Slice from Red's Savoy Pizza, Uptown, originally uploaded by Aaron Landry.

I'm a cynic when it comes to Red's Savoy Pizza. It's garbage pizza, in the sense where it's an imbalanced mess of stuff strewn together with obnoxiously biting sauce. Their location in Saint Paul is classic with rude staff with a dark, campy interior. It's a staple of Saint Paul and it works for what it is. Unfortunately, they've been aggressively expanding by taking over struggling independent pizzerias.

I visited their location in Hudson, which used to be Barley's Pizza. I remember asking staff there soon after they re-opened if they've changed anything. "No, everything's the same, except the pizza's better now." They were wrong.

I avoided visiting the new location in Uptown after they replaced Golooney's East Coast Pizza, which was horrible to begin with. I couldn't imagine it being better. Finally this month I gave it a go.

My pepperoni slice took about 5 minutes to get during lunch and was received in tin foil inside a styrofoam box. The cheese was tasteless, the pepperoni were plain and the crust was crunchy on the edge and very soft towards the tip. It was food that satisfied hunger but not much more.

I bought a bottle of water at the gas station a block away because I kept having the sensation that I had burned the inside of my mouth and realizing I didn't -- their sauce is crazy weird.

I will say the staff is much nicer than Golooney's, so I give them that. The pizza's different, and it's not worse than Golooney's, but it doesn't earn my recommendation.

Red's Savoy Uptown
2329 Hennepin Ave S
Minneapolis, MN 55405
612-377-3110

Golooney's East Coast Pizza Cafe & Sub Shop, originally uploaded by Aaron Landry.

After enjoying some cupcakes, Courtney, Max, Alexis, Rachel and I went to Golooney's East Coast Pizza Cafe & Sub Shop.

Golooney's has been around for as long as I can remember and at one point I thought they were rather representative of New York pizza. This was before I had ever visited New York. Since, I've only visited Golooney's twice and haven't been a fan. I was surprised that Courtney suggested we go here especially as we were with Rachel -- from New York. To give Courtney credit, she hadn't been in over four years. Either way, it's probably the worst idea for an out-of-town guest from the east coast. Put simply, our service was slow (especially for a slice shop), the people were rude and worst of all, the pizza is bad. I ordered a plain slice. It hardly had any sauce and the cheese was almost tasteless -- although it was piled on excessively. It wasn't easy to fold or hold like I would expect out of a slice shop with the Twin Towers in their logo. In fact, this pizza was the worst I've ever had at Golooney's. Courtney and I agreed that it was actually poorer than we remembered. I was taking a few shots with my camera and I was scolded for taking photos and was asked to put my camera away. He said I needed to ask for permission first and to be fair, I should have done that. I promptly put my camera away. Unfortunately to make matters worse, he goes to his co-worker after scowling at me and exclaims "I hate that fucking shit." Classy. We joked at our table that the generally male-dominated staff are stereotypically rude to male clientele but "all hey baby" to women. In our experiences, at least. While we were waiting around the 10th Global Marijuana March was across the street. The gathering wasn't terribly well organized and many of the protesters wandered in and out of Golooney's to grab a slice. My advice? Keep on marching down 24th Street and eat at Leaning Tower of Pizza. UPDATE: Golooney's is now closed and Red's Savoy Pizza now runs the pizza here -- don't ask me to compare. Golooney's East Coast Pizza Cafe & Sub Shop 2329 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN 55405 612-377-8555