Chancellor of Pizza
By Chance Mentink, Reporter

The pizza on Vashon has always been somewhat lacking. Over the years, places have opened and closed, and now we must ask ourselves: has the pizza on Vashon been able to improve over the years? I went to the three pizza places that remain on Vashon, and looked for the best pizza on vashon.
These evaluations are strictly my opinion and don’t necessarily reflect the opinions of any members of Riptide. I strongly encourage each and every one of you to go out and try these places and come to your own conclusions.

First I went to Vashon Island Pizza, second O Sole Mio, and finally, I went to The Rock. At all three locations, I ordered a pepperoni pizza to use as a baseline.

Vashon Island Pizza

First and foremost, Vashon Island Pizza. This is my favorite pizza place on Vashon. This pizza has great ingredients, and good sauce and cheese. The dough was fine, but a tad soft and uninspiring. The pizza is also inconsistent. The amount of crust, sauce, and cheese changed as I ate across the slice. There were pockets in the dough where the sauce would cluster, but the sauce was good enough that this made little difference in its overall quality. This pizza is just good enough to be named the best pizza place on Vashon.

O Sole Mio

Now we get to the greasy stuff. O Sole Mio is the newest pizza place on the island and fixes some of the problems that pizza on the island has had for years. The pizza is much crunchier and uses quality ingredients that some of the others lack. However, I found two large problems with their pizzas. First, the pizza was greasy, and this made it difficult to eat. The second — and far more important problem — is that their pizza is undercooked. Their pepperoni did not crisp and their crust was chewy. Due to these two major drawbacks, I would say that O Sole Mio’s pepperoni pizza comes in a close second for best pizzas on the island.

The Rock

Finally,the most recognizable pizzeria, The Rock. This Vashon classic is an interesting pizza to analyze because it only has one large problem, the insane amount of grease on the pizza. When the entire pizza was finished, the pizza left an outline grease on the box and as I ate it, grease dripped from the side. This pizza also suffers from a few minor problems including the low quality of sauce, but the crust was fine. I did enjoy how meaty the pizza was but it was a little too heavy and had decent pepperoni and cheese. These problems led The Rock to come in last.