Pat "deep dish" Bertoletti, and a few of his IFOCE buddies (Tim "Eater-X" Janus, Joey "The Jaws"
chestnut and Hall Hunt) went on a road trip to take up the $500 Pointersaurus 28" Pizza Challenge. The challenge, a
"$500 prize to any two-member team who can demolish an entire 10-pound, two-meat-topping, 28-inch pizza in an hour without leaving the customer area." The pizza weighed in at about 10-12 lbs. How long does it take a professional competitive eating team to demolish one of these? Oh, only about 14 minutes! Here are the pics Pat Bertoletti sent in
[CONTINUED]
Here's a run down of the challenge and Pointers Pizza courtesy of
http://www.stltoday.com
Pointers Pizza
By KIWI CARLISLE
Special to the Post-Dispatch
08/12/2004
Many St. Louisans may find it hard to believe, but travelers from around the world are detouring to Richmond Heights to visit a tiny pizza restaurant just south of the intersection of Big Bend Boulevard and Clayton Road. They're in search of the Pointersaurus, "the world's largest delivered pizza," a 28-inch-round monster.
For years now, Pointers has offered a $500 prize to any two-member team who can demolish an entire 10-pound, two-meat-topping, 28-inch pizza in an hour without leaving the customer area. Teams must call at least a day in advance and cannot compete during lunch or dinner rushes. A pair of recent winners advise ordering lean toppings such as turkey and chicken, lest nausea become a disqualifying factor. The Pointersaurus Challenge costs $42, but the pizza sells briskly for parties and office lunches at $35 for a cheese pizza and $5 for each topping.
There's more to Pointers than the Pointersaurus Challenge, of course. The hand-topped pizza itself is quite good. It's well-seasoned and comes with a choice of thick, thin or regular crusts, skillfully prepared to hold plenty of toppings and flavorful in and of itself. Alfredo sauce and ranch dressing are available as substitutes for tomato sauce if a customer wants something a bit different.
Not all the pizzas have paleontological names, but one delicious specialty pie does - the Mastodon is a melange of sausage, ham, bacon, pepperoni, beef, onion, mushroom, green pepper, black olive and extra cheese. Eat too many of those, my friends, and you may be extinct before your time.
Pointers has a large and tempting sandwich menu. All sandwiches are $4.06 for a half, $5.92 for a whole. We particularly enjoy the barbecue beef with provolone and pickles and the Ultimate Veggie with a whole garden's worth of vegetables, provolone, Swiss and American cheeses and mayo. All sandwiches are available as box lunches with chips, plus either a drink or a cookie, for $4.95 (half) or $6.95 (whole), tax included.
There's a good selection of appetizers, including toasted ravioli ($4.06-$5.92), chicken wings (ditto), a dinner salad, pizza bread ($4.06), and garlic ($1.89) and cheese-garlic breads ($4.06). A word of caution about the garlic bread: The garlic quantity varies. If you love garlic, you may have to ask to have a lot applied. The chef and chicken chef salads ($4.06-$5.92) are generously sized, fresh and come with a lot of meat. The chef is particularly loaded with ham and salami. The dressing is packaged and the lettuce iceberg, but the overall effect is tasty.
Seven pastas appear under the heading of "Italian Specialties." We tried the chicken Parmesan and liked it so much we ordered it twice. A generous serving of chicken breast is served over pasta, along with a well-seasoned sauce and plenty of mozzarella. Half-orders are $4.06 and whole ones $5.92. It'll take a pretty heroic appetite to get through a whole order, though perhaps someone in training to eat a Pointersaurus could do so at one sitting.
There's a cheesecake ($1.89) on the Pointers menu. It comes in plain, cherry, chocolate and turtle permutations. It's the same cake no matter which you order - a pleasant icebox version with toppings varied to suit.
Pointers has only two tables, with a third that gets set up inside the cooking area for the Pointersaurus challenge so that contestants can't get away with any little subterfuges. Eating there is actually a lot of fun, especially late at night, when hungry students, nurses and firefighters come in to pick up a meal or when Pointersaurus challengers arrive to try for that elusive $500. Carryout and delivery are, however, the backbone of the business, and if you want to avoid that cheerful chaos, I suggest you call ahead.