Keller Pizza ~ Keller, Texas ***CLOSED***

First visit: Mar 2005

There was nothing spectacular about Keller Pizza. In fact, I only went once a couple of years ago, to reminisce about the way Texas pizza buffets were in the 1970s and 80s. My college Sunday afternoons in the mid 1980s were dominated by trips to Pizza Inn. When else can you eat 21 slices and still not be full? Or where else really. 21 slices of cracker crust equals about 4 slices of a large gooey NY pizza. So with college nostalgia on the brain I waltzed into Keller Pizza and had a go at their buffet. I rarely do buffets anymore. I would rather have a specifically cooked meal (though realizing that doesn't always happen anyway) and buffets are a sure fire way to overeat. Not to mention the germs being thrown around at a public feast. Pizza is one area I'll make an exception, though I rarely go to a buffet more than once a year. The nostalgia of my youth was furthered by the fact that Keller Pizza was an ex-Pizza Inn. Well I don't know that for a fact, but it had the exact look on the outside and inside of the 1970s era Pizza Inn (still based in Dallas I believe). It sat in a strip mall next to a convenience store / gas station. While ubiquitous only 10 years ago, these kind of brown brick strip malls seem somewhat antiquated in their cheapness. Since the arrival of Cici's, most of these type of pizza buffet places quite simply can't make a profit. I think the lunch plus a drink was less than 5 bucks. And for that I could eat all the pizza and salad I wanted. Trouble was, for the place to have any chance at a margin, they weren't about to put out the freshest greens for the salad bar. And, funny, but I don't remember waiting around for a new pizza to come out of the oven in the 1980s. So if there was one slice sitting there at the bacteria bar, then somebody better eat it if you want to see a new pie. And with that, I knew it was only a matter of time. "For Lease".

4/13/08