A Slice of Kokomo: Jim's Pizza

This past weekend, as we stood in the checkout queue at Urban Outfitters in Bloomington (judge not lest ye be judged, as the Man said), the only thing more conspicuous than the all-out corporate commodification of youth culture was the intense déjà vu. Where had we seen stonewashed jeans like that before?

And then it hit us like a wall of unsold Third Eye Blind CDs. The chirpy young saleslady at the counter was wearing a straight-up midnineties pair of Phoebe Buffay jeans, cinched up with one of those godawful braided belts they practically handed out like flu shots at the beginning of 1990. She wasn't unique, though; the mannequins (or salespeople?) scattered throughout this hipster simulacra were all rocking something reminiscent of that decade. Long floral dresses, half-shirts, and neon colors abounded. The kids know; the nineties are back.

And why not? It was a time of charismatic rock 'n' roll front-men (Scott Weiland, anybody?), over-sized vests, Wrestlemania VI through XV, and shoe-boxes overflowing with those free trial AOL CDs. Also: you could get a pizza delivered to your house in 30 minutes or less. Or it was free.

Sure, there was Drexell's Class and Monica Lewinsky. And yes, asking delivery drivers to risk their lives and the lives of countless others for the sake of some bastard's greasy pizza was perhaps a short-sighted phenomenon. But pizza at your door in 30 minutes or less? Those were the days.

And then there was the other day, when we waited nearly two hours for a pizza from Jim's.

Jim's occupies a modest shack on Home Avenue, not far from Mulligan's or Ned's. But location, unfortunately, is the only thing the three have in common. The pizza and service at Jim's is a lot like You've Got Mail: lackluster, warmed-over, and missing even the slightest bit of urgency or effort.

We called in our order on a Thursday night at 6:30pm. A myriad of online reviews noted the sometimes mind-boggling (and seemingly unnecessary) wait time at Jim's, so we ordered early and expected to sit around. The pleasant lady on the phone told us it would be an hour and a half. Ninety minutes seemed like a stretch (this isn't Guy Fieri's Johnny Garlic's, after all. Nor was it Super Bowl Sunday) but we chose to believe that it was an exaggeration carefully calculated to leave a good taste in our mouths when the pizza arrived in less than half that time.

Nope.

As it turned out, she meant every one of those 90 minutes, plus about 25 more. When the pizza arrived at nearly 8:30, we were pretty put-off. And really hungry.

Unfortunately, Jim's wasn't going to satisfy us much on that front, either.

We would feel guilty saying this if we felt like there was some Herculean effort into turning out a high-quality product here. It just seems very obvious that there isn't. The crust is possibly from-scratch, but it's without a hint of seasoning: salt, garlic or otherwise. The toppings are okay, but aggressively bland in a "Monarch Food Systems, Inc." sort of way. The toppings and the cheese all migrated near the middle, leaving puddles of thick, fruity sauce at the edges to be choked down in some final unsatisfying bites. Cheese on this pizza is strange—perhaps it's laid down in slices? Our guess is that it's very similar to whatever Kraft singles are made of, which as every nine year old instinctively knows almost liquefies when heated.

Though the restaurant's official name is "Jim's Pizza," black block-letters on the side of the building spell out "Jim's Pizza and More." The sprawling menu—complete with such dubious options as a 50-piece bucket of fried chicken and mac-and-cheese nuggets—indicates that perhaps the folks at Jim's are focusing too much on the "More," at the expense of the "Pizza."