Nostalgic seekers of cheap thrills have crossed national borders and several oceans to witness a rare sight more astonishing than a unicorn in the flesh and more gut-turning than Bigfoot’s shadow — that is, the McPizza.
But The Post’s multimedia staff was lucky enough to be 30 minutes north of the village of Pomeroy, Ohio, which is home to one of two McDonald’s in the world that still serves fast food’s white whale.
Based on information gathered from a quick Google search and a few interviews with the Pomeroy McDonald’s employees, the McPizza’s existence so close to Athens is a serendipitous anomaly. McPizza cost McDonald’s $25 million to pilot in 500 stores beginning in Canada somewhere around the late ‘80s and early ‘90s, and it spread to the states over the course of the '90s, according to Canada.com. The idea was to introduce the notorious baron of bad calories as a full-service family restaurant, and McDonald’s pushed its vision with other attempts at Italian cuisine, such as spaghetti and lasagna. Ultimately, all of the items failed an international taste test and were gradually removed from restaurants in both Canada and the U.S. To this day, Pomeroy, Ohio, and Spencer, West Virginia, are the lucky pair of locales to still serve McPizza — Spencer serves regular ol’ pizza from a local shop, while Pomeroy is the last McDonald’s to serve the original McPizza recipe from the '90s. But both businesses are owned by the same dude, manager Greg Mills, who owns five McDonald’s total and is the consequent Real MVP for keeping McPizza around; he alone has kept the dish alive, if only in two places.
Mindful of the the entree’s fascinating albeit brief history, we prepared to kick butt, take names and eat McPizza. We waited alongside the Ohio River as it ran parallel to the picnic table claimed by the placement of our clamoring cameras and laptop-heavy backpacks under the 6 p.m. sunset. Ten minutes and a few Snapchat-worthy moments later, our family cheese and personal deluxe McPizzas arrived atop the forearm of a McD’s employee. He set the boxes on our table. He left. We McFreakin’ lost it.
The McPizza turned out to be a half-frozen, half-scalding disk of cheesy grease craters glued with red sauce onto a thin crust — and it was both a thing of wonder and a mess to behold. Teeming with anticipation, I tore off and took a bite from the first shallowly-cut piece on my side of the family cheese, and I can say with all lactose-intolerant honesty that 6/10 would recommend. McPizza is “the next step above Easy-Bake Oven and a couple steps below Dominos,” multimedia editor Patrick Connolly, who made the arguable mistake of ordering a personal deluxe for himself, summarized; it was not inedible but certainly not preferable. Needless to say, the consensus regarding the worthwhile-ness of McPizza was mixed, as multimedia staffers Liam Davis and Laila Riaz said it was “actually the worst pizza (he’s) ever had” and “8/10,” respectively. To each his own.
Critical eyes shut, we each ate multiple slices and had an overall amusing experience. Polishing the feast off with comparably palatable ice cream, we felt our stomachs swiftly cascade from a state of bloated contentment into one of sheer McTurmoil over the course of the drive back to campus. Regardless of compromised digestion, we were all proud to have documented such an unconventional escapade as a multimedia staff — and that, if nothing else, was our primary intent. We may be “the future,” but if throwing back a few decades with near-eradicated fast food is what it takes to feed our journalistic hunger, we're on it. Bon appetit, multimedia.
