Pizza Rustica Delivers in Royal Oak - and More!

Living in a small town like Royal Oak where houses are spaced close together, we get a lot of advertisements stuck in our door. Sometimes the hand-delivered junk mail can result in a huge pile of garbage (especially during election cycles), leading the homeowner to wonder why companies would invest in this antiquated means of getting the word out. After all, there's Val-Pak, TV and the Internet. The annoyed among us would grumble on the way to the trash can.

I must confess that I skim through most of the advertising. Yes, I even open the Val-Pak. You never know who might be offering what deal.

Last week, a flyer appeared wedged in my doorknob, one for a local pizza place in downtown Royal Oak. The establishment is called Pizza Rustica. Inside the glossy menu was a letter signed by the owner in which he offered free delivery if we would just try one of this pizzas within the following two weeks. He even offered to throw in a salad for two, a liter of soda and a sampling of three Swirlberry frozen yogurts, and to come back to return our money if we weren't satisfied.

I've gotten into the habit of making pizza, and it's been a long time since we ordered one. But with this kind of deal, what did we have to lose?

Last night, we enjoyed a most interesting chicken Florentine pizza. It was heaped with fresh spinach and other vegetables. The chicken was cubed, real breast meat and not some sort of pseudo-chicken product that seems to be so prevalent in the restaurant industry these days. The salad was enormous, more than enough for two. Three small containers of Swirlberry were included, and the entire order was delivered by the owner!

In a world of big name chain pizzas with ho-hum offerings, Pizza Rustica is a step above.

Looking at the Pizza Rustica website, I learned there were locations in Florida (where the company started), Arkansas, California, Texas, South Carolina and Ohio. There are even locations in France and the Dominican Republic.

I might still make my own pizza from scratch, but Pizza Rustica is definitely on my go-to list for a quick, delicious pizza.