For starters, I really don't get the name. "Pizza Depot" sounds like some kind of outlet store you travel way out to the outskirts of town to for some discounted wholesale pepperoni.
Aside from my easy pot shot at the depot moniker, Pizza Depot is a pizza chain I'd frankly never even heard of until one recently popped up in my neighbourhood (replacing the notorious Mamma's Pizza location here). A quick search reveals there are actually almost fourty of these Depots, and all over Canada at that, with a significant chunk of them located in Brampton of all freaking places. This new location in the East Toronto Beaches actually appears to be the closest the franchise has ever been to the downtown of Canada's largest city. Can't blame them for that... have you seen how goddamn expensive it is to live or open a business in this stupi---I mean 'awesome' city these days?
Anyhow, lets get into this thing. Speaking of expensive (or rather the opposite of that), I was extremely pleased to see the Beaches location offers a very reasonable walk-in special: one large two topping pizza for 12.99. As a first impression, that is a very good way to get into the warmer graces of this particular reviewer's particularly chilled heart.
For the two toppings I felt like trying something different than my usual "something pork with sweet/rich" and so chose meatballs and spinach. The latter as a pizza topping is a mistake I seem to make fairly often but have never learned the lesson. I genuinely love spinach, but as a pizza topping its merits are dubious. It needs to be protected within a heavy sauce or cheesy layer (such as in a Chicago deep dish style, or in a calzone) otherwise when baked and exposed to air it completely loses its texture and dries out. This works for a leaf like basil, which is more fragrant naturally, but with spinach the distinctive flavour is usually completely decimated and the result is a topping that beyond a nice colour is barely a presence in the pizza.
As such, this was essentially just a meatball pizza. Now, a few years ago I checked out Gusto 101 and ordered their meatball pizza. Comparing an excellent Italian restaurant that makes fresh meatballs in-house, to a pizza franchise surely using frozen fare (the crunchier exterior gives it away) isn't really an even fight, and Gusto 101 (or 501 if that's your King Street East jam) is the far superior pizza in every way.
But... for what they are, these Depot meatballs were a happy surprise. They have some nice soft meaty texture on the inside, are right in the sweet spot of juicy but not soggy or undercooked, have a bit of depth in the taste (not overtly salty, beefy or pasty) and best of all there are plenty of them on this pizza. As this was my first time ever trying Pizza Depot, I was completely uncertain what level of quality to expect (considering the name and the logo, it being totally cheap and terrible felt exceptionally predictable). Instead, this was an enjoyable topping and a true highlight of my recent visits into unknown pizza lands.
Regarding the rest of the pizza, you've got some ups and downs. It's quite on the soft doughier side of pies, which is perfectly agreeable to me but can get rather two-dimensional when all you get is cheese and pillowy bread on the meatball-less bites. The cheese is nicely cooked and quite even in its thickness, again finding that sweet spot between awful over-gooeyness (*cough* Pizza Hut) or criminal dryness (*cough* Pizza Pizza *cough* *cough*... the extra coughs describe the experience of eating Pizza Pizza).
A real missing element is the sauce however... there isn't much of it and what you do get leans on the more generic side of a sweetened, slightly sugary tomato sauce. Really the big glaring weakness of this pizza: more tomato sauce would add a significant texture dimension to the heavy cheese and bread (not to mention is a natural companion to a meatball), but this particular sauce was so mediocre and underwhelming... it's probably best that this pizza wasn't flooding with it.
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Final verdict! This will sound strange, since Otherside is the new "hipper" spot here in the Beaches and has legitimately superior quality... but overall I actually enjoyed Pizza Depot significantly more. At least this Depot pie knew to minimize it's biggest shortcoming, whereas my Otherside experience was a frustrating trip through either excellence or mouth desolation.
Still, thanks to its higher peaks Otherside can boast a slightly higher grade (it was a 'B-') whereas Pizza Depot gets a solid 'B--', an absolutely impressive showing for a pizza chain. Not cheaping out on quantity of toppings or cheese, terrific thick texture, good meatballs... it's a definite win here. If their sauce was actually any good and any kind of presence, look out. Going in, optimistically I was expecting something more in the 'C+' range, while pessimistically... something hopefully better than Little Caesar's. Pizza Depot surpassed even my hopeful expectations, meaning that as long as that walk-in special remains, I'll almost certainly be visiting again soon.
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