tesg's guide to big chain road food consumption

CHAIN -- Round Table Pizza
Owner -- Privately held (Employee owned)
Primary Operating Region -- Western US, Asia, Middle East
Number of Locations -- 539 (June 1998)

Pizza Hut (who I cannot stand) tried to sue Papa John's for their "Better Ingredients, Better Pizza" slogan.  But they apparently have no problem with Round Table's slogan - "The Last Honest Pizza".  How in the WORLD do you define THAT?!?

Round Table was started in Menlo Park, CA by a cheese delivery man named William Larson in 1959.  Larson named the restaurant after the only piece of furniture in the building.  Larson sold to a group of investors in 1979, with 150 restaurants in operation.  The company became employee-owned in 1992.  Some of Larson's children still operate their own franchised locations.  Larson died November 2006.

Round Table has followed the tried-and-true pizza restaurant stereotypes of the ages.  Round Table was your typical pizza restaurant chain of the '80's, complete with gothic decor, a small video game room, and if possible, a fireplace.  When everybody else debuted lunch buffets, so did Round Table.  Delivery and take-out are accommodated through said locations, though Round Table rolled out a take-out/delivery only prototype in 1998 in hopes of increasing expansion in a more cost-effective model.  Basically, Round Table is to the West what Godfather's is to the Midwest.  They're so interchangeable that when the Godfather's locations in Boise, ID closed, Round Table relocated older restaurants into them in an almost seamless transition.

In the day and age of the "cheap junk pizza", where some chains have found success delivering hardly-topped pies for $12 or less, Round Table is awfully pricey (I picked up two medium specialty pizzas for $33.44 after sales tax recently), but you do get a consistently good product.  The crust is thin, a little oily.  The sauce has a hint of sweetness.  A creamy garlic sauce is also available.

Specialty pizzas like Montague's All-Meat Marvel and the King Arthur's Supreme are popular choices with touches that are hard to find elsewhere.  Perhaps that's where Round Table gets the "Last Honest Pizza" moniker.  It IS an honest-to-goodness parlor pizza, nothing cheap about it.   

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