The North Street Sub-Way is not in fact the North Street Sub-Way. Please take a minute to try and collect yourself. In spite of years of joking about it being the original “Subway” and being the Coming to America “McDowell’s” of the popular sandwich chain, they actually changed the name to “Chuck’s” years ago. Crazy. Considering that your mind has been shattered, let’s do our best to rebuild.

A very good way to keep your business, “Buffalo’s Best Kept Secret”, which seems like an odd strategy for a restaurant in the 1st place, is to have two different business names. Bold move, Chuck…here’s hoping it pans out for you. The place is on North between Main and Delaware, and their focus seems to be on their subs. They of course do pizza as well, which you can see being prepared through a front-facing window. 2 + 20oz pop/$6.50. Roll the tape.

I’ve eaten what I would say is more than the average person’s annual pizza quota by now. However, I have a feeling some of you sick bastards that are following along might be beating me out. Anyhow, I’ve seen a lot of pies (mercy), and this isn’t a great 1st impression. I’ve been to about a baker’s dozen different places with slices that match these identically. None of them have been great. Look at that cheese mesh going on at the bottom. Crust a little burnt. Flatter than Oklahoma. Pepperoni lookin cute doe.

Chuck’s cheese (he he he) is better than I expected. Not to say it was great, but I was expecting shit at first glance, so this will end up landing somewhere in the “ok” zone. Distribution could have been a little more even.

Chuck’s pepperoni was pretty good. I think this is ideal for quantity. The flavor has gotten very predictable at this point, and it hit all the marks of what you would expect.

Chuck’s sauce was bland. They had the right amount on it, and the texture was great. Silky, but not pasty. I just couldn’t pull a ton of flavor out of it. I even scooped some out with a finger to taste it on its own. Nothing. Also, note the texture of that goopy-ass dough…

Goddamnit. GODDAMNIT, MAN! This bums me out. Not saying that everything else was great, but it was going ok. It’s like farting on a date. Maybe less awful than that. The dough is very undercooked. It’s gummy, and at times you can’t tell what’s cheese and what’s dough. I suspect it may have been the “prep” process. Typically when you order slices, they are warming (somewhere), then they throw them in the oven briefly to rewarm/crisp them. When I ordered my slices, I had to wait for about 8-10 minutes. That may seem short, but that’s far longer than I’ve waited anywhere else. Therein lies the question mark.

I expected a hole-poked massacre back here, but it actually looks delicious. The underside was nice, brown, flakey, and crisp. Sucks knowing that a millimeter through it was nearly-raw dough. Let’s chew it over.

Dough🥖: (D-/D) A microstep above Prima Pasta & Pizza. Very undercooked.
.
.
Cheese🧀: (B-) Better than it appeared.
.
.
Sauce🥫: (C+/B-) Working well on everything but flavor.
.
.
Pepperoni🍖: (B+/A-)
.
.
Overall🍕: (C+)

Upon inspection, Chuck’s doesn’t advertise their Sub’s over their pizza for no good reason. Everything was pretty run-of-the-mill, but that dough blew it. Nothing fucks a pizza up quicker than bad dough. Overcooked or burnt is always better than underdone. I just want to know what happened in the purgatory time between order and fulfillment!?! God only knows what they were up to in there. And furthermore, I wouldn’t be the least bit surprised to learn that all 4 of them habitually smoke marijuana cigarettes…reefers. See you next week!