When you’re walking around town, you may be craving one of a few things. Maybe you are in the mood for one of the Main Line girl hangouts such as Honeygrow or Playa Bowls, or zesty Mexican at Pipeline Taco or Chipotle. While there are enough restaurant options to satisfy you for a few school years, one food item maintains its appeal: pizza. But that raises the question, what is the best slice in this area? This question can only be answered by the new kids on The Radnorite – the most sophisticated palettes at Radnor High School! This is Grubbin’ with the Boys!

The Rules:
We rated traditional take out pizza places, excluding the gourmet options (Pietro’s, Biga), flatbread style pizza (Jules Thin Crust), and custom make-your-own pizza shops (MOD, SNAP). We ordered take out for a medium pizza (half-cheese, half-pepperoni) from each shop and did a blind taste test in which we judged the pies based on four components – crust, sauce, cheese, pepperoni. We assigned each pizza a number during our test, in order to maintain anonymity.

The Contestants:

• Vic and Dean’s
• New Wayne Pizza
• Paola’s
• Main Line Pizza
• Pizzarella Grille
• Conestoga Style Pizza
• Zesto Pizza and Grill

The Reviewers:
Ben Hart
Will Gallagher
Connor O’Sullivan
Eric Vollmer
CJ Murphy
Noah Conen

Vic and Dean’s:
409 West Wayne Ave, Wayne, PA: 610-225-0025 
http://www.vicanddeans.com
This pie was one of the best. The crust got the job done and held up the slice well. Ben, CJ, Connor, and Will all said the crust was doughy and soft. Eric agreed and proclaimed it “godly.” The sauce had a delicious flavor, fruity and just acidic enough to cut through the cheese. All the reviewers agreed that the sauce’s flavor was amazing. The cheese had a near nuttiness to it. We gave props to the fact that the sauce was on top of the cheese and not mixed in, allowing for the two flavors to really shine. The pepperoni was large and had a hint of spiciness in every bite, but nothing overpowering. Overall, this pizza is delicious, and everyone agreed.
Final Thoughts: Nothing like Vic and Dean’s and a game at Odorisio Field.

New Wayne:
109 South Wayne Avenue, Wayne, PA: 610-688-2301 or 2302
http://www.newwaynepizza.com
This is the most unique looking pizza; no one else bakes their pizza like New Wayne. It is the most well done dough, unfortunately, making it almost identical to our school pizza. That is not a good thing. The crust, as a result, is a “more solid unit,” according to Will. It is also quite stiff, and even CJ said there was too much. The reason for the stiffness is also probably due to the minuscule amounts of sauce and cheese, which had little taste and were mixed in. This pie also had a solid amount of grease. The pepperonis, while smaller, did have a better spiciness to them, and shined through this otherwise lacking pizza.
Final Thoughts: If you want a real treat at New Wayne, skip the pizza and get the stromboli. It’s divine.

Paola’s:
128 North Wayne Avenue, Wayne, PA: 610-688-6898
https://www.paolascucina.com
Paola’s is the go-to for a middle school dinner with friends. It’s cheap, reliable, and delicious. I have great memories of Paola’s from middle school. You can probably understand how disappointed we were when we realized pizza number 3 was Paola’s. Instead of that crispy, delicious crust we expected, Will observed that it was chewy and harder to rip off. Instead of a beautiful homemade looking slice, we got a pizza that looked like a photo of pizza on Wikipedia, and instead of the fresh and delicious sauce, we got a weird tasting concoction. The pepperonis had a nice, almost bacony flavor, but had virtually no spice to counter the sauce. We found this pizza disappointing given our collective fond memories.
Final Thoughts: Don’t let this review disappoint you, Paola’s is delicious! We are going to give them the benefit of the doubt and say the take out isn’t as good as the eat in, which is my favorite in the area.

Maine Line Pizza:
233 East Lancaster Avenue, Wayne, PA: 610-687-4008
https://mainlinepizza.com
I have never been here until now. I have only tried their pizza, so maybe there is still hope for other menu items. But I will not be exploring the menu at this establishment anytime soon due to their very mediocre pizza. The pizza’s theme song could be “Ric Flair Drip,” because the crust is so soggy with grease. We all deemed the sauce and cheese to be clumpy and artificial tasting. The toppings all disintegrate in your mouth because of the greasiness, and the pepperoni is bland. Overall, this was a low point on our list.
Final Thoughts: Instead of getting pizza here, why not just walk into the door and take a nice sniff, because it always smelled good during Friday walk through Wayne.

Pizzarella Grille:
958 County Line Road, Bryn Mawr, PA: 610-525-2200
http://pizzarellagrillemenu.com
I’m going to be honest, I was not expecting this pizza to be as good as it was. My family had only gone there once years ago, and it was not overly memorable. Flash forward a couple of years, and it was one of the best pizzas on this list. While the crust may have had some slouching issues due to the greasiness, that same greasiness is what made this pizza so good. It was rich and filling, the cheese and sauce were perfectly balanced and tasted delicious, and the ‘ronis were the best yet according to Ben, with a lot of flavor cutting through the heartiness of the pizza grease. My mom also said that these people were extremely nice during pick-up. You better check it out!
Final Thoughts: If you thought chicken and waffles was the best combination ever, check this out: a delicious slice from Pizzarella followed by a gelati from Rita’s next door.

Conestoga Style Pizza:
905 Conestoga Road, Bryn Mawr, PA: 610-527-1241 or 1242
http://www.conestogastylepizza.com/menu.aspx
I’ll admit, all of us reviewers are on the football team, and we were playing Conestoga the day after this Grubfest. So we may have intentionally hated on this pizza a little bit, and even more so after due to the 42-0 loss, but it is still not a very good pie. The crust’s structural integrity was okay, but it was still very soft. The cheese was really weird on this one though. It almost tasted like Monterey jack and cheddar rather than mozzarella. The sauce tasted super artificial. The pepperonis had almost no taste at all, and that was the final nail in the coffin of a very average slice of pizza
Final Thoughts: If you are 5 minutes away from other spots on this list, just pass right on by and go somewhere else.

Zesto Pizza and Grill:
908 Conestoga Road, Rosemont, PA: 610-527-8500
http://zestopizzaandgrill.com
Last but not least, we have the most average pizza on this list. While Zestos may have very good menu items besides pizza and quick delivery, but other than that, it is average at best. The crust is very bready and essentially the equivalent of pizza crust flavored chewing gum. The sauce and cheese were not present at all on this slice. The pepperonis were the same as Vic and Deans, so it did have a nice little kick to it. The pizza actually was not greasy at all, and it had an extremely strong basil flavor, which we liked a lot.
Final Thoughts: Because it is right across the street from Conestoga Style, I will say it is light years ahead of other pizza shops in the area, but it is still a pass for the much better options not that far away.

Our final rankings:

Final List:
Tied for 1st: Pizzarella Grille and Vic and Deans
3rd: Zesto
4th: Paola’s
5th: New Wayne Pizza
6th: Conestoga Style
7th: Main Line Pizza

Grubbin’ with the Boys is the newest column on the Radnorite, and is focused on writing reviews as well as ranking local restaurants and other food products. It is a monthly feature and we will be reviewing Teresa’s Next Door for November.