Name: Pizza Factory
Type: Restaurant, Low End (wooden picnic tables, paper plates/plasticware)
Good for: Pizza
Location: 3936 Phelan Rd, Phelan, CA [Google it!]
PPP: $5-10
Overall vibe: Amazing Pizza
Anything bogus: It's in the High Desert...
The Location
Phelan is a dusty small High Desert community on the north end of the San Gabriel mountains, between Wrightwood and Victorville. Not particularly close to the 14 or the 15 freeways, the only reason to come through here is if the Cajon Pass is closed and you need to detour around via the 138 highway, or in my case, visit one or two sets of parents. Phelan offers little in the way of decent eateries, and even some outlandishly bad ones, but stopping here for a quick bite after meeting up with my mother to sign some paperwork, I came up with a few interesting ideas, including one to start this site.
The Atmosphere
Phelan is all about strip malls. More often than not, you can spot a chain of businesses that seem to stay in existence far longer than any economist could predict. Little changes here over the years, and other than the kids behind the counter, Pizza Factory looks the same as it did when I was in high school, eating here with my family and on a couple of bad dates. There are several massive tables, more like the kind you'd see in a 1950s small-town outdoor park than a restaurant. The kind that you could easily seat 16-20 people, with large pitchers of soda and beer between rows upon rows of paper plates, metal pizza trays, and children running between the tables with various newly-acquired toys from a birthday party and the game on the bigscreen TV in the corner invariably blaring out commercials and the latest stats on football players I'd never heard of over the din of a typical Saturday night. But not today. Today, it was quiet. Only an elderly couple in the far back corner, near a row of arcade game machines, quietly munching away on a holiday shopping weekend afternoon. The kid who took my order seemed no more than 16, but was friendly. We ordered a medium pizza with Canadian bacon and American bacon. Hopefully, the bacon could strike some sort of trade agreement where tariffs weren't too steep and the exchange rate was fair between the two countries. I also ordered a medium drink as they have refillable sodas. We were told the wait time would be about 10 to 12 minutes. We got some iced tea and sat under the bigscreen tv, which was fortunately turned off. It was quiet and we were able to have a comfortable conversation. Not all their tables are massive, but even the one we sat at could accommodate 6 at least. We sat next to each other and gazed out on the empty vastness of the dining hall. The manager here is the same lady I remember from my childhood.
The Food
The first order was the breadsticks. The dough and cheese are there and nice and greasy, but really only serve the purpose of transmitting the pizza sauce into your mouth.
After having waited about eight minutes and guzzled three cups of iced tea, our pizza was brought out. The girl apologized for the wait, though I told her we weren't waiting long.
I'd honestly forgotten how good the pizza was here. It's their sauce--it's simply amazing. It was so good that I went back to the counter and asked for some additional sauce for dipping the crusts in. I'm not sure why, but the girl apologized again when she brought out the cup. Again, I told her everything was okay. The pizza itself is moderately thin, typical of a hand-tossed pie, with thick layers of cheese and their Canadian bacon had apple-cured overtones. The bacon was not so much sprinkled as flurried on top, with large piles of drift from one section to the next. It was extraordinary. It was not greasy at all, and the toppings managed to stay in one place from the tray to our paper plates. The sauce was used very conservatively, almost begging you to put a tiny bit more on, but it added to the allure of knowing you could drown your crust in a side order of the stuff if you like. Don't misunderstand; these people know what they're doing with their pizza and their sauce is perfectly apportioned. I'm just so nuts about it I believe more is better. I have to also mention the reheatability factor is almost unparalleled. We ate the rest of our medium for dinner and it was almost exactly as we had it for lunch earlier.
The Service
The guy who took our order and tossed the pie was a nice kid. He was professional and made one heck of a pizza, flinging it high into the air. I'm not entirely sure if he was doing it because we were watching or because that's what you're supposed to do with the dough, but it certainly didn't hurt the flavor or consistency. The girl was timid and quick to apologize, though we had an excellent dining experience.
Anything Bogus?
Phelan is not for the snobbish. I wouldn't recommend pulling up to the strip mall in your Bently or waltzing in with your Louis Vuitton heels. Dented pickup trucks and well-worn work boots are the order of the day. Pizza Factory can get extremely crowded, with your only option being take-out, and wait times can soar past an hour and a half. A big hint: don't go anywhere near this place during a major sports night, or anything happening at one of the local schools.
Summary
This is the best pizza in the High Desert, and certainly on my Top 10 List of best pizza places I've ever eaten at. If you happen to find yourself out in the area, I highly suggest stopping by during non-peak times.
Interesting Factoids
- Phelan has a population of about 10,000
- Phelan is known as the "Land of Champagne Climate" according to local license plate frames
- There is a Canadian fitness model named Lisa Phelan
- Pizza may have come from the Latin word pissa, meaning "flat bread"
- In Italian, a person who excels at making pizza is called a "pizzaiolo"
- There is a bill currently before Italy's Parliament that mandates and safeguards the ingredients used to make a pizza. There is also pressure on the EU to adopt similar measures to ensure consistency and authenticity in pizzas throughout Europe
- In Japan, squid ink or mayonnaise is sometimes used instead of tomato sauce, and the crust is sometimes made of baked rice instead of dough
- In some Middle Eastern countries, pizza is eaten with ketchup
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