Pizza at 1702

I have lunch at 1702 on a pretty regular basis. One of the guys I work with and I have a theory about the place though: there’s an inverse relationship between the quality of the lunch slice and ‘normalcy’. When the place is pretty low-key and there are no glitches with the service, you get a fairly mediocre slice. When there’s crazy stuff going on all around, you can be pretty sure the pizza’s going to be awesome.

Take today, for example. I actually went with someone else, but the theory held up anyway. The place was swamped when we got there (and it was 1:15 – it shouldn’t have been that busy!), none of the empty tables had been bussed, there was only one waitress on when we got there, and it took forever to get our drinks. All of that’s forgivable because they were really hopping.

I always order my slices ‘crispy’, because they tend to pull them out of the oven too early and they’re room temp in the middle. The waitress didn’t know if that would be possible, but I convinced her that it would be. We pulled our utensils out of the empty six-pack holder, and both my fork and pizza cutter had been used and put back. That pretty much grossed me out, but I sent them back to the kitchen and got a clean set. After a really long time, the waitress came out to tell us the slices were in process. About 10 minutes after that, she came back and said that my slice had burned to black and they had to re-do it. When all was said and done, the pizza was really good. Too bad it took well over an hour for us to get out of there.

On the plus side, 1702 has one of the best beer selections in town. They’ve probably got 40 on tap, and Miller Lite isn’t one of them.

So go there for happy hour, and have a great beer. And if it’s weird in there, order a slice.

1702 is at 1702 E. Speedway. Their website is 1702az.com, but it appears to be down right now.