Craving Pizza? You Should Probably Skip This Chain, According To Reviews

Pizza has an undeniable allure, and die-hard pizza fans reason that even when it's bad, it's still pretty good. Still, we prefer good pizza. While tracking down the best pizza places in America seems like a worthy endeavor, we're not in love with the idea of a wild goose chase filled with pizza destinations that fall short of our expectations. To avoid this, we searched the internet and scanned reviews to save you from encountering the most disappointing pizza experience firsthand. According to reviewers, the pizza restaurant most worthy of skipping is Pizza Ranch.

Hearing the phrase Pizza Ranch might invoke the mental image of pizza eaten with ranch dressing (which actually cleanses the palate in a satisfying way), but we're referring to Pizza Ranch – the buffet pizza restaurant chain with locations in 15 states, mostly concentrated in the Midwest. Mashed placed Pizza Ranch dead last on our list of the 30 most popular pizza chains, and scores of reviews from internet pizza connoisseurs appear to confirm our assessment. We've broken down what reviewers had to say, so you can read the accounts and decide for yourself if it's worth making the trip to the ranch.

To be fair, Pizza Ranch customers were not 100% disappointed across the board, and reviews vary by location, but the reviews that were bad...were really bad. A Google reviewer who visited Pizza Ranch in Cedar Falls, Iowa, complained there was no coffee available when their family arrived, the salad bar had no lettuce, and the buffet had only about five slices of pizza. "To think I paid for these things and not have them is a real let down," they wrote.  

Perhaps one of the most disappointed reviews came from a patron who visited Pizza Ranch in Fond du Lac, Wisconsin. They complained on Yelp that their party was seated beneath a fan that was filthy, the tables were dirty, the buffet area was overrun, and the pizza was cold. They went on to mention other issues with the restaurant's coffee and fried chicken. "I will never return for the above reasons, and [for] $14, I expected more," they wrote.

Over on Reddit, a user posted that they'd recently moved from the East Coast to the Midwest and were curious to know more about Pizza Ranch. Positive responders noted that the variety of options worked well for feeding a large family with different tastes. Others said Pizza Ranch was tolerable, but recommended the fried chicken and the breakfast pizza over the regular pizza. The most critical commenters noted the prices at Pizza Ranch had recently been increasing. A few said they preferred other Midwest pizza places, such as Bop's.