The Rock Wood Fired Kitchen is located at 1920 Jefferson Avenue
Stick With the Pizza
I don’t ask for much from a pizza place. I do have my preferences for a thin crust vs. a thick one, but other than that, I just want a decent salad, nice dessert or maybe even a cocktail, but that’s it. The Rock unfortunately blew it on our recent visits. The pizza was good but other than that, I can’t think of a lot of other good reasons to return. So unless they become the only place in town for pizza, I’ll be looking elsewhere.
To be fair, The Rock has no aspirations to be a high-end, gourmet pizza palace. They describe themselves as “edgy, gritty and all about good ol’ classic rock.” This is your basic pizza and beer joint with a rock and roll theme, interesting pizza combinations, unique micro brews, and a six-drink sampler served in a bucket. It clearly works for a lot of people. This particular location opened in 1995 and always has a pretty full house at the times we’ve been there. According to the website, this particular business model earned the company recognition as “America’s Number One Independently Owned Pizza Chain by Pizza Today Magazine.”
So why aren’t I a big fan? It’s all about quality for me. I can forgive a lot of missteps in a restaurant but it has to want to serve a high quality product. On a previous visit, the cocktails we ordered (also known as “Rocktails”) were just not up to par. The margaritas were almost flavorless and watered down to the point that we mentioned it to the server. She very promptly offered to send them back, and asked them to make another, but the second try wasn’t much better. On our most recent visit I ordered the Mediterranean Salad as an entrée, expecting what they described as “Crisp Romaine Lettuce tossed with Kalamata Olives, Cucumbers, Red Onions, Artichoke Hearts, Sliced Mushrooms, Grilled Chicken, Tomatoes, Pepperoni, Feta cheese and Italian dressing.” They must have been fresh out of “crisp” that night because the salad was anything but. The lettuce tasted like it had been chopped earlier in the day and left on the counter until they needed it. I think they were out of “tossed” too because the dressing was so light the mushrooms were completely dry. It’s like eating them out of a package you buy at the grocery store. We had great hopes that they would redeem themselves on our dessert choice of a skillet cookie, but no such luck. While I fully know what a soft texture cookie tastes like, this one was raw. 
At that point we spoke to the manager and he very politely took interest in our concerns and offered to make us another one. It took quite a while to come back, but this one was much more cooked. It wasn’t the best skillet cookie we’ve ever had by any means, but they did make an effort to cook it longer. No fault with the pizza. We had the “Satisfaction” a fresh, rustic looking pie with garlic butter, mozzarella, kalamata olives, sautéed spinach, red onions, roasted garlic, prosciutto, feta cheese and drizzled Italian dressing. We asked them to hold the Italian dressing and we thought it was delicious. It was high-quality, well-prepared food, which I don’t think is too much to ask for. Our server was polite and was running back and forth from all the tables assigned to him all night. Not sure if we scared him off after we complained about the salad and the dessert because we didn’t see him again after the manager came to talk to us about the dessert. To his credit, the manager comped the dessert and part of the salad and said all the right things about being sorry that we did not have a good experience.
The Rock is a decent place for pizza. It’s got a fun atmosphere in a cool, triangle-shaped building right behind the University of Washington Tacoma. Based on our experience there, I probably wouldn’t trust the quality of any of the other menu choices but I would have the pizza again. And even though I do like a good cocktail now and again, I don’t think the temptation of being able to bring my own bucket home as a trophy is enough to get me back there anytime soon.
No comments:
Post a Comment