the pictures) center of the Inferno cause a raised eyebrow. I’m confident this can all be worked through though.
With regards to this being «NY style»… Perhaps the original PCB location is better able to create a NY style pizza — but I’ve had a slice or two in NYC as well as around the other parts of the Empire State and I’m just not convinced here.
Nonetheless, The Pepsi tasted good.

Oh my Lord… These calzones though… Perfect. The cook was also kind enough to completely adjust to my requests. I ended up getting exactly what I wanted, and it tasted amazing. Plus, you definitely can’t beat the prices… I was pretty surprised to see how inexpensive the menu was for the amount of food you receive. Delicious!

Not only does this place have delicious pizza but it also has other options like wings and salads which are just as great! They’re homemade ranch sauce is better than ranch I can get from a store. The Bubba’s sauce is my favorite of all and is great on wings or on the side with their chicken strips! I highly recommend this place to anyone who is looking for quality food unlike any other pizza place in Tallahassee !

When I walked in I didn’t get the heat and smell I associate with a serious pizza oven, and the crust bore that out. Had kind of a pre-​fab feel and taste to it, like the ready-​made crusts you can buy at the grocery store. There was virtually no taste, be it yeast or salt or anything else.
The bad news is that here was way too much cheese; the good news is that it was so overwhelmed by sauce we barely noticed. I could literally pick up a slice and wring it out into a big red pile on my plate. It seemed to be composed of tomato paste and garlic: very thick, slightly metallic, no flavor at all besides tons and tons of garlic. The Parmesan cheese on the table had no flavor, nor did the oregano (I half-​suspect they’re vestiges of the pizzeria that used to occupy the space); even the Texas Pete’s on the table was just sort of wicked up by the pizza’s vacuum of flavor.
According to the web site there’s a location in Panama City, too, so it’s metastasizing. Not only have I had frozen pizzas that were better, I’ve never had one that was worse. Maybe the wings are better but I don’t intend to find out.