There’s a thing about making Tuesday pizza night. It’s not a night where you have to contend with lines. Crowds like the weekends. But I think weekends are for rookies, and Taco Tuesday is for those who aren’t yet aware that we’ve replaced all of that with Pizza Tuesday. And if you walk into Mama Cimino’s in Lake Geneva on Tuesday you’re in luck, it’s two for one night.
That’s what the waiter told me when I sat down in the dining room of this Lake Geneva pizza house. Buy one get one, cash only, he said. The cash part was an obstacle for me as my wife had pried from my cold hand the last of my Tuesday cash. I ordered, but I didn’t get the free pizza, because I had to pay with a credit card. I couldn’t help but feel as though this was an unlucky occurrence, that I was somehow deprived of my double pizza destiny. I ordered a 16″ Cimino Everything, which comes with sausage, pepperoni, bacon, Canadian bacon, peppers, onions, tomatoes, mushrooms, and olives. I told him to cast my olives into the depths of fiery hell.
The restaurant was not full. If you’ve never been, it’s wedged in between the fast food row in Lake Geneva, just south of the main drag. The restaurant shares a common wall with a Verizon store. There’s nothing here out of place, but there’s nothing here that will uniquely bring you back. The tablecloths are white and red checked plastic. The tables wobble. There’s nothing else worth noting. But it was 6:06 on a Tuesday and I had already ordered. One other table had some patrons, one of whom leaned in towards me to whisper a hushed secret, the pizza is good here.
At 6:10 my friend joined me for dinner, a local of sorts who told me to eat here. He sat down and we waited. I stared at the ficus in the corner and flipped through the Lake Geneva Regional News to see which real estate agents still think print advertising is a good idea. At 6:25 the pizza was brought to our table. It was big, it was hot, and it looked delicious. For the first time on our tour, the outer edge of the pizza was a bit charred, which I like. It seemed as though our next door table mates might be right.
The pizza was once again tavern style, square cut, with the typical toppings under cheese routine that is common here. The cheese was thick, but not so thick that it bothered me. Both The Next Door Pub and Pino’s pile on the cheese with a heavier hand. The vegetable toppings were cut into smaller cubes, which more than once left me thinking a pale piece of tomato was actually a piece of carrot, which would have been disconcerting. The sausage was delicious and pronounced, but the rest of the meaty toppings faded into the background. Which is a good thing, because I generally find bacon to be a misplaced pizza topping.
The crust here is different. It’s thinner than any of the other pizzas on this tour. The consistency is not crunchy, instead it gives like a pie crust might. The crust behaved like it had butter in it, which I doubt it did. But still, it was thin and it was crunchy, though not like a cracker, and not with any real resistance. The first few pieces were nice, but as the pizza feast wore on, the squares failed to retain any crunch. At first it didn’t bother me, and I thought it to be a reasonable condition, but as I thought about it I found it increasingly unacceptable.
The sauce was sweet, which I liked, and the waiter brought us a small dish of marinara sauce “to dip the crust”. I appreciated that, and I found the waiter to have a friendly edge that I didn’t anticipate. It was clear this man cared about this restaurant, and wanted his diners to be happy with their experience and happy with the pizza, and I was, mostly.
But that crust, man, that crust. The consistency just wasn’t right for me. The soggy ending wasn’t right, either. At first I thought I liked the pie-crust type give to the crust, but thinking about it now, I prefer a crisper crust that takes a more significant chomp to work through. On this night, the pizza was pretty, pretty good. Was it the best Walworth County has to offer? No. But I think you should try it for yourself, and if it’s a Tuesday, bring cash.
Mama Cimino’s
131 Wells Street, Lake Geneva
7.1/10
$23 For Cimino Everything