Toronto Union Station Revitalization | ?m | ?s | City of Toronto | NORR

narduch said:
Pizza Pizza: the official shit pizza of Toronto.
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Too bad Chris Nuttall Smith is retired - I would love to see a review (wait - critique) of said chain. It'd be funnier than the America piece.

I am just not sure why edible cardboard has such a large footprint in the city with so many other choices comparable in price and superior in quality...

AoD
 
AlvinofDiaspar said:
Too bad Chris Nuttall Smith is retired - I would love to see a review (wait - critique) of said chain. It'd be funnier than the America piece.

I am just not sure why edible cardboard has such a large footprint in the city with so many other choices comparable in price and superior in quality...

AoD
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That's like asking why McD's is successful, when what they pass off as food is......to be charitable, sub-par.

Marketing and Location make up a huge part of the answer.

Pizza Pizza know good, highly visible, real estate and has the capital to afford it.

They invested in an easy to remember phone number and a jingle.

Wouldn't it be nice if these things had something to do w/product quality, or ambiance? :p
 
That said, Union Station appears to have made some effort to curate their overall offer, mixing some humdrum, if popular chain options w/more esoteric, gourmet and ethnically diverse offerings.
 
Cardboard Cardboard was always okay if you picked up/had delivered a made-to-order whole pizza. Ordering by the slice, however, is awful. And that's how the Union Station location will be serving most of its "pizzas."

There are better chains here in Toronto that can serve a decent to-go slice.

I'm happy enough about Paramount - that's a good Toronto chain that has decent quality. Best chain shawarma I've had in recent years.
 
ShonTron said:
Cardboard Cardboard was always okay if you picked up/had delivered a made-to-order whole pizza. Ordering by the slice, however, is awful. And that's how the Union Station location will be serving most of its "pizzas."

There are better chains here in Toronto that can serve a decent to-go slice.

I'm happy enough about Paramount - that's a good Toronto chain that has decent quality. Best chain shawarma I've had in recent years.
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My view's opposite. By the slice they're ok (tho maybe that's changed), but it's the whole pizza that went downhill. It's like a different type of pizza altogether. Started going to 2 4 1 and it's actually pretty good and good prices.
 
ShonTron said:
Cardboard Cardboard was always okay if you picked up/had delivered a made-to-order whole pizza. Ordering by the slice, however, is awful. And that's how the Union Station location will be serving most of its "pizzas."
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While I wish for more botique food at Union -- My experience varied by the traffic.

I found that highly trafficked Pizza Pizza's had fairly edible fresh single-slice pizzas -- the type where the cheese is still melted-hot (stretchy-hot cheese). You know, the Pizza Pizzas near some University campuses during peak periods -- they were always practically as edible as the delivery pizzas. Not the world's best pizza, but still melted-cheese hot.

Also, the big chains at Urban Eatery (Eaton Centre) tends to taste better than elsewhere because they build them on the fly very fast, and serve them very fresh, rapidly, due to the huge traffic at peak period. Even Subway submarines tended to taste better due to the freshness and ingredient-turnover factor -- fresher vegetables that wasn't stocked for long. Hopefully the traffic frequency (high rents = needs lots of traffic) will reduce the oven-to-mouth time to significantly lower.

Union Pizza Pizza during peak GO RER operations will probably be fairly fresh if they don't cancel the $13.5bn GO RER that will double peak traffic & more than triple offpeak traffic. (How the cheese curdles and spoils on Union Pizza Pizza may be dependant on what the Conservatives do to GO RER.)

The same big-chain food varies a lot from location to location -- and sometimes hugely between countries -- I still have memories of the best McDonald's burger I ate in a part of Argentina, South America -- manufactured from local Argentian beef (tested better than Angus beef) and I had only ordered a simple Big Mac rather than a deluxe type menu item.

Either way, it seems the fancier chains are on the higher level probably due to the traffic it will bring from the indoor moat walk from TTC (once both moats are covered, it's a very comfortable bright walk towards York Concourse without needing to enter the Union building proper to get to York concourse).

Not saying I'm a big fan of chain food, but I'm _really_ hoping that the Union location compensates for making it "yummier-than-average-for-the-chain" food.
 
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kotsy said:
I don't think it's the non-freshness that makes Pizza Pizza shit. I find their pizza sauce bland and that's the backbone of almost any slice of pizza.

I'd love to see Pizzaiolo take over all their locations
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Sometimes it is about quantity and not quality. I would like to point out that the Mcdonalds was always lined up out the door in the old concourse while the sushi place was sparsely populated with customers. Pizzaiolo is amazing but they take forever to make a pizza and are selective in what they cook. Pizza Pizza is total crap but they can produce a pizza quickly and have the basics. If you are grabbing a quick bite before a game there is really no desire for gourmet pizza, just something quick to nosh on before spending 100 dollars on a beer and nachos at the ACC.
 
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