Knockout Pizzeria — Restaurant in San Diego

I never had such a bad experience. I love pizza, and we all agree that pizza is a staple in US households, personally trying new places is an experience, of how people interpret pizza, of how the pizzaiolo makes his dough, what ingredients he uses. The big 4 (Pizza Hut, Little Ceaser, Papa Jonh's, Dominos) are okay but never expect something new out of there neither top notch quality. I've to other countries and experience many types of pizza there. But there exist two different things: not liking the pizza, or the pizza being an offense to pizza. The first one is expected because everyone has a different palate but the second is where the problems lie, in the case of Knockout Pizzeria that's the problem.

First thing is the lack of a presentation, the pizza looks platitudinous flat, and little to no texture and color. The one tasting appetite already feels a hit, you can feel the lack of passion and quality. It glooms over your table, as it says "I'm a cheap pizza". There is some kind of lack of puffiness and verticality in the way that it is presented. The toppings, appear to be not toppings but the pizza itself because you need a magnifying glass to see them. The toppings seem to be thrown on the pizza, carelessly. This is a horrible show of how to not assemble a pizza.

The most worrying aspect is the complete lack of flavor and crunchiness. The dough is very thin and as I expect, it would be crunch but at the same time have a degree of softness. But that wasn't what I encountered, it was very soft and very unflavorful, you almost had to eat it with cutlery. The crust of the pizza was lacking and uneventful. I had the idea of putting one slice in a George Foreman grill, to see if it would be better, was definitely an improvement, yet the dough still very bad. The cheese is the worst cheese that you can buy and even if I order it double, it would be lacking. The sauce is in the pizza shop until now. The topping: Artichokes, no flavor and there were only a smidge of them; Black olives, no flavor they had; Canadian Bacon, some slices of horrible ones. Eating the pizza was a horrible experience, no big hit, and many major downfalls.

The pizza created in the Knockout is the worst of its kind and has a lot of work to do in order to improve itself. When someone creates food without any regards to love, the outcome is terrible, and this is the case of this place. It is an offense that it is called pizzeria to all true pizzaiolos in the US. The one thing that every business owner must be with himself is to properly evaluate their business. For that reason I have one suggestion, fire everyone, close the place, and go do something better with your lives because no one can survive with such a horrible service, people don't go back to eat such...

I went here three times over 4-5 days and noticed a distinct effect of timing (see below).

Knockout is the only pizza place I've seen in the San Diego area that puts out a selection of pies which you can choose a slice from. While they're not as large slices as at New York Giant Pizza, they cost less per slice, there's more cheese (if you like that) and there's up to 8 pies out at any given time, each with 2-4 different slices. So tons of choices. They have 1-slice, 2-slice and 3-slice deals.

The first day, a Sunday, they changed operating hours to 3pm, despite Google Maps saying 11am (now fixed). I went in at 3:15pm or so and there were no pies out. I hung around for 20-25 minutes and by then there were three (about one new one every 5-10 minutes). I ordered a 3-slice deal ($8.75, free drink) to takeout. They put the slices in the oven, put them in a box, and they'd become really oily (from the meats) and wobbly. I took them home, and waited at least 20 minutes, and they were fantastic, crunchy, good.

The second day, a Monday, I went in around 1pm or so and there were 8 pies out. I asked if they were fairly fresh -- they were, so I didn't get them heated. Got home, bit into the meat slice and then one of the veggie slices. Not very good. They just didn't taste very good, so I'd suggest getting the slices heated, even if they're fresh. (I'm not a fan of microwaved pizza; I used to make fresh pies with a pizza stone.)

The third time, I grabbed a Greek salad ($7.50) and was disappointed. The Italian dressing was perfect, and in general, the salad tasted okay. But it was light on tomatoes and cucumbers. I don't remember if there feta cheese, but instead of regular lettuce there was a mix of greens and purple/ red leaves. I detest any foods that are even slightly bitter, and this isn't a traditional Greek salad lettuce. More than half the volume was red leaves, so there was almost nothing left after I spent 5 minutes picking them out.

I do plan to go back for more slices, but will remember to get...

I really wish i had taken pictures of these horrible slices me and my wife had today for lunch. These things looked, felt, and tasted like they were hours old and had just been sitting out (uncovered and not under a heat lamp) before we came in. My wife ordered the lunch combo with a pepperoni and a pesto pizza, the guy was very rude and assumed we knew all the various pizza names in front of us. We were looking at them and asked what pizzas were in the lunch deal, he just pointed and said all of these. He didn’t give a name to any of them (assuming we’re psychic i guess) nor did he say what was on them. I ordered the mushroom and pepperoni because that’s only one I figured I’d like. We sat down to eat and my drink was completely disgusting and I couldn’t drink it, my pizza tasted stale and old, it wasn’t even remotely hot, and it was stiff and not easy to eat. My wife’s pizza was worse! The pesto pizza didn’t even look right to begin with, but she likes pesto so she ordered it. She took one bite, made an interesting puke type face, and said I can’t eat this. I thought she was being dramatic, NOPE! I took a bite and nearly puked, and i too like pesto chicken or pizza. That pizza tasted so disgusting that I couldn’t eat it, and I’ve eaten 4 day old pizza from Pizza Hut. So in conclusion, if you want a rude cashier, pizza like cardboard, flavors of something I don’t even have words for, and heartburn/diarrhea later in the day, this is definitely the...