13 Red Flags You Should Never Ignore At A Pizza Shop

It's not gonna surprise to anyone that pizza restaurants are pretty popular. You may not have anticipated exactly how popular they are, though: In 2022, Statista counted almost 80,200 across the country, an increase of almost 9,000 locations in a decade. However, we all know that the difference between a great pizza and a mediocre one is massive, and we want to make sure that we're hitting up the right place for a perfect slice each time.

So, how can we tell which pizza shops are worth our time, and which ones aren't? Well, aside from the obvious of checking out online reviews and talking to friends about their recommendations, there's a host of red flags to keep an eye out for. Key visual cues can give away whether a pizza shop is treating its 'za poorly, or simply doesn't care about its business or its customers. This doesn't just apply to the look of the pizza itself, but of the appearance of the store around it and how the chefs are treating the pies they're making. After checking these out, you'll know what to look for and avoid when seeking out a pizza shop.

They say that first impressions are everything, and that's rarely more true than when it comes to restaurants. Your initial experience when walking up to and in a pizza shop will likely give you a strong indication about whether it's somewhere you want to eat. "Neglected landscaping and litter around the entrance could be a key indicator of an unclean business," states Prince Street Pizza CEO Lawrence Longo via Food Republic. The shop's interior cleanliness and hygiene situation is arguably a more pressing thing to keep an eye on, but if the pizza shop's owners aren't making an effort to keep the outside of their establishments clean and tidy, then they're just giving their customers a poor start.

It's also important to keep an eye on how any waiting areas or vestibules are kept. Are there half-built pizza boxes everywhere? Is there any old food lying around, and has the area been cleaned recently? Is the host or hostess at their station, or have they been dragged away to help a stressed-out service team? If you spot any of these things, it could be a sign that your dining experience is only going to get worse from here on in.

Pizza shops are well aware of the power of putting pizza slices in the window. By displaying their freshly-made pies, these shops give you a clear look at what you could be enjoying in mere seconds. However, it's important to scrutinize these slices carefully. Is the crust looking plump and doughy, or dried out and cracked? Plus, how's that cheese looking — does it have a gloriously shiny surface, promising stretchiness and a melting texture, or is it matte and tough-looking?

If the answer to either of these is the latter, you may want to look elsewhere. Dried-out crusts and congealed cheese are a dead giveaway that the pizza slices have been sitting there under the heat lamps for a while. When this happens, the slice's base becomes soggy, while the crust loses its moisture. Simultaneously, the cheese firms up, becoming chewy and hard to get through. Any toppings may also lose their juiciness as they dehydrate under those powerful lamps. Importantly, these signs don't mean that the pizza will have been made poorly, but they will indicate that the store doesn't rotate its stock that quickly, and that's always a little bit of a warning sign.

If you're dining in a pizza shop that has an open or semi-open kitchen — one where you can see the food before it's bussed to the tables — keep an eye on how long it sits there. If you spot pizzas lounging on the pass (that's industry lingo for the counter where food is placed by chefs to be taken by servers) for too long, you're in trouble. Pizzas are foods that cool down very quickly when they're out of the oven, thanks to their wide, flat nature, which allows heat to escape fast. While pizzas with multiple toppings can retain heat for a little bit longer thanks to having more density, you generally only have a few minutes before they're lukewarm.

It's therefore vital that they get to the table quickly — and if they're not, customers may be handed a room-temperature pizza for their meal. This could happen for a lot of reasons (understaffing, improper training, or lack of robust communication between the kitchen staff and servers). It either means that you'll have to put up with a semi-cold meal or ask them to remake your pie, which will then take even more time.

Curly pepperoni has become, for many, a sign of a well-made pizza. Some types of pepperoni curl when heated, creating a cupped edge — and this generally happens in the most pronounced way when the pepperoni used has a natural casing, is sliced to a moderate thickness, and is heated intensely from above. Aside from looking way more aesthetically appealing, cupped pepperoni can also have a better flavor, thanks to having thicker-cut dimensions that give you a meatier taste in each bite and to generating little touches of char on their edges. 

However, if your pepperoni doesn't have a cupped edge, you could be in for a poor pie. Flat, soggy pepperoni on top of a pizza can be a red flag that indicates that either your pizza shop has used pepperoni with an artificial casing, has sliced the pepperoni too thin or too thick, or that the oven's heat is too uniform. While that last one may not sound like an issue, it's that top-down heat that gives pizzas way more flavor and a beautifully blistered crust. As such, be wary of those depressingly flat circles. They may not taste terrible, but they definitely won't taste as good as they could.

Pizza is, at its heart, a simple meal made of a few ingredients. Like so many Italian dishes, this simplicity means that it's the technique of the chef and the quality of the ingredients added that largely makes pizza what it is. As one of the main components of a pizza, tomato sauce is a crucial element to get right. This need for consistency leads some pizza shop owners to rely on pre-made tomato sauce. If you know anything about pizza, you'll know that doing this is a huge mistake.

In an ideal world, pizza sauce should always be freshly-made using quality canned tomatoes, a generous pinch of salt, and potentially a few other ingredients like olive oil, basil, or oregano. That's all there really is to it, folks, as this simplicity allows each flavor to shine through. The pizza sauce then cooks in the oven with the other ingredients. 

However, pre-made pizza sauce bottles may be full of extra ingredients that help preserve it and add flavors that you don't want anywhere near your pizza. They also may be cooked already, a quality that most pizza aficionados would not recommend as it can cause the tomatoes to lose their fresh flavor. Seeing these bottles around may indicate that the shop owner is lazy and cutting corners with their ingredients. If they're doing that with such a fundamental component of pizza, what else are they doing it with?

Many pizza shops, especially those that use wood-fired pizza ovens, have an open kitchen. A lot of the time, this is out of necessity: Those huge, domed ovens just take up way too much space in conventional catering kitchens (which are already cramped anyway); instead, pizza shop owners often expose them to make them a centerpiece as they cook with them. This common layout also means that you can observe the chefs' cooking habits.

Now, naturally, you might not want to just stare at the chefs while they're working hard to get your food out there, but checking if basic hygiene measures are being upheld is totally reasonable. One of these is handwashing. During busy periods, pizza chefs are pretty much continually putting together and cooking pizzas, and washing their hands between certain orders is essential to prevent cross-contamination. If a chef is making several kinds of the same pizza, it's fair game to do it all in one go. However, if they are handling potentially allergenic substances like pine nuts, they should really be washing their hands between orders. This is especially important when they're finishing pizzas with uncooked ingredients, as the hot oven won't kill off any bacteria present on them.

We all know those joints that serve a little bit of everything, and you know what, there's nothing wrong with them. We love The Cheesecake Factory and its long menu as much as the next person! However, if you're going out specifically for pizza, then you're going to want to make sure that the shop you're choosing serves just that. A small, streamlined menu can seem limiting to some, but it helps a food outlet really hone in on its offering. With pizza shops, this is particularly important, as this is a food item that seems easy but is actually very hard to nail.

If your pizza shop is selling things like burgers, wings, or chili fries as well as its 'za, this could be a sign that it's a place that's spreading itself too thin. Have you ever heard the phrase "Jack of all trades, master of none"? That's kinda what'll be going on here. It doesn't necessarily mean that the pizza will be poor, but it could well mean that not enough attention goes into its creation. Let's be real: If you're spending all that money on food, you wanna go somewhere that does it well, right?

You can't make pizza without dough, therefore, pizza shops go through an extraordinary amount of it each day. So it's only natural that they might try and figure out how to cut back on prep time by making it in advance or buying it in, and then freezing it to thaw when needed. This is something a lot of pizza shops do, and if you eat at a place like Pizza Hut, frozen dough is pretty standard.

However, we'd always recommend going somewhere that doesn't thaw its dough. Freshly-prepared dough tends to generate a crispier crust and a better chew than its frozen counterpart. It can also be a little trickier to work with, which may lead to a misshapen pie. Plus, if your pizza shop is using fresh dough, it's a good sign that it won't have any unnecessary ingredients in it to preserve its flavor or texture. Naturally, not all pizza shops can make their own dough every day and some places are limited by the sheer size of the kitchen. However, we'd always recommend trying to go for a place that makes it fresh if possible.

Pizzas are a balancing act, where everything — the dough, sauce, cheese, and toppings — needs to be in perfect harmony. It's incredible how many pizza shops don't understand that, and ruin that coherent nature at the last moment by shoving a load of toppings on top of your pie. This might seem like a good thing (more toppings equals more taste, right?), but skilled pizza chefs know this is a rookie mistake and that adding too many toppings ruins it in several ways. First, it unbalances the pizza, making it hard to pick up and eat. It simultaneously weighs down the center of the pizza, which prevents it from cooking properly. Plus, adding too many toppings makes the pizza harder to handle in the oven, and increases the risk of breaking.

As such, if you see your pizza shops loading pizzas with toppings, it's a bit of a warning sign. You should instead look for a small amount of well-placed toppings. The average 12-inch pizza should have just under 3 ounces of toppings, while 16-inch pizzas should have around 4 ounces maximum. If you ask for extra toppings, pizza shops will of course be able to accommodate, but it's never a good sign if they don't warn you about putting too much on top.

One of the best things about eating at a pizza shop is that the food isn't done when it reaches your table. Well, it can be if you want — but what about all those delicious add-on toppings at the table? These extras are part of the deal in pizza shops. "Some basic condiments that are expected in most traditional pizza shops are having Parmesan cheese, red pepper flakes, and sometimes even oregano or garlic powder is standard," explains Prince Street Pizza's Lawrence Longo via Food Republic. These additions are not only free, but will add a huge amount of flavor to your pizza.

However, if they're not on the table, it's cause for concern. "If these common condiments are missing, it might suggest the shop is cutting corners or not prioritizing customer experience," says Longo. Most pizza shop owners that little extras like this make or break a meal, and removing them can flag that you're not in for a good time. Of course, it may be the case that they supply these on request, in order to keep their tables clean and tidy. If you ask and they say no, though, it's a bad sign.

If you've ever seen the layout of a pizza shop kitchen, you'll know that it's designed for speed. All the ingredients and toppings are laid out within easy reach of the chef, so they can add things rapidly and get that pizza in the oven as quickly as possible. This means that ingredients often sit on the counter for an entire food service, and can potentially lose their freshness and flavor as they do so — especially if they're placed back in the fridge at the end of the day and used again the next day.

While you can't change the way that pizza shops make their food, you can definitely keep an eye on the freshness of ingredients (if the shop has an open kitchen, that is). Remember, too, that a food's lack of freshness can affect more than just how it tastes. Anything perishable that's left out at room temperature for more than two hours can be at risk of developing bacteria that can cause foodborne illnesses. Pizza ovens will generally kill any bacteria, but if toppings that are added on at the end without being cooked are kept out for hours on end, they could be incredibly risky to eat.

Do you prefer American or Italian pizza? Are you a fan of Chicago deep-dish, or New York-style pizza? If you like Italian pizza, do you prefer Neapolitan or Pizza Romana tonda?

See where we're going with this? Pizza is broadly defined as a food with a doughy base and a cheese topping that's cooked in an oven, but once you get past that its cooking styles vary enormously. It can take chefs years to master just one of these varieties, and each style requires different ingredients prepared in different ways. So, if you sit down in a pizza shop and you see them offering pretty much every pizza style under the sun, then it's a serious red flag. This doesn't necessarily mean that the pizza you'll be eating isn't tasty, but it likely does mean that it's not gonna be as tasty as you can get elsewhere.

Instead, look for pizza shops that specialize in one style. There's a much higher likelihood that they'll do that variety well, and that they're not trying to spread themselves too thin by offering everything. Your tastebuds will thank you.

If you're waiting in line at a pizza shop, it might be worth looking at what other people are eating. Does every pizza look exactly the same, or is there a healthy amount of variation going on? Do they look rustic and homemade, or is there the sense that they could have come out of a frozen box?

If the pizzas look identical, you may want to think twice. Uniform-looking pizzas are by no means a universal red flag, as there could just be a seriously skilled chef in the kitchen –- but they can indicate that something about them isn't made from scratch or they're from a factory. Does every crust look the same? Are all the toppings 'just so?' A touch of char on your pizza crust will give you delicious flavor, while a slight unevenness with the toppings can make for a varied eating experience.

Crucially, though, things can get a little too individual. An over-charred crust, for example, may be distinct, but it will also ruin your pizza. "When you see crusts where the majority of the surface is black and carbonized, the crust will taste acrid with off-flavors," food expert Nathan Myhrvold explained to Tasting Table. So in addition to watching out for pizzas looking exactly the same, also be on the lookout for a lot of burned pies, which is yet another red flag.

Static Media owns and operates Daily Meal, Food Republic, and Tasting Table.