Dial-a-Pizza: Voted #1 Pizza Joint in the Fenway District of Somerville, MA

If you live around, work near, or frequent Beacon Street in Somerville, close to the Cambridge border, you most likely are familiar with Dial-a-Pizza.

What do you think of this place, just curious?

Because I have very mixed emotions about them, which fluctuate between love and hate with every interaction or encounter with the pizza joint and its employees. This has resulted in not only my own internal conflict on several late late night occasions when starving and they were the only place open and available to give my business to but (my frustration mostly) has also yielded a few Smileys.



This post has been created to keep track of Dial-a-Pizza's Strikes. The positive aspects which occasionally lead me to love Dial-a-Pizza do not need full explanations and can be summed up quickly with two simple statements: "Open late" and "Sell Dr. Pepper".

Here's a little history to get you up to date:

STRIKE 1

I had just moved to the neighborhood and wanted to treat the two hot blondes that helped me with the heavy labor to a nice pepperoni pie. A neighbor gave me the number for Dial-a-Pizza, describing it as "kinda ghetto, but really cheap if you pick up the food". So I call and they answer.

"Hello, Dial-a-Pizza?"
"Oh, hi, I just wanted to make sure you were open"
"Oh okay, yeah."
"Thank you,"
"Sure."

We hang up and I realize oops, I didn't know where the heck the place was located.
I call back.

"Hello, Dial-a-Pizza"
"Hi, I just called. Can you tell me where you are located, I just moved to the area."
"We are near the corner of Beacon and Washington Streets."
"Thanks"

So me and my two babes walk around the corner to Dial-a-Pizza, which could not have looked any more shady as a business establishment than it did at this particular moment, for our first impression. The windows were completely fogged up- all of them. The three of us separately came to the same immediate conclusion which was that the employees had hot-boxed the place with marijuana smoke. What else could it be?

We enter the store and behind the counter there are two gentleman. One was near the cash register. The other was further back, in the kitchen.

"Hi," I said.
"Oh hi," one of the guys replies. "Hey, I was trying to tell you on the phone but you hung up too soon. We can't make any pizza. The guy who makes the pizza called in sick."

If this employee noticed the look of bewilderment on my face, he definitely did not show it.

But.
Um.
You only employ a single person at a time who knows how to make the pizza? So what the heck were you other two yahoos doing there, aside, of course, from fogging up the windows with your reefer smoke?

Weird. To this day I do not quite believe that neither of those guys were capable for making a pizza. Maybe they were just jealous of the two gorgeous companions at my side and wanted to embarrass me. They failed. I took them to Dali instead. :P


STRIKE 2

The second thing that drove me to a fury about Dial-a-Pizza first occurred in the winter, after the first heavy snowfall and continued to occur after each successive snowfall. The Smiley I sent them (which they, naturally, never responded to) says it all:





Dial-a-Pizza, for the four consecutive winters I lived in the area, was the only commercial establishment (and come to think of it probably the only driveway in general, including the residential ones) who without fail, NEVER ONCE made the effort to shovel. I don't think I need to even mention all of the reasons why this is not only dangerous but extremely inconsiderate to the neighborhood and especially their own loyal patrons.


STRIKE 3

Even children can sense sketchiness. One night when walking by Dial-a-Pizza, I witnessed a little boy say to his father with a look of absolute horror on his face, "Daddy! The cook was eating the pizza!!'


STRIKE 4

On Dial-a-Pizza's home page, there is a summary of the store which raised a red flag of possible plagiarism in my head. Don't get me wrong, I am not accusing anyone of stealing anyone else's website copy. But does anyone else find it weird that Dial-a-Pizza makes two claims in their 'about us' overview that greatly contradict one another?




Claim one: "Our customers absolutely adore us here at Dial-a-Pizza, and recently showed it by voting us the #1 Pizza Delivery joint in Somerville, Massachusetts..." (> I will get back to this supposed award later)

Claim two: "Our prices are the lowest in the Fenway district and delivery is the fastest in town."

Okay, now I don't know about you, but since when was the Fenway district of Boston located anywhere near the city of Somerville? The only way it would be possible that the Dial-a-Pizza claim two was legitimate is if the pizza shop had a sister location of some sort by Kenmore Square area or Fenway Park. And as far as I know, they do not. My hunch tells me whoever did their website forgot to edit out the irrelevant info from the website they copied that paragraph off of. Oops!


(Potential Strikes) 5 & 6

Strikes 5 & 6 are not official yet. I am awaiting a response to a recent Smiley I sent out to Dial-a-Pizza, in attempt to get to the bottom of a couple suspicions I had. I will post the reply if or when I receive it. In the meantime, you can read the note below to understand the matters that Dial-a-Pizza is being confronted with:

(SEE PIZZA FEATURED IN THE WEBSITE SCREENSHOT UNDER STRIKE 4)