If you’ve lived in Plain City for any extended period of time, you are familiar with the decades old argument over where you can get the best pizza in town. Well, we at the Pioneer Press have decided to finally settle this dispute. 

Now, before we share our findings, there are a few things we need to clarify. Firstly, we only considered pizza places within Plain City city limits– so Beer Barrel, Costco, and anything Hilliard/Dublin is out. 

Secondly, Buckeye Barbeque and Pizza on Bigelow Ave, while within city limits, does not operate during the hours in which our study was conducted and therefore could not be included.  

This left us with Pioneer Pizza, Plain City Lanes, Dominoes, and Jan and Tony’s in the final competition.

To conduct our experiment, we ordered one medium pepperoni pizza from every restaurant. Each pizza was presented in no particular order to a focus group of 13, composed of both journalism and non journalism members. Without the participants knowing which was which, they ranked each pizza on a scale of 1-5. 

Here are our results:

In last place is Plain City Lanes. The Focus Group enjoyed the sauce and crust, but not the cheese. However, their customer service was wonderful when purchasing the pizza and it is the cheapest of all of our options per inch of pizza. (although these were not criteria in the rating scale). 

Tied for third/second place are Dominoes and Pioneer Pizza. 

Focus group members felt that Dominoes was very recognizable and although the two flavors are very different, the same number of people voted both Dominoes and Pioneer Pizza as their favorite. Pioneer Pizza got a higher sauce score, while Dominoes had a higher crust score. Many people felt polarized about Dominoes especially, as one person said,” [Dominoes] is absolute trash,” while another review stated,”Very melty, which is really nice.” Pioneer Pizza, on the other hand, received more cohesive comments such as “ehh,” and “mid.”

Finally, our winner of Best Pizza in Plain City is… Jan and Tony’s!

Our focus group loved this pizza, as it got a combined total of 8/13 votes for best pizza. One of our reviewers wrote that Jan and Tony’s was, “Perfect, [the] most delicious pizza ever!” One participant even drew hearts around the section of the review paper about Jan and Tony’s. There were no specifically bad comments about this pizza either, everyone either liked it or was impartial. 

In conclusion, Plain City is a Mecca of local pizza places. Many people had very polarized opinions on the different pizzas, though everybody did find at least one pizza they enjoyed. From iconic chains to family-owned and operated restaurants, there is a pizza place for everyone within the limits of Plain City.