Fine Dining - Slice House: The Pizza World Champion, Pizza Acrobatics, and a Riot in Italy

Episode Date: August 5, 2026

🍕🏆 Slice House by Tony Gemignani: World Champion Pizza, "Hot Mario (Lopez??)," and Pizza Acrobatics 🏆🍕 This week, Court McGowan (@the_courtjester_) joins me to dive into the history of Slice House by Tony Gemignani, the pizza empire built by one of the most decorated pizza makers on Earth. From world championship dough tossing to an American winning a pizza competition in Naples (which almost caused a riot), this episode is full of a prestigious history! 🏆 Tony Gemignani Becomes a Pizza World Champion in Naples 🚔 An American Winning Best Pizza in Italy Earned Tony a Police Escort 🤹 Pizza Acrobatics Are Somehow a Competitive Sport (Here's the link we talk about) 🍕 The Mario Lopez Collaboration: Meet the "Hot Mario" 🎰 Court and I Debate the Proper Way to Pronounce Nevada 🔥 The Heat Lamp: Court Thinks All Food Should Be Shared 🫒 Yelp from Strangers: One Customer Is Absolutely SUF-FER-ING from the Pizza Oils 🌎 How Slice House Grew from Championship Pedigree to Expanding Pizza Chain 💬 COMMENT BELOW: Would you ever compete in pizza acrobatics, or are you keeping both feet firmly on the ground? 📢 SUPPORT THE SHOW & JOIN THE COMMUNITY:🎉 Patreon (Bonus episodes, extended Yelp segments & more): patreon.com/finediningpodcast 💬 Discord (Food talk, memes, cursed Yelp): discord.gg/6a2YqrtWV4 🎥 Watch full episodes: youtube.com/channel/UCLbraNhL6KhDPkdSWt2yiuw 🔗 All links: linktree.com/finediningpodcast 🎤 Guest: Court McGowan | IG: @the_courtjester_ Patreon Producers:Sue Ornelas, Joyce Van, & Robert McLaughlin Patreon Subscribers:David Ornelas, Kellie Baldwin, Jeremy Horwitz, Herbert Amaya, Simone Davalos, Scott Bennett, Amy Reinhart, Josef Castaneda-Liles, Travis Langley, & Michelle Elmer Free Patreon Followers:Joe Warszalek, Lauren Cummings, Grace Krainak, Keri Estes, Robert Duran, Patrick Elliott, Dave Plummer, Nicholas Volney, Michael Gerard, Tracy Molino, Phuong Duong, Tyler Robinson, Brandon Gully, Mason Cruz, Michael Milito, Mez, Aaron Hubbard, Steff, Renae Michael, Crystal C., NiZ, Science Broe, Jahid Ahmed, & Jewell Hermann 👉 NEXT WEEK: Court and I head to Slice House to review the food and put it to the Chili's Test. 🍕🏆

Is one of San Francisco's best artisan pizza joints about to take the nation by storm? Tony's Pizza Napolitana regularly has wait times that can exceed two hours, but Slice House by 13-time Pizza World Champion Tony Geminyani takes those recipes and serves them to customers in substantially less time, while still keeping the quality something worth bragging to Nona about. After nearly causing a riot in Naples for beating locals at their own game, Tony Geminiani has earned the right to do whatever the heck he wants with pizza. He's appeared on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, Good Morning America, and a plethora of Food Network shows,

all leading to him writing multiple cookbooks and a children's book titled Tony and the Pizza Champions, which feels conceptually humble. This week on the show, I'll slice my pepperoni of knowledge and place it across your pie of curiosity so that you two may know everything I've learned about Slice House by Tony Geminiani. Then we'll direct our attention to the people of Yelp to see what they're saying about the very slice house we infiltrated. This is the fine dining podcast.

Your table is ready. Take your seat. The flavor of the day is mediocrity to try. I want to know about this riot. Oh, you'll get to know about this riot. But long story short, an outsider came in and won a competition that beforehand And no other outsiders had done. Whoa.

So, yeah, we will get into that one specifically. Very good. Hello. And welcome to the fine dining podcast, the quest to compare all restaurants to Chili's. I am your host, Michael Ornellis. And this is the podcast where we dive deep into the history of your favorite restaurants and then thoroughly review them one week later by comparing them to Chili's. This week, we're covering a chain that I got excited about the moment I heard who was behind it,

as I'm a big fan of the creator's main restaurant in San Francisco, slice house by Tony Gemini. And joining me is a friend, an awesome actress and improviser who's on not just one, but two of the teams I perform with around Hollywood. She's one of my favorite people I've met through improv. She's a virtuoso at the violin, and she's why birds fly in a V-Formation. It's Cort McGowan.

Hello. That was the first time I broke saying something because it was just a lie. I didn't know. I play violin very well. And your white birds fly in a V formation. I'm white birds fly in a V formation. You're welcome to people who enjoy taking in the sky. Just in general.

Just people who are just fans of cloud watching. Yeah. I actually, upon writing that bit, I then looked up, why do birds fly in a V pattern? And it's basically that the front bird creates lift, essentially. And so it makes it easier for all the other birds behind it. They basically are like creating a jet stream and it's lifting all the other birds. Wow. All right. Do you have any history with Slice House specifically? I have no history with Slice House specifically and little

history with pizza in Los Angeles. I picked this restaurant for you specifically because you lived in New York for 12 years. That's right. And I just realized you're kind of dressed like a pizza. Oh my God, thank you for noticing. Was that an intentional, like, this is the pizza-ist shirt you have? Yes. And. What's your relationship to pizza? I have always loved pizza.

I mean, I think everyone had, like, a pizza party as a kid on a birthday, but, like, my family did Sunday night pizza. We did. I still do feel like Sunday night pizza is a thing for me. Not, like, religiously every Sunday, but, like, Like once a week should be a pizza. Are you going to do it tonight? Double duty.

You're going to double do it? No, I don't think I can. Yeah. Love pizza. I love New York pizza. Now that I have like tried a bunch of pizza in New York. But when I was growing up, it was like chain pizza. It was Domino's or Pizza Hut.

Yeah, Domino's is mine. Pizza Hut I had a birthday party at back when they had the buffet. Pizza Hut used to have like a... I think you're older than me. I am. Okay, no, don't, you don't get to make that face into the camera. That's crazy. I think you're older than me.

All right. I have been to Tony's Napolitana in San Francisco, and it was a two-hour wait. I just went once. I went with my niece cousin, Emma, and my friend Herbert. We were there for a wrestling pay-per-view, and we took my niece out to, this place and she was like, I don't know what pizza was going to be worth a two hour wait. And we took her through. And after she had that pizza, she was like, I don't know if it's worth a two hour wait still.

But she did really enjoy it. And I really enjoyed it. But the entire menu is just like, like every single item has like some sort of ribbon next to it. And it's like won this competition, won that competition. And so it's just very like prestigious pizza. And so when I learned that there was a chain version of it, of course, I had to cover it. So anyways, that's my history with Slice House, your history with pizza in general. Do you want to hear the history of Slice House?

I want to hear the history of Slice House. We're going to jump into this week. Eat Deeps. Tony Geminiini got into the pizza business after finishing high school in 1991 at his brother's restaurant, Paizano's Pizzeria in Castro Valley. He had grown up working on his family's orchard in Fremont, so his whole life he was around fresh ingredients for food preparation. From there, he became a dough tossing showman and started winning world-class pizza competitions.

I like the idea of a dough-tossing showman. You have no idea how deep that well goes. Wow. A couple points from now, we are going to be talking about what is known as pizza acrocessing Acrobatics. And it is a thing. And it is like a big thing. Yeah, I was going to ask what the showman part was. Like, is it like how much dough you get on your hands? Is it the way your hands move? Is it the, is it the levity of the toss or all of the above? The levity? Like how lighthearted? Yeah, yeah. How joyful and whimsical. How much whimsy did you have when you threw that pie in the air? Also, I love the notion that like how dirty your hands are. Are they like full? of dough. You can't even see skin, just all dough. Yeah. Or, you know, is it like a smattering? I don't think that factors into the showmanship of dough. But it should. But it should.

Tony Jiminyani arrived as a pizza juggernaut in Naples in 2007. This is the right you wanted to hear about. He became the first American and first non-Neapolitan to win the World Pizza Cup there. And the story got even more legendary when he said police escorted him out because locals were furious. That win also gave him the credibility that helped push him towards opening a flagship

restaurant in San Francisco. This is the first I'm hearing of the pizza cup. Yeah. It's just like, I mean, like there's a fried chicken championship, there's a pizza championship, but there's like literally an event in Naples annually. And

for a very long time, only Neapolitan locals won the competition. And then in 2007, this freaking guy feels like he can walk into their territory and beat them. And then he does. And he needs a police escort to get out. I was going to say he needs the coppers to get out of their safely. It's pretty American. What do they call them in Italy?

Oh, Polizio. Yeah. Polizio. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. The policeman. And I bet. And I bet that their sirens sound like weird. A wee, wee, we, a wee, wee.

They all have the little Italian hand motion that everyone, like the chef's kiss hand. Yeah. Respectfully. With love. I'm a quarter Italian. I can say, I can make fun of talking with your hands. I have Italian friends. Crazy.

Tony Jiminyani has won 13 World Pizza Championship Awards, six of them for actually making pizza, and seven in the dough tossing acrobatics category. Also known as freestyle dough tossing, pizza acrobatics is the art of spinning pizza dough while doing tricks for an approximately three-minute routine. There's even a trick known as the Geminiini, which is rolling the dough across your shoulders and catching it like a Harlem Globetrotter. Shut up. I will not.

This is insane. I refuse. I need. I need to see a video of the acrobatic axe because the shoulder roll, crazy, cool. But there's like, is there any lift? Do the feet ever leave the floor? Or is it just a body thing? It's just a body thing.

Go to YouTube and look up San Francisco, Tony Gemini. There's like a three-minute profile. I'll tell you if it's the right thumbnail. But I watched it multiple times last night. And we can just watch this whole video. Truly looks like Like a frisbee Yeah it's it's really cool

I'll put a link in the YouTube and in the podcast version of this to that video So people can watch what we just watch And also kind of reminds me of like The top of a drum Like that fab Yeah drumhead

Yeah yeah Wild Yeah It's genuinely kind of mesmerizing Yeah I liked it We liked it Tony's Pizza Nepe

Apolitana opened in North Beach in 2009, and Slice House followed soon after as the faster, easier answer to its own success. Eight months after Tony started drawing long lines, Jim andiani bought the deli next door and turned it into a quick service slice shop in 2010, so people who didn't want the full sit-down weight could still get his pizza by the slice. This is where we talk about gentrification. This is where we get into the hard hitting. I mean, to be fair, it's an Italian man who pushed out a deli. So it's like, that doesn't feel like gentrification. That feels like a one for one. That was like a lateral move.

Wow. I mean. What do you mean? Wow. Who was running the deli, Michael? What lovely family had that deli in their family business for years and years? I just don't feel like it's gentrification if it's like the same demographic coming in taking over. Do we know for sure?

I don't know for sure. Michael knows for sure that it was the exact same demographic. But I have a vibe. I get a vibe check. It's like a. It's also like kind of a little Italy-esque area in San Francisco. That's helpful. That's helpful to know. I don't know that to actually be true, but I do know there's a lot of Italian restaurants in that area.

I've never been to San Francisco. I don't know what I'm talking about. Really? Yeah, I know. You're giving San Francisco. Thank you. Like if I didn't know that you were from L. And I had to guess where you were from.

Don't. Don't. It's a secret. But I didn't know that you were a Las V. You know what? I'll say lost blank. I'll bleep the second word. People can have a guess. Yeah. But I would guess San Francisco. It also kind of reminds me of the bear. Do you watch the bear? I watched the first two seasons, and I just felt that it was like needlessly stressful. Sure. Yeah, sure.

It was too elevated. You've never worked in a restaurant, have you? I haven't. No. I've worked service jobs, but none that were like that cut throat. Sure. Yeah, yeah. I've mostly been like a tour guide and a hotel bellman. Oh. And I did room service for a bit, but like it was all micro, I was just microwaving food that was left in a fridge. Nothing was made fresh. Oh, you prepared the room service. Oh, yeah. I had a vision of you like coming in with the cart. Also that. I was over, I was overnight. So I just did it all. Yeah. They're not going to. hire multiple people to do a job that is microwaving chicken breast and a cocoa is now doing that job

and I'm bullying it I stand in its way yeah we do do that yeah have you worked in a restaurant yes yeah have you ever reviewed bear burger no it's a chain in New York I don't know if it's I think I have it like Connecticut New Jersey too but I was a server and host at bear burger and I also worked at the Smith also at chain restaurant in New York was it as stressful as the bear? No, not as stressful as the bear, but the restaurant industry is like, you can tell, like there's a spectrum and wherever you are in that spectrum,

I feel like you can, there's a, there's a pull towards stress or there's a pull towards like the people who are doing heroin in the back. You can be one of the two. All right. The biggest compromise, Slice House made for scaling, was logistical. Tony has said that the flagship store houses multiple ovens, multiple doughs, and is very complex,

while Slice House was built around figuring out how to do New York, Detroit, Sicilian, and Grandma styles with essentially one oven, parbaked crusts, and a simplified process that's still focused on quality, but perhaps a little less precious about certain elements. Oh, Tony's a businessman. Yeah. How can we make all we want to make in one oven? Yeah. We only got to buy one oven.

I mean, if you're making over 100 locations of a restaurant, it does make sense to be like, well, I only want to pay for 100 ovens, not 400 ovens to do all these different crust types. Especially when a big draw of the main restaurant is the different crust types. Yes. Like that just seems like an element that you can't not offer. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Do you know what parbaked crusts are? No.

So it's basically they cook the dough about 80 to 85% of the way through. and then they rapidly freeze it and then put it on hold so that way they can make it faster like the next day or whatever. Got it. So it's basically like pre-prepped doughs. And my guess is that that's just always going to be a major contributor to it, not tasting as fresh as it would if you just cooked it all the way through and served it right away. Sure. I don't want my hot food frozen. I can't think of a single counterpoint to where I would want my hot food.

frozen beforehand. So. Okay. I respect that. I agree with that. I do freeze my bread and my bagels that I buy because my food molds. Well, that's the thing. That's preservation. When you're a restaurant, your food's probably not at risk of molding because it's turning over quickly enough. That's right. Yeah. Especially for Tony, Jim and Yanni.

Tony, Jim, and Yanni is what it sounded like he said, like three guys. Yeah, that was, that was me and Breed. breaking down how to pronounce his name. Spell his last name, just off the top of your head. Jem, G-E-M-I-N. Nope. Jiminyani. That's saying it, not spelling it.

G-E-M-I-N-I-N-A. Yeah, close on. You want to look at the teleprompter? Jem-I-M-G-G-N-Y. Jimign-N-Y. But you don't say J-M-I-M-Y. I will be saying J-M-N-N-Y. from now on.

That seems harder. Jim and Yanni built Slice House with longtime partners, George Carpati, Trevor Hewitt, and Bill Ginsberg, and then brought in former Baskin-Robbins executive, Tom Leeper, as the company shifted its focus from staying in the Bay Area to becoming a serious franchising operation,

launching its national program in 2022. So that's when they started, like, expanding to other stores outside of San Francisco. 2022. Wow, a post-COVID endeavor. Post-COVID endeavor. The only business to boom, post-COVID. The only one. I mean, Chili's is done well. Post-COVID? Yeah. Why's that? Because they kept prices down. And then they did the triple-dipper and everyone, like went crazy over it. Got it. Yeah. And Chili's is why we're here. Chilies is the reason I was born. Thanks, Mom and Dad. My dad is the Chili's. Oh. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah.

Okay. Nice. Thank you. I guess he didn't say a compliment, but I think, too. But yeah, bringing in a Baskin-Robbins exec feels like, I don't know, I don't want them to bring in a big name from like another company. To me, that cheapens it a little. It does feel apt, though. It feels appropriate for sure. When we talk about the restaurant, it's like, oh, I get it.

Like, all Baskin Robbins have a certain feel. All chilies have a certain feel. Yeah. assumingly, all Slice House has... And you think Slice House felt like a Baskin-Robbins in that they had 31 flavors of pizza. Exactly. But they only display a certain amount of them in glass, which is... And that's eight.

That's eight. Eight. Eight. Eight flavors. That's eight. Which you could also hide in the Baskin-Robins. You know about the 31 hidden in the Baskin-Robbins logo, right? I do not know food facts like you.

So B-R, right, for Baskin-R-R-hmm? The, like, curvy part of the B... That curvy part of the bee. Sorry, the sexy part of the bee is highlighted to look like a three. And then the stiff part of the R, the rigid erect line is highlighted to look like a one. So there's a 31 hidden in BR for 31 flavors. And if it was eight flavors, you could just make it the B is kind of the point I'm making. Oh, my gosh.

You can make the whole B sexy. Wow. All I heard was math, math, math. Boobies, erect penis. The wrecked line. Exactly. Your listening comprehension skills are honestly 100% accurate. Thank you.

Math, math, math, boobies, penis. And that's on bisexuality. And that's it. By March 26, Slicehouse had awarded its 150th franchise unit, PMQ, reported 25 California locations already open and active markets spanning California, Nevada, Utah, Colorado, Arizona, Texas, Idaho, and Tennessee, with a new four-unit Oregon deal signed, while official and franchise site materials also listed coming or newly announced locations all over California and Colorado. Basically, lots of restaurants in the works or already open in a lot of different states. The only thing I heard was Nevada.

Nevada. Nevada. Nevada. It's a Spanish word. Nevada. What's the neighborhood next to Silver Lake? Los Felice. Mm-hmm. I do say it Los Felice, though. Do you really?

I do. Okay, so all the people who live in that neighborhood, let's start fighting in the comments. Let's make this, let's make this episode pop off just about the pronunciation of that neighborhood. I don't know. I grew up in Austin where there's a lot of, like,

bastardization of the Spanish language. There's a street through the middle of the University of Texas campus called Guadalupe and they all call it Guadalupe. That's tough. And then there's a road that's Manchaca, M-A-N-C-H-A-C-A-A, and they call it Mansh-H-A-N-Sh-A. No. Yeah. And so I'm just like, it's my silent protest.

Okay. Well. It's not silent. It's literally about speaking, but, you know. As someone who is from Nevada. Nevada. Although we're going to bleep it. No one's allowed to know where I'm from.

Nevada. So this argument. You're from lost B. Nevada. Nevada. Nevada. And I couldn't hear a single thing you said after that because my brain was just sirening. And that's bisexuality.

Michael said it. Marketing-wise, Slice House sells itself on the notion that their founder is a champion, an approach that's mostly worked. The brand leans on Gemini's celebrity chef, Aura, TV appearances, sports stadium and arena locations, and a fun gimmick where stores get exclusive signature pies. For instance, the new Universal City Walk Slice House offers the hot Mario, which was created in collaboration with TV host Mario Lopez. What? I know you were expecting Mario.

Yep, because they have Super Mario World, but nope. Mario Lopez went in there and was like, hey, you want to collab? What's on the Mario Lopez? Let's brainstorm. Oh, my God. I, in my script, wrote down all the ingredients that are in it. And then I was like, she's not going to care. And I didn't put it there. And I feel like it's like hair grease.

It's a little bit of, it's a little bit of like, like. You're just shaking your body. Something that makes you dance. What else is in the Mario Lopez? There's like distilled machismo. Yes, thank you. That's what I was trying to get at in my dancing. Yeah.

But you know about. Hair grease and distilled machismo. that's the hot Mario And just like It's the one pizza that's always on like a heated oven Like so it's always literally hot As opposed to a non-heated oven

You know what I mean When they bring it out It comes on a hot plate It comes on a hot plate Yeah Comes on a hot plate It comes a hot plate And that'll do it for this week's eat deeds

Court You're a rich tapestry Intricately threaded together By all your controversial opinions You're the only person I know who's had to take down every single Facebook post you've ever made just to keep yourself employed. But this is your free pass to say all of your hot takes. This is the heat lamp. Heat lamp.

So hot. Court, I have to know what is your restaurant hot take? Okay. So I'm thrilled. that you passed the hot take test today when we went out to eat. Did I unknowingly approve of this idea? You unknowingly exhibited the behavior. I think one should exhibit at a restaurant.

And that is, look, there's, you could fight me on this in many different ways. But from my perspective, when you go out to eat, you're going out to eat with people you care about. So this doesn't count if you're going out to eat with someone first date. It doesn't count. It doesn't count if you're like on a business meeting with people you barely know, you're trying to solidify a business deal. Who are you, by the way? Who's going to business meetings?

What I might meet? I thought you were going to say at Fleiss House, but just who's taking meetings? Who's taking meetings in general? Are you employed? Who's going out to eat for business? Yeah. Never been me yet.

today we went out to eat for business where is this going because this episode is sponsored by what's about to happen no okay who'd you get who's paying me for this um the bisexual community wow and it's July

it's not even Pride Month every month is Pride Month thank you he got that one really quick Okay, so my long-winded way of saying, all orders should be collective. Someone needs to order for the table, and we need to share everything. And if... So my whole pretext was that, like, this means if you're going out to eat with someone,

you're very close with, a partner, or a bestie. everything should be shared. That is the dining experience. That's what eating food is all about. Sharing food, talking about what you're eating, sampling everything. Otherwise, you're having different experiences if you're not sharing everything that's on the table. Okay. I passed the test today, but I vehemently disagree.

Disagree. Oh, yeah. I dined that way for the podcast so that we have a collective dearth of us. options to evaluate and and give scores both knowingly on. And look at how much fodder comes from sharing all of the food. But when I go out to eat, it's not about fodder. It's about what do I like? What do I want?

Now, all right, I have a caveat to being opposed to this. My partner and Joyce and I, we want different things with what we eat. And I grew up a picky eater. And when I would go to a place, I would be struggling. just to find the one thing that I wanted to eat. Two things doesn't interest me because I'm still only interested in the one. What it means is I'm just giving up real estate of the one thing that I want, and I'm not going to have any of the thing that you order, or I'm going to have very little.

I will always be like, you want a bite, you want to try it? Please, be my guest, taste it, know what it's like, but I ordered it because that's the thing that's going to satisfy the craving that I'm having. The exception will be is if there are multiple things, I'm like, oh, I'm genuinely stuck between these two options or I'm interested in multiple things. Let's order all those things and share them. That's what I think is the joy about eating out, though. It's like I at least want to go to a restaurant where I want to try many things.

If I'm going to spend my money eating out, obviously this is like where fast food is different. And I get that's the whole premise of this show. So maybe it doesn't exactly equate to what we're talking about. But I think there is something so uniquely wonderful and special about sharing everything on a menu. You can get more food that way. You can try more things on the menu. You can see what the chef Geminiini was trying to show. What's the verb?

Show. Show. Trying to show. Great. Trying to show. Essentially, girl dinner is for everyone. The girls gave. gays, these, and sometimes the boys.

Yeah, I think to me it's just so case by case. If I'm interested in multiple things and those are all things that you're willing to have, then great, we'll split them. Otherwise, I'm just like, hey, this really was calling to me and I just kind of want to have this. And yeah, you can try it, but I don't want to be like it's a 50-50 commitment. Yeah. Yeah. I'm basically anti-ontree, essentially. Yeah, it seems like it.

You're kind of like in a commune of food. It's the Aquarian in me. Yeah. Thank you for putting yourself out there. I'm putting the right idea out there. The only idea. Please delete that off of Facebook. All right.

It is time to turn our attention to other people and hear what they thought about the slice house that we visited in this week's Yelp from strangers. We need a little Yelp, a little Yelp from strangers. A one star, two star, three star, star four, or five. So get a little yelp, a little yelp from strangers A little yelp, a little yelp, give us those complaints while you literally white and yelp. This is Yelp from Strangers, our segment where we turn our attention to Yelp and read out our favorite. One, two, three, four, and five star Yelp, you're the first person to not join me on counting. You're the first person in the show's history to not say any of the numbers with me when I'm giving you such an expectant look of, hey, join me.

I have no idea what that meant. We're going to read a Yelp review from each star rating of the Slice House that we went to. Do you mind if I start with the first one? Oh, of course. One star review. This is a one star review from Beauregardtie from Los Angeles. Angeles, California, written April 23, 2025. Beauregard, kind of in his avatar photo, looks Fabio-esque, like a young fobby, just like flowy,

open shirt, well-defined. Just like a Beauregard. Nice long hair. Looks like a Beauregard. Hunk, dare I say, a hunk. So this review makes a lot of sense. He's not built the way I am. Okay.

I'm going to read it like I think he sounds. I really wish I could rate this place better. I had the Sicilian pizza with sausage pepperoni. It was excellent. The only issue is that it causes extreme inflammation due to the amount of seed oils within the deep dish Sicilian pizza. Not the Maha community. The seed oil? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Oh, yeah. And he gets specific. or the high processed pork. Oh, you're eating at Slice House. I know. You are walking into a pizza place that shows you in the window everything that it is. Yeah, what? There's no ambiguity here.

Anyways, he goes on. Maybe the processed pork. Maybe both. I'm writing this to you at 6 a.m. in the morning. I woke up at 4 a.m. With tummy problems. With tummy problems. Discomfort.

Anxiety. Tummy problems. And my eyes swollen. My face bloated. Oh no, Beauregard? Bo regard. A beautiful face. More like, oh, no, regard.

This was literally the only thing I've eaten all day since I'm on an intermittent fasting diet. Of course you are. What? Why would you choose? That's the one thing you're going to eat all day? Yeah. When you're intermittent fasting, you eat whatever you want for like a short window. No, you're supposed to eat like 13 eggs.

And that's true. And that's it. That's true. That's it and true. So I know it came from this place. I only had two. slices of it. They're using canola or soybean oil,

whatever it is. It is not good for you. Feel like I paid $40 to be poisoned for the love of God. Use olive oil. Unfortunately, I will not be returning or referring. Avoid this place at all

cost. Did he buy two slices of the same pizza too? Sounds like it. Damn. But regard. Which seems like you're like defeating the purpose of what this place is. Yeah, what? Yeah. Oh my God. I can't believe he circled back to the oils again. Canola or soy. Or soy oil. For the love of God, use olive.

Yeah, wow. Yeah. I'd like to see Beauregard. Swollen. Oh. Cooking while swollen. I just love, it's 6 a.m. and I'm writing this. Everything about that was just so fitting for what he looked like. Yeah. I know you saw it. You know, he's like in the. mirror, like typing it with one hand.

He's like looking at his swollen face. All of his typos were because he got distracted by his own eyes. Yeah. Yeah. He got lost. Bo, I hope you're doing okay. Four star review. Tora M.

from Burbank, California. She's an all-star reviewer, by the way. Big time. Four stars. Ten photos and three check-ins. I think that's just like her proof. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's not in this moment.

She didn't check in here three times. New pizza place with a pedigree Right across from the Batman statue Holding court in front of the AMC 16 theaters Batman was holding you? Insert picture No, don't make me do that work Michael's editor should insert a picture

I'm my editor Michael's editor Okay, yeah holding court in front of the Wow, Torah is a writer Yeah, she wants to paint the scene Yes owner Tony Jim McName. Is a Pizzola

chef instructor? Is a what? Pisaolo. Pizaiolo. How would you say that? I gave this to you to say. This isn't my job to say this one. I saw that word and I was like,

Cork can read this one. Pizziola. Chef, instructor, author, and reality TV star. He's a 13-time world pizza champion with four Guinness World Records. Wow. The pizza. And one of them for rolling dough

across his shoulders a lot of times. Like it, frisb. The pizzas offered are in various styles. New York, Grandma, Detroit, and Sicilian. I like that they have many choices, usually about eight, exclamation point, available by the slice at 650 to 750 each. They have three pastas.

They don't have three pastas anymore. They've 86 to the pastas. They have 86 the pastas. They have three pastas that I wouldn't really recommend. Now we know why. know why? This one review took them down. If you must, the pesto is the best of the three, but overpriced at $16 for a small serving. Are the man who took our order, he mentioned the pesto. He's like, if you have taste, you would have ordered the pesto. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I've tried, this is Torah still. I've tried a half dozen. That felt like you're like, I take no ownership over all the words I'm saying. Never. I never take any ownership of any words I say. Well, you delete your history. Yeah. And we'll have your editor delete all of the things I say in this podcast. Las Vegas, Nevada. I've tried a half dozen of their different slices and have been pleased with each one. There are TV screens with sports on. It's a comfortable place to watch a game while eating slices of, in parentheses, pizza pie. The service. She really wanted to say eating slices of pie, but then she put pizza in parentheses. Oh, oh, okay.

She's working on her writing style. Like, she wrote pie and then she, like, read it over. Yeah. And she's like, they're not going to know. I should elaborate. On second draft, wrote in pizza. Yeah. The service is uneven, though.

And I had to remind the server of my pasta order about 20 minutes after receiving my slice. They do deliver to your table. There's a self-serve soda machine and clean restrooms. There's ample free parking all around in the movie parking structures. I'll be back when I'm craving pizza slices, but not willing to commit to a whole pie. That feels like most times I want pizza. Yeah. This review feels a little bit like she's reviewing the experience of going to eat at that Burbank.

Area of Burbank. Yeah, that area. I mean, to be fair, these are all reviews of the slice house we went to, not just slice house generally speaking. Yeah, but she talks more about like the parking and the... Batman. Yeah. I mean, people on Yelp seem to love talking about the parking lots. Hmm.

I get it. We get it. I have genuinely not gone to a place where they were like, the parking is non-existent. And I was like, look somewhere else. It'll pass. They should have a parking tab on Yelp. That said, this is such like a well-known area that's like, no one needs you to tell them what the parking is. People understand what the Burbank downtown parking situation is.

Pizioola. Pizioolo. Pizioolo. I would say, pizza yolo. You're shaking your body again. There's something below the not willing to commit to a whole pie. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Just song names. I thought for sure this wasn't part of it.

That's, okay. Sundown, Gordon Lightfoot. Oh, love, Led Zeppelin. I don't know why that is there. But it feels like it feels like Torah is maybe like a serial killer and there's like a trail of breadcrumbs of like hints. Whoa. And like you got to piece something together like there's a hint within each of the songs and they post two songs at the bottom of like all their Yelp reviews. Okay.

That's that's the pessimistic take. We're going to go optimistic. Why? Why do we have to? Just for my version. Just to see it saw. to saw the seas, to see the saw. To teeter the totter?

Thank you. Yeah. Torah goes out to eat alone, like a little romantic date night for themselves. You said we were making this positive. That sounds positive. People should take themselves out to eat. I do it all the time. I do it all the time.

And Torah played those two songs. on their headphone. And they listen to them when they were eating the pizza. Hey there, it's me, Michael. And now that we're in season four, I'm adding more content to my Patreon. Not only can you hear the extended Yelp

from Stranger's segment with three more reviews and not only can you get an exclusive full episode covering an extra chain restaurant on the last day of each month, but I've added an extra chat with my guests where we discussed their go-to fast food and chain restaurants and talk about why they love them so much.

I hope you'll come check it out, and you can get your first week completely free of charge. That's patreon.com slash fine dining podcast. I appreciate and love you all. Back to the episode. And that's part one. Tune in next week as we tell you what we thought about our meal at Slice House.

Cort, thanks so much for being here. You're very welcome. Tell people where they can follow you on socials. Oh, my gosh. Follow me on socials. She deletes retroactively all of her hot take posts. You can follow me on Instagram. I'm bricked out of Instagram because I'm so mentally well.

I was like, do you want to say your hand? I do. I just like, I think it's the court jester. You are the underscore. Sorry, do you pronounce it the? The. The underscore court jester underscore on Instagram. And you can follow this show on Instagram and TikTok at Fine Dining Podcast.

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We'll see you next week. Have a fine day. Beb is done and we had some fun now we'll wish next time we're stuck in line waiting out in you I search for mediocrity yeah fine day