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Edmonton Pizza Reviewed By Judgemental Digital Marketers

Jen Salamandick — Fri, 20 Sep 2019 00:00:00 +0000

Seven pizzas, each from a different Edmonton pizza business were evaluated on August 23rd, 2019 at the Full Stacks Pizza Penthouse. There were eight participants. Each individual participant was a self-proclaimed pizza expert.

On July 31st, 2019, Laura invited us to an event that would change our lives.

Earlier that day a few people were discussing what makes pizza good pizza. Is it sauce? Cheese? Ratios? And where does nostalgia factor in?

Jen went to a meeting and came back an hour later and was shocked to hear the conversation was still raging on. Everyone claimed that the conversation had in fact just picked up again, but either way, it led us to this:

We’re located above the Boston Pizza on Jasper Ave in Edmonton, so every day can be a pizza party at Full Stacks. We’ve eaten a lot of Boston Pizza. A lot. There have been many double pepperoni pizzas ordered and countless cactus cuts have been consumed. We don’t even have to go outside! We have a staircase that opens into the restaurant entrance.

But there is so much more pizza in Edmonton! So we had a pizza party and everyone on the team ordered a pizza from their favourite place to decide which pizza would win the title of “Best Pizza We Ate Today”.

We ordered pizza from:

Everyone had a scorecard for each pizza and rated it based on cheese, sauce, base, and toppings for a total of 20 possible points.

LOVEPIZZA

Pizza: Donair Pizza
Nickname: “The Downtown Lunch”
Overall Score: 14/20

LOVEPIZZA is a place we frequent for lunch because of its close proximity to our office. We went there for a team lunch on Pi Day when they offered margherita pizzas for $3.14. Such a perfect promo! The donair pizza was their feature pizza in August and came topped with sweet sauce, donair beef, mozzarella cheese, white onion, and fresh tomato.

Our Thoughts:
“I was desperate for more sauce.” –Jen
“Love the sweet sauce and crusty-ish base.” –Firdous
“Donair pizza is always good.” –Brittany

Tony’s Pizza

Pizza: Pizza Bianca
Nickname: “The Garlic Lover”
Overall Score: 17/20

Tony’s is known for their New York Style pizza — super thin and crispy crust cut into large slices. Most of us have had Tony’s Pizza before, so we knew they’d score high. The pizza bianca we ordered comes with mushrooms, garlic, mozzarella, Parmigiano, pecorino cheese, basil, and olive oil. This pizza got two 20/20 scores!

Our Thoughts:
“Tony’s Pizza is the best.” –Dana
“Love the smell of this pizza.” –Brittany
“Flavour = awesome.” –Emma
“Yes.” –Jen

Panini’s Italian Cucina

Pizza: Prosciutto Arugula
Nickname: “The Classic”
Overall Score: 15/20

Panini’s Italian Cucina offers a variety of Italian fare in addition to pizza, but we’re just here to judge their pizza. Our chosen pizza came with tomato sauce, mozzarella, fresh prosciutto, arugula, and balsamic reduction. If you love prosciutto you’ll love this pizza — it’s as simple as that.

Our Thoughts:
“Nice sauce — a little sweet but not too much.” –Laura
“Toppings were the winner of the day.” –Emma
“Prosciutto + arugula = win.” –Brittany

Dallas Pizza

Pizza: Pepperoni & Pineapple w/ Fresh Tomatoes
Nickname: “The Small Town Pizza”
Overall Score: 17/20

Dallas Pizza is a favourite of Jen and Emma’s because it’s got that doughy crust, tons of cheese, thick pepperoni vibe going. Most of us agreed that this style reminded us of our own favourite small town pizza joints. Pepperoni and pineapple isn’t a combo most of us have had before and — with the exception of Dana — we loved it!

Our Thoughts:
“Pineapple, gross.” –Dana (who doesn’t know any better and wouldn’t even try it despite purchasing pizza for everyone else to try that had both fish and blue cheese on it)
“Made my heart feel like Friday. Which it is.” –Jen
“Golden joy.” –Emma
“Yes, just yes!” –Liz
“Pineapple. Yes. Pepperoni. Yes. All the cheese. Yes.” –Sarah

Ragazzi

Pizza: Pizza Ragazzi (capicollo, capers, mushrooms topped with mozzarella & bocconcini cheese)
Nickname: “This Is Not My Order”
Overall Score: 13/20

We are big fans of Ragazzi for their pizza and their pasta (Laura has regular dreams about the carbonara). They are consistent and awesome, but somehow we ended up with the wrong pizza. Jen opened the box at the office and exclaimed, “This is not my order!” We’re curious to see whether Ragazzi would have scored higher if we’d gotten what Jen had planned for us. She actually ordered The Deluxe (prosciutto, Italian sausage, lightly layered mushrooms, and fresh artichoke hearts).

Our Thoughts:
“Too limpy of a pizza.” –Liz
“Really, really delicious cheese.” –Laura
“NOT WHAT I ORDERED.” –Jen

Artisti Pizzeria

Pizza: 4 Formaggi / Anchovy
Nickname: “The True Italian”
Overall Score: 13/20

Brittany is a big Artisti fan, but she is not a fan of anchovies or blue cheese. So when Dana brought in pizzas featuring both those ingredients, Brittany felt Artisti got sabotaged. Unfortunately most of us were inclined to agree and didn’t enjoy these as much as we might’ve. You can teach a person to fish but you can’t teach them to like it.

Our Thoughts:
“Look. I like anchovies in stuff. Not on stuff. End of story.” –Jen
“Not too salty, good distribution.” –Dana
“That cheese though!” –Liz
“The anchovies were a bit too salty for me.” –Laura

Update: Artisti Pizza is now closed.

LEVA Café

Pizza: Magherita
Nickname: “Darren’s Favourite”
Overall Score: 18/20

This was our winner and it almost didn’t even make it to the party. Darren from Whitespark gave us a hot tip to check out Leva after we talked about our pizza plans in our newsletter. We are so glad he did. This pizza knocked it out of the park! Everyone loved it. Flavourful and melty mozzarella, crispy but chewy crust… this was everything a pizza should be.

Thanks, Darren… and sorry we didn’t invite you.

Our Thoughts:
“Plain Jane and I like it.” –Sarah
“Really good cheese and delicious sauce!!” –Laura
“Wow.” –Liz
“I can always eat this.” –Firdous

Awards

That was a lot of pizza! We were stuffed, to say the least. Despite being in a pizza coma, we managed to decide upon a few awards.

Best Pizza We Ate Today

We saved the best for last — LEVA Café was the winner with 18/20 points! (However, since we’re digital marketers we have to point out that they don’t have a great online presence and no website. They just have a Facebook page and they aren’t on Instagram, which we think is a great platform for any restaurant business!)

Second place was a tie between Dallas Pizza and Tony’s Pizza, but both win for different reasons. Dallas is great for that nostalgic small town pizza with a thick layer of cheese and generous toppings, while Tony’s is just a great overall slice.

LOVEPIZZA’s awesome rectangular boxes. (Photo taken from the LOVEPIZZA website.)

Best Pizza Box

The award for best box goes to LOVEPIZZA. We love their sleek white boxes with their bold logo. Almost every other pizza place relies on a plain white box — they need to step up their branding game!

Best Online Presence

Best online presence was a tie between Artisti and LOVEPIZZA.

LOVEPIZZA kills it on social media, with an active Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram presence. They take advantage of their super instagrammable product by consistently posting delicious looking shots. They also responded to our tweet with a tasteful pun. 10/10, would @ mention again.

Artisti’s website is clean and easy to navigate. It’s also got some personality and warmth. It looks like how a good pizzeria should look.

Our Pizza Dreams Came True

Our first annual pizza party was a huge success! We had a ton of fun and many of us walked away with new places to hit up when pizza cravings hit.

You tell us: where should we try pizza from next time? Did we miss the best slice in Edmonton?

The post Edmonton Pizza Reviewed By Judgemental Digital Marketers appeared first on Full Stacks.

How To Give Design Feedback

Jen Salamandick — Tue, 19 Apr 2016 00:00:00 +0000

Design freelancers, teams, and agencies love design.

Designers spend years in school being technically trained, countless hours drawing and discovering on their own, and assemble impressive portfolios. Great designers create from the heart (while keeping on point with a project’s strategic direction).

What a design team produces for you is grounded in unique work and education experiences, as well as a commitment to keep up-to-date with best practices. The best designers don’t chase trends just for the sake of being trendy; they thoughtfully evaluate the ebbs and flows of the design industry to ensure that what they develop is purposeful and contemporary.

Remember the following points when reviewing designs, preparing feedback, and discussing concepts and projects with your internal team, freelancers, and design agencies.

Always Remember the End Goal

When you request a change, be sure to address how the change will improve the solution. It’s a good idea to be able to answer this question when preparing feedback:

How will what I am suggesting improve the way our audience interacts with our business?

These conversations uncover how much research your design team or agency did to inform the designs they presented you. For example, when you ask why something looks a certain way, or flows in a specific manner, you want to get more back than a blank stare and a mumbled, “well, just because.”

An agency that explains the functional whys behind their creative choices will produce work that will satisfy your business needs. They discovered how your real customers and clients need a design to look and feel, and then they built that for you.

Constructive feedback is a two-way street. Both you, the client, and the designer — whether they’re an agency team or a freelancer — need to be able to rationalize designs and design changes.

Leave the Scissors in a Drawer

If you see something on one of the design options you’re presented with that you wish to see on another, please discuss this with your designer instead of photoshopping together your own version. Similarly, printing design options and then cutting out an element from one option and gluing it on to another is not productive. Prepare your feedback and discuss with the designer why you think combining elements will better serve your audience.

Feedback that comes as a bulleted list of change requests with no rationale is similar to cutting elements up with a pair of scissors. This method doesn’t adequately address the needs of your audience or explain how they will benefit from any changes.

You Don’t Need to Have the Answers

If you spot a problem/issue/concern, your designer wants to know about it — but they do not expect you to come up with a solution to the problem. Collaborative discussion about concerns is certainly imperative and effective, but after, the designer needs to head back to their office to come up with an adjustment.

Less “We”, More “They”

Simply stating what you don’t like is often not helpful, but explaining where you think your audience might struggle is crucial. Remember, you’re working together with a designer or an agency to achieve your business goals and provide a better experience for your audience. You and the designer need to push personal likes and dislikes off to the side during the project.

Egos need to be shelved because the needs of your audience deserve top priority.

To sum up, it’s just as easy to get caught up in personal preferences as it is to get trapped in a desire to be “hip” and “flashy” (or to just do what your competitors are doing), but you must resist. You took on a design project for a reason: to make finding (and using) your product or service easier and more attractive for your audience.

The way you give design feedback can make your project a success, or it can derail it (and your sanity) completely.

If you enjoyed this post, may we suggest reading You’re My Favorite Client from the A Book Apart series.

The post How To Give Design Feedback appeared first on Full Stacks.