John's Pizza — Restaurant in Ridgecrest

Used to go here all the time as a kid, even had many birthday parties here, but stopped when I was an adult and the new pizza sauce gave me heartburn. That was years upon years ago, and doesn't reflect the current restaurant, just offering an explanation of why I haven't returned in a while.

I came back sometime last year, and left after a major health fiasco that shut the place down. Returned this year in good faith, after the health department okayed their reopening.

So far, no problems with food. Pizza's alright, breadsticks and honey butter still as good as I remembered them. We always get the China Lake pizza with mushrooms, and I know it's gone in seconds.

But they never seem to repair their arcade machines, and a lot of the Fun Factory was in disrepair when we visited last night.

Last summer, the Hydro Thunder cabinet was unplayable due to a blurry screen, and that issue hasn't been fixed since last year. One of the buttons on the Marvel vs Capcom 2 is still non-func. Someone stole most of the balls out of the Fireball Skee Ball machine, leaving only three, and the other, blue basketball one didn't work, only eating Credits.

There's a third machine between the two, but it's only had a Coming Soon sign on it since last year, never going into service.

I think a Yamaha motorbike machine has gone missing since last year, too, and a Harley Davidson machine has a large patch of chipped paint with visible rust underneath on the back of the seat.

A Sky Target game has been non-operational since last year.

Just half the arcade is down, and it's dismaying to see the machines not fixed at all. DDR has always worked, and so has Bust-a-Move, Crazy Taxi, Kart GP, Mortal Kombat and Tekken, but that's a vanishingly small number compared to what has been left broken and unrepaired.

Honestly, it's just a little depressing, since I remember how glorious the arcade was when I was a kid. A prize redemption counter, so many more machines, including several rows of Skee Ball and some electromechanical arcade games, so of course I'm a little sad that this is all that is left.

But that breaks my heart when they can't even take care of...

I lived in Ridgecrest until I was 19 and don't visit very frequently (once every 2-3 years at most). John's is the ONLY local restaurant that has stayed consistently amazing- in fact, they've only gotten better!

On our most recent experience, we called 30 minutes before arriving with a party of 30 on a Friday night and they accomodated us, no problem. Our waiter was so nice and patient- we were an easily distracted crowd and not everyone showed up at once. The food was hot, fresh, and delicious. Sodas were refilled regularly. We stayed from 6p-8:45p and they didn't rush us at all.

The bread sticks are a nostalgia thing for me. They are on the bland side if you're used to garlic bread sticks like Little Caesars or Olive Garden, but they still taste so good to me. The bread is soft and chewy, and they're perfect in the pizza sauce. My family loves all the dipping things, though. Ask for peanut butter and honey butter, then mix it. That's what I did when I worked there 🤣 still so good.

The pizza on the flat, original crust is the best. I've never had a crust like that anywhere else. They don't skimp on the toppings at all, so don't be scared of the price (which is a little high compared to where I live in Texas, but 100% worth it). I like my pizza to cook a little longer, and they have no problem accommodating that request.

If you managed to save room for dessert, all of the ice cream is amazing.

They've recently redone the arcade (since 2021 when I last visited) and it's amazing. My kids and their friends had a...

We have came here before a few times to play at the arcade with family but were warned not to even attempt to eat the food, family members claimed the food was disgusting and overpriced. Today when we visited we wanted to give the food a try for the first time only to be instantly disappointed. When first looking at the pizza you could tell that everything about it was wrong. Ordered the managers special with no mushrooms. The dough was stale with some marinara sauce, full slices of deli ham stacked onto each other, huge cubes of raw bell pepper, huge olives, canned pickled jalapeños?, and you guessed it, mushrooms. On top of the whole monstrosity they put a small amount of cheese on the very top of it all. It was a disaster and as soon as you picked up a slice all of the toppings fell off. We were so hungry and spent nearly $30 on the pizza so we tried as best as we could to just eat it. Overall not worth the price and wasn’t enjoyable at all… slicing the ham, bell peppers, and olives into smaller pieces/slices would have helped the pizza and the owner save money on wasted product. Also using fresh jalapeños instead of canned ones, and putting cheese on top of the Mariana sauce instead of attempting to hold all the toppings onto the pizza would have made a worlds difference. Will not be trying their food again and wouldn’t ever recommend to eat at...