Quad City Style Pizza -

Four family members from the Quad City community gathered the day after Xmas 2016 to evaluate the adherence of Wise Guys Pizza and Harris Pizza to Wikipedia’s Quad City Style Pizza standards.  We ordered a half sausage and half cheese pizza from both establishments for our evening meal and rated the attributes.  We developed a rubric in advance of tasting based on the information from the article that included the following items.

• One fourth inch crust with a raised lip for the edge
• Nuttiness of the crust
• Spiciness seasoning of the sauce
• Sausage taste and texture related to fennel richness and double grind
• All toppings under cheese
• Cut into strips
• Overall impression

The results indicated that Harris Pizza did a slightly better job of adhering to the Quad City Style Pizza standards as outlined in the Wikipedia article.  Harris Pizza received a score of 81 out of 92 and Wise Guys Pizza received a score of 75 out of 92.  If 100 percent equals the perfect Quad City Style Pizza then according to our results, Harris Pizza was 88 percent toward achieving the perfect score and Wise Guys Pizza was 81 percent.  The data for each attribute are in the table below. 

Attribute	Taster #1		Taster #2		Taster #3		Taster #4		Results
	Harris	Wise Guys	Harris	Wise Guys	Harris	Wise Guys	Harris	Wise Guys
1/4-inch crust raised lip	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	8
Crust nuttiness	5	4	5	4	3	3	3	4	31
Spicy sauce	5	5	4	3	4	4	5	3	33
Double grind fennel flavored sausage	5	5	5	5	4	5	5	5	39
Cheese on top	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	8
Cut into strips	1	0	1	0	1	0	1	0	4
Overall impression	5	5	4	4	3	4	5	4	34
Subtotals	23	21	20	18	17	18	21	18	89
Harris Pizza total	81
Wise Guys Pizza total	75

Italicized attributes rated on a scale of one to five.
Normal font attributes yes for one point and no of zero points.

There was much debate among the tasters after tallying the data and reviewing the results.  Much of the debate centered around one taster’s views that a Quad City Style Pizza should not be penalized for cutting into triangles versus strips while another taster felt that this was a critical attribute.

Other comments included that the driver of the Wise Guys Pizza was very courteous.  The Harris Pizza came in a waxed paper bag with a twisted peak, not commonly seen.  Both pizzas were hot and timely. 

Large 16-inch Harris Pizza

Large 16-inch Wise Guys Pizza

Thank you Quad Cities...