Find a good frozen pizza and you can enjoy a satisfying pie at home whenever you want. However, the convenience and typical lower prices have a flip side — some frozen pizzas just don’t hit the spot, which sort of defeats the purpose of the whole endeavor. A great frozen pizza should balance price and quality, so if you regularly order from Papa Murphy’s, arguably America’s most expensive pizza chain, you probably aren’t big on frozen pizza cost savings. However, for those times that you do reach for a frozen pie at the supermarket, watch out for Home Run Inn’s pepperoni pizza.
A Chicago fixture, Home Run Inn actually pioneered the frozen pizza around the late 1960s. This makes it even more surprising that their frozen offerings failed to impress. The cheese and toppings were both found lacking in flavor, and the doughy crust tasted raw on the inside despite the pizza being given enough time to crisp up in the oven. Meanwhile, Motor City Pizza Co.’s frozen pizzas blew away the competition and left even Chowhound, who ranked over a dozen frozen pepperoni pizzas from worst to best, flummoxed with how the Detroit-style pizza company gets the textures and flavors so on-point, even on a frozen pie. Home Run Inn, on the other hand, is most popular for its tavern-style pies, which is a lesser known Chicago-style pizza with a thin crust.
Skip the frozen pepperoni pie from Chicago’s Home Run Inn
Simply put, Home Run Inn’s pie lost out because, at the typical price, there are much tastier frozen pepperoni pies available. In fact, the winner of the frozen pizza rankings is available at a lower price in some stores. A lack of flavor can be rectified by adding more toppings and other budget-friendly hacks to elevate frozen pizzas. However, the doughy, slightly raw-tasting crust that remains even after the pizza is baked through is more difficult to ignore or rectify.
No one expects a frozen pizza to taste like a freshly made pie, but it’s got to have the basics — a healthy layer of sauce, flavorful toppings, and a decent crust that’s true to the style of pizza you’ve bought. Unfortunately, Home Run Inn’s frozen pepperoni pizza failed to meet any of these objectives.
However, not all is bad with the Chicago chain, and Home Run Inn’s significant fan following is justified considering how many years the company’s been serving pizza. While we tried the frozen pepperoni pizza and found it lacking, Home Run Inn offers sausage, mushroom, four-cheese, and even veggie pies, in 6 and 12-inch options. You can also get frozen ultra-thin crust pizzas, which are not as doughy, as well as a pack of “Nothing but Crust” pies, which are basically untopped pizza bases that you can bring home and customize yourself. It’s a little more work than a regular frozen pizza, but it allows you to use all the flavorful toppings you want.
