In addition to being a prophet of pizza, I also fancy myself a bit of a beer connoisseur. And you should too!

For starters, I used to be a paid (when they felt like it) contributor for Alcoholmanac — one of the Greater Milwaukee Area’s premier bi-monthly, 20-page-long, totally shitty, free publications of which you’ve undoubtedly never heard.

Secondly, I drink constantly. And that habitual hitting of the sauce has resulted in numerous actions and decisions that run the gamut of self-destructive, dangerous, unsavoury, and altogether regrettable in nature. Of the voluminous listing of unfortunate alcohol-based choices I’ve made, I would hoist ingesting Mamma Mia’s Pizza Beer somewhere between drunk driving home after being cut off at the Cactus Club, and inducing vomit into a campfire whilst shirtless alongside three other (also shirtless) dudes as an apparent rite of passage. It’s that bad.
Read more »

“Sink the Ship” is a decadent college drinking game in which two teams gather in a circle, teaming up with every other person in the group so that each player has a rival on both sides, and take turns pouring droplets of beer into a cup floating in the middle of the pitcher. The unfortunate soul who pours the droplet(s) responsible for capsizing the cup, i.e. sinking the ship, must chug the contents of the pitcher along with their teammates. The pitcher must be passed to a teammate once the binge-drinker’s lips leave the spout of the glass pitcher. What this means is that the anchor of the team, depending on your teammates’ penchant for consuming hops, may be forced to drink up to half a pitcher of beer in one mighty, debauchery-fueled chugging frenzy.

I used to play “Sink the Ship” on a biweekly basis when I was a junior in college. It is astounding, scary, and whimsical, the damage we have the liberty to inflict on our livers without consequence of severe hangover, when we are 20 years old.

Before Doc Za contributor T. Mario ever adopted his alias, we went to college together. Shortly after he came of drinking age, he arranged a tag-team case race at his house in which members of the college newspaper staff (Jimbo Slice included) paired up and competed against each other. My partner and I got off to a strong start but wavered after an hour or so. We didn’t end up winning the contest. But afterward, I was drunk enough to (accidentally) gulp a shot of 409 cleaning spray. I have long debated which is more puzzling: 1.) Why someone would fill a shot glass at a party with a liquid that, to the inebriated eye, could pass for a cherry bomb, or 2.) why I decided it was prudent to send the mystery shot down the hatch in the first place. Thankfully, I didn’t need to have my stomach pumped at the hospital. 20 minutes later my gag reflex, in tandem with a rejective stomach and a recoiling esophagus, evacuated all the nefarious chemicals in my system with a raging deluge of vomit. After being told that I had just swallowed 409 spray, I promptly walked two blocks to the editor’s house and upchucked in his bathroom. It is testament to my respect for T. Mario that I had the discipline not to throw up in his toilet.

All this is to say that I have partied, for good or ill. But long before the accounts of booze-induced debauchery that I have just described, my first memories of parties prominently showcased pizza. In first grade, for example, the only type of party that could make my pink crayon tingle was one of the pizza variety. I could not say the two words, “Pizza Party!” without exclaiming them as I pumped my fist with salivating anticipation.
Read more »

After learning that a pizza place was to open on Milwaukee’s vastly underutilized Downer Avenue and that it was affiliated with crosstown ‘za czars Transfer, I was struck with an excitement unparalleled by any previous pizza venue’s opening I can personally remember.

The weeks that followed were agonizing — like waiting to open a potato gun-shaped Christmas present from that awesome uncle you have who works with PVC pipe at his job (potato farmer is also an applicable occupation for this analogy). But somehow, much in thanks to fantasy baseball, Internet pornography and drinking to the point of blackout, I managed to stave off an impatience-based hari kari and live to see the beautiful day that Via Downer opened for business.
Read more »

Years ago, when someone in Milwaukee wanted De Marinis pizza, they simply went to the one location. Now they get an unwanted debate.

Rumor (Willis) has it that somewhere along the line, the DeMarinis family was split by a dispute powerful enough to cause the DeMarinis sons — Dom and Phil — to branch out and open their own DeMarinis pizza parlor not but two blocks away from MaMa DeMarinis’. I like to think it was all Jenga-related.

Though family feuds are never a good thing, especially when talking about the TV game show Family Feud, we thought it only fair to give both DeMarinis a try to see if one family’s heart-wrenching rift delivered us the sweet fruits of another bomb-ass Bay View pizza joint. Spoiler: It did.
Read more »

"A pizza divided against itself cannot be purchased at coupon price."

It’s impossible to deny the impact pizza has on the modern world. But few realize the immense role the pizza pie played throughout history. Doctors of Za tirelessly sifted through books, unearthed and analysed hidden documents, and even did that thing from movies where you look at old newspaper headlines on microfiche really late at night when everyone else has left the library and you’re totally exhausted. Here is just one of our findings.

Read more »

When a fresh pan of pizza is presented to me, its skin undulating with subtle bubbles that rise and fall anxiously, my first impulse is to snag a slice at once and gorge myself with savage abandonment. The problem with this reckless act of gluttony is that pizza fresh from the oven possesses a self-defense mechanism to thwart its overzealous predators. This self-defense mechanism comes in the form of tongue burn. Insatiable as it is, fresh pizza does not want to be ravaged with desperate urgency. No. Pizza, like no other delicious food, demands a grace period of reverent appreciation and heart-pounding patience. Eaters who defy the respectful ground rules inherent in fresh pizza by wolfing down a slice with urgent rapture are punished with a scalding burn on the roof of their mouths. With the proper mindset, it’s obvious why pizza is my favorite food. Pizza shares so many correlations with the sort of beautiful woman who would take a chance on spending some frisky time between the sheets with a guy like me.
Read more »

I still have trouble figuring out exactly where Milwaukee’s Historic Third Ward ends and Walker’s Point begins. I’ve deduced that I’ve probably entered Walker’s when things get just a bit shittier looking, when the crumbling brick facades of no-longer-functional factories become slightly more prevalent, when the faint sound of boxcar hobos ironically singing acapella versions of Rick Astley songs hangs delicately in the dingy metropolitan air. And there are probably signs too.

Besides that, landmarks like the continually steaming manhole outside Solid Gold Gentleman’s Club, the Allen Bradley clock tower and the always delicious Conjito’s serve as apt indicators of Walker’s Point presence to wide-eyed Northwoods hayseeds like myself. But in terms of Pizza Topography, Marchese’s Olive Pit is — bar none — the neighborhood’s highest point of elevation.
Read more »

Josh Rank is a friend of the site.

About half our writers know him; I think Sto Cazzo briefly lived with him, and I can vaguely remember drunkenly playing Silver Strike Bowling against him the same night I got lost in downtown Milwaukee and puked immediately after trying to jump a parking meter (or something similar to a parking meter).

But he’s not just a DoZ friend. He’s also a hell of a writer. Since day one, we have linked his blog, These Things I Know, which is equal parts hilarious and insightful. And earlier this year, he self-published his first book, Reflection in the Crosswalk, a story of a 15-year-old boy’s death and the impact it has on a small town.

The former Appleton and Milwaukee resident now lives in Atlanta. He was gracious enough to write a guest review of a pizzeria in his neighborhood. It is below.
Read more »

Riverwest. It, with South Milwaukee, remains one of the few regional mysteries yet to be thoroughly explored in my still scant inhabitation of the City of Festivals.

I once met with a publisher at a coffee haus on Humboldt, I went to a few shows in the neighborhood, bought an $8 pair of grey slacks at ReThreads that leave no questions in regard to the exact contours of my cock’n'balls, and that’s about it.

Apart from those three things, I’ve learned that all the crustpunkers I know live or routinely hang there, Ronnie got mugged in Riverwest a few years back and Lakefront Brewery began there. Basically, I know shit about it. And after my inaugural Riverwest meal at NYPD, something tells me I probably need not investigate it much further.
Read more »