Lunch #6: Stellar Pizza, Seattle Georgetown

Wednesday, December 30, 2009

Lunch #6: Stellar Pizza

Pizza and beer are best enjoyed in large groups so we showed up today at Stellar Pizza with a record crew of 11 to see if we could enjoy our selves here.

Stellar Pizza, Seattle
Average Rrrrrating: 3.6 R's
Address: 5513 Airport Way S, Seattle, Washington, 98108
Cuisine: American: Pizza
Website: www.stellarpizza.com/...
Lunch date: 8/14/2009 @ 11:45:00
Time taken to be seated: 0 minutes
Time to take order: 0 minutes
Time for food to arrive: 35 minutes
Total lengh of meal: 75 minutes
Chair quality: Weird Orange things
Beers on tap: Pabst Blue Ribbon, Manny's Pale Ale, Baron Pilsner, Hales Cream Ale, Dicks Danger Ale, Skagit River Beagle Beer, Arrogant Bastard Ale, The Lagunitas IPA, Boundary Bay Scotch Ale, Maritime Pacific Flagship Red, Hoegaarden, Guinness
Bar type: Full Bar
Year Established: 2001
Number of tables: 26
Number of occupied tables: 13 (50%)
Number of white collar tables: 10 (76%)
Number of blue collar tables: 1 (7%)
Healthcode Score: 15
Links: Yelp! , Urbanspoon

Family Style Dishes

Antipasti Platter - $10.50
Artichoke Jalapeno Dip - $9.00
Georgetowner - Pepperoni, Italian sausage, mushrooms, black olives, and onions. - $24.25
Courky's Veggie - Ricotta Cheese, spinach, red onion, roasted garlic, and Roma tomatoes - $24.25
Corson Classic - Sliced Yukon potatoes, gorgonzola cheese, and sweet white onions. - $22.00
Orcas with Chicken - Artichoke hearts, roasted garlic, feta cheese, on an olive oil base - $24.25
Airport Way Cordon Blue - Canadian Bacon, Chicken, and Gorgonzola Cheese - $24.25

Luncher: Emmett

Lunch: Family Style - $16.00

Rrrrating: 4 out of 5 R's

A place named 'Stellar' has quite a rep to live up to. And I love pizza. I'll be honest, I was looking forward to this place. With a crew of 11, we're riding strong on this journey.

Personally, I'm partial to the thinner brands of pizza: NY-style, so greasy you can squeeze it like a sponge over your sink before rolling it up and shoving down your hungry maw; the super crispy cracker-crust, which Pizza Hut did a not-so-bad version of growing up but I've since found Zayda Buddy's in Ballard does excessively well; Neapolitan, cause simple is good, and I love the fact that people build huge ovens in their backyard or hack their ovens to get the required 800-degree temperatures. Thin, crispy at times, with perfect ingredients, make perfect pizza in my humble opinion. Seemingly easy, but remarkably hard.

Stellar brought us a good set of beer pitchers, and the size of our party afforded us some of their best pies. The Georgetowner ended up in front of me - italian sausage, pepperoni, olives, onions. Great ingredients, a soft, thick dough that smelled great, tasted delicious. It was a full 30 minutes in coming, but was delightful. Despite aforementioned preferences, I can deal with thick crust. This crust delivered. There was a Corson Classic with potato on it, which I didn't go near. Potato should stay far away from pizza. The Veggie and Orcas also had a nice balance of toppings.

The ambiance is nice, service good, a delightful way to blow off work. Go.

Luncher: Geary

Lunch: Family Style - $16.00

Rrrrating: 4 out of 5 R's

I've always liked Stellar. It's quintessential "Georgetown" in my book: cool retro signs (required), sandwich boards on the street, eclectic art and collectibles throughout, old Rainier Beer neon sign (required), and hip wait staff each of which is likely either in a band or sleeping with someone who is (also required). We ordered beers and apps pretty quickly once we got settled. The beers came out right away, but I think someone forgot about the apps. When they finally did show up they were great. The Antipasti Platter was particularly nice. Nothing fancy, but had a nice country Italian meets Georgetown feel.

We ordered a bunch of pizzas that were all good, but nothing outstanding. The Georgetowner was my favorite, with pepperoni, sausage, mushrooms, black olives, and onions, it was the most classic of the pizzas we ordered. I'm usually not a classics guy when it comes to pizza, but this one was good.

Stellar is a great spot for Georgetown virgins to take the plunge and get some (pizza). It has a friendly atmosphere and the warm pizza and cold beer will happily snuggle with you until late in the evening. I <3 Stellar Pizza.

Luncher: Adam

Lunch: Family Style - $16.00

Rrrrating: 3 out of 5 R's

Yes, Stellar Pizza used to be called Stella. Just to clear up any confusion.

The settings: Stellar is broken into two halves, a bar side and a restaurant (a.k.a. people with kids) section. We sat on the restaurant side, because it accommodated our big-ass group better. This is the biggest crowd we've had on a PBR150 lunch to date... so that's pretty awesome.

The Menu: Much better than your typical pizza joint. I've had enough pepperoni pizzas in my life, and I like to see a little diversity in the menu. I also happen to really love Chicken Courdon Blue... so, that was nice to see on there. The diversity of ingredients and toppings might be what sets this apart from Pizza Hut, Godfathers, etc.

The food : good, but not great. You know what they say: "Pizza is like sex. Even when it's bad, it's better than starving." I enjoyed the pizza but think there are several better pizza options in Seattle.

I would have no hesitations to visit Stellar again, and if I'm in the neighborhood and looking for some 'za... this is where I'm going.

Luncher: Scott

Lunch: Family Style - $16.00

Rrrrating: 4 out of 5 R's

Food reviews are tough to read. I mean, how does the reader know that the writer has similar opinions on the topic so that the written opinion is trustworthy? With that in mind, I will tell you that if I want to order pizza delivered to me, it's Papa John s. If I want to go sit down and enjoy something really tasty, it's Romio's. If I drive by a Godfather's, I start to salivate from all the joyous memories of my wasted youth. I have loved cheap pizza and expensive pizza. I have disliked pizza even, on occasion (Pizza Hut 90% of the time and Domino's 95%). For me to enjoy a pizza, it has to have one really great ingredient. Be it the sauce (Papa John s), the cheese (Romio's) or the crust and video games in the parlor (Godfathers)...there's always something I can point to and say, "that's the part I like" and now you, dear reader, can identify with me or not.

On to Stellar. I had a slice of the Chicken Cordon Bleu and the Yukon Gold somethingorother. The first had ham on it, so continued my longstanding combat with pigs in general. The second was meatless...which is something I don't do often. Both slices were good. Solid ingredients on a good crust, etc. Service was what you'd expect at a sit-down pizza joint, and nothing disappointed me.

Sadly, that's about as far as I can take it. I'm giving the place 4Rs because I'd happily go eat there again, but I won't likely be the one pitching the idea. Everything was good and the rest of the menu looked good, including the various sandwiches making their way out of the kitchen,...but I was left shy of a 5R review because there were too many thoughts of, "this tastes like DiGiorno". At least it wasn't delivery.

Luncher: Rob

Lunch: Family Style - $16.00

Rrrrating: 3 out of 5 R's

There are lots of things I liked about Stellar Pizza. The decor was fun, the wait staff were hip, the beer was cold. The one pizza I managed to try was good, too, but not great. The appetizers were tasty, which was fortunate because the two slices of pizza I ended up with weren't quite filling enough. Unfortunately, the plates were small, and so I was only able to grab one slice at a time. By the time I finished trying the appetizers and a slice of the potato pizza, all of the second veggie had been gobbled up, and I resignedly snatched up the last potato slice before anyone else could grab it. So yeah, the Corson Classic pizza was all right, but not good enough to make the trip to Georgetown. If I lived in that neighborhood, I'd Stellar-ize on a regular basis, but there's good pizza much closer to where I do live. But if someone else is driving, sure I'll go, and I'll be sure to snap up all the slices I can handle before everyone else chows down on them. It was also a bit spendy for lunch. My unemployed lifestyle can't accommodate many (or any) $16.00 lunches. At least I got more beer than the others because I didn't have to pretend to work for the rest of the afternoon.

Luncher: Torrey

Lunch: Family Style - $16.00

Rrrrating: 3 out of 5 R's

they are slow

Luncher: Ty

Lunch: Family Style - $16.00

Rrrrating: 4 out of 5 R's

Nothing quite like skipping a good chunk of work to get your beer on. The pizza, and beer at Stellar's do not disappoint. While the service wasn't exactly stellar (See what I did there?), the pizza, and bruschetta more than made up for it. I would come back again, and again if I lived in the city, but I'm not quite sure the place warrants over an hour and a half in total commute time. Your mileage may vary.

Luncher: Al

Lunch: Family Style - $16.00

Rrrrating: 3 out of 5 R's

Pizza was good, beer cold, but service slow and antipasto uninspired 3 bottles.

Luncher: JoeGi

Lunch: Family Style - $16.00

Rrrrating: 5 out of 5 R's

Great pizza and ambiance. There's a buzz here = fun, and being in Georgetown, it has a touch of incognito. For the foreseeable future, you can impress others with this real find. Nice to see pitchers of beer around the tables at lunchtime.