Café 22
B-130 Provencher Avenue
(204) 222-2222
http://www.pizzahotline.ca/about.htm
Café 22 on Corydon Avenue has long been one of my favourite places to go for pizza for several reasons. Firstly, you’re in the heart of Little Italy, among all the action. Secondly, the location has cozy, isolated booths if you want to hide out. Conversely, if you want to lounge and be seen, they have comfy easy chairs among the forest of artificial flora (adorned in Christmas lighting). Thirdly, they have an adequate selection of wines by the glass, at reasonable prices, for that afternoon/evening of people-watching. Finally, they have great pizza for very low prices. The regular “Big Slice” comes with two toppings and costs less than $6. The slice is at least as large as any personal, small pizzas and considerably thicker. Café 22 offers a myriad of topping selections, including some less common temptations, under the “gourmet toppings” heading. You pay a small premium for the gourmet toppings but it’s a small price to pay for the “somewhat” adventurous pizza lover. Delicious pizza at a low price—how can you go wrong?
When Café 22 opened a location on Provencher Avenue, I happily embraced the Café for bringing tasty pizzas to St. Boniface. The new location sits on the corner of Provencher and Tache Street, right off the base of Esplanade Riel. This location has the same comfy chairs but the booths are much less intimate. A single artificial tree attempts to imitate the foliage of the original location, but the caricature-like paintings adorning the walls dominate the décor at this site. A couple of small tables wait outside, if you choose to be on the street.
The St. Boniface location offers the same menu selections as the Corydon location but the menu itself is a sterile sheet of laminated cardstock, while the charming original menu opens like a vintage book. Nevertheless, the substance within the pages matters and I look forward to another helping of delicious pizza.
Café 22’s pizzas come in regular and thin crust. I’m not sure what the default crust is, but we normally don’t specify and the pie comes at perfect thickness. The St. Boniface pizza slice appears thicker than I’m accustomed to, so I assume that the default is thin crust. I like thick crust pizza but a thick pizza should have a thick crust as well as enough goop to maintain the goop to crust ratio (check out an authentic Chicago pizza and you know what I mean). Our pizza has too much dough and too little goop, thus making for a dry pizza, much like a sandwich where the bread is too thick and there’s only one thin slice of meat. Something as simple as adding extra tomato sauce would greatly moisten this pizza.
Regarding the toppings, there’s nothing wrong with the taste of any of the ones we order, but there’s also nothing special about them. The seasoned beef tastes like regular ground beef; the Mexican beef tastes mostly the same; and the little nuggets of Italian sausage taste fine but unremarkable. They’re also a little stingy on the topping amounts; a more generous sprinkling of topping would enhance the flavours greatly. Even our double topping of sausage didn’t have much meat to it. The biggest disappointment comes with the onion topping. The bits of onion are cut so fine, you need to search with a Sherlock Holmes spyglass to find the morsels. I know that too much onion can overwhelm everything around it but people who order onions on their pizzas generally want the flavours. Personally, I like huge strips that leave tears in my eyes.
The service is adequate but often slow and inattentive. While the servers busily buzz around, I suspect that their main focus lies in assisting the convoy of delivery people, rather than the sit-in customer. The dine-in clientele appears to be the side business, whereas the home delivery side seems to be the primary production. This Café 22 shares space with Leo’s Gelato, which promises some good desserts. If you want to lounge around and enjoy the French Quarter atmosphere, this is a fine spot to come, but if you’re in it just for the pizza, I recommend calling their pizza hotline instead and have it brought to your house. If you walk down Corydon, by all means, stop by at Café 22. If you walk down Provencher, consider your priorities before stepping in. Café 22 now has a third location on Henderson Highway but I’ve yet had the opportunity to visit.
Corydon Location: **** /5
Provencher Location: **½ /5
Check out the revisit at:
Cafe 22: Revisited
B-130 Provencher Avenue
(204) 222-2222
http://www.pizzahotline.ca/about.htm
Café 22 on Corydon Avenue has long been one of my favourite places to go for pizza for several reasons. Firstly, you’re in the heart of Little Italy, among all the action. Secondly, the location has cozy, isolated booths if you want to hide out. Conversely, if you want to lounge and be seen, they have comfy easy chairs among the forest of artificial flora (adorned in Christmas lighting). Thirdly, they have an adequate selection of wines by the glass, at reasonable prices, for that afternoon/evening of people-watching. Finally, they have great pizza for very low prices. The regular “Big Slice” comes with two toppings and costs less than $6. The slice is at least as large as any personal, small pizzas and considerably thicker. Café 22 offers a myriad of topping selections, including some less common temptations, under the “gourmet toppings” heading. You pay a small premium for the gourmet toppings but it’s a small price to pay for the “somewhat” adventurous pizza lover. Delicious pizza at a low price—how can you go wrong?
When Café 22 opened a location on Provencher Avenue, I happily embraced the Café for bringing tasty pizzas to St. Boniface. The new location sits on the corner of Provencher and Tache Street, right off the base of Esplanade Riel. This location has the same comfy chairs but the booths are much less intimate. A single artificial tree attempts to imitate the foliage of the original location, but the caricature-like paintings adorning the walls dominate the décor at this site. A couple of small tables wait outside, if you choose to be on the street.
The St. Boniface location offers the same menu selections as the Corydon location but the menu itself is a sterile sheet of laminated cardstock, while the charming original menu opens like a vintage book. Nevertheless, the substance within the pages matters and I look forward to another helping of delicious pizza.
Café 22’s pizzas come in regular and thin crust. I’m not sure what the default crust is, but we normally don’t specify and the pie comes at perfect thickness. The St. Boniface pizza slice appears thicker than I’m accustomed to, so I assume that the default is thin crust. I like thick crust pizza but a thick pizza should have a thick crust as well as enough goop to maintain the goop to crust ratio (check out an authentic Chicago pizza and you know what I mean). Our pizza has too much dough and too little goop, thus making for a dry pizza, much like a sandwich where the bread is too thick and there’s only one thin slice of meat. Something as simple as adding extra tomato sauce would greatly moisten this pizza.
Regarding the toppings, there’s nothing wrong with the taste of any of the ones we order, but there’s also nothing special about them. The seasoned beef tastes like regular ground beef; the Mexican beef tastes mostly the same; and the little nuggets of Italian sausage taste fine but unremarkable. They’re also a little stingy on the topping amounts; a more generous sprinkling of topping would enhance the flavours greatly. Even our double topping of sausage didn’t have much meat to it. The biggest disappointment comes with the onion topping. The bits of onion are cut so fine, you need to search with a Sherlock Holmes spyglass to find the morsels. I know that too much onion can overwhelm everything around it but people who order onions on their pizzas generally want the flavours. Personally, I like huge strips that leave tears in my eyes.
The service is adequate but often slow and inattentive. While the servers busily buzz around, I suspect that their main focus lies in assisting the convoy of delivery people, rather than the sit-in customer. The dine-in clientele appears to be the side business, whereas the home delivery side seems to be the primary production. This Café 22 shares space with Leo’s Gelato, which promises some good desserts. If you want to lounge around and enjoy the French Quarter atmosphere, this is a fine spot to come, but if you’re in it just for the pizza, I recommend calling their pizza hotline instead and have it brought to your house. If you walk down Corydon, by all means, stop by at Café 22. If you walk down Provencher, consider your priorities before stepping in. Café 22 now has a third location on Henderson Highway but I’ve yet had the opportunity to visit.
Corydon Location: **** /5
Provencher Location: **½ /5
Check out the revisit at:
Cafe 22: Revisited
Hi Ray, thank you for the feedback on our locations.
ReplyDeleteWe have recently transitioned the operators out of our Provencher location and new ones recently took over and I think you'll find a change in attitude. We are excited about the location as it quite simply is a great location. I can assure you our Cafe22 is no side business we try to put just as much effort into it as our delivery business.
Hotline International Pizza Systems Ltd..the Franchisor bought Leo's Gelati a few years back and we now proundly serve it in some of locations: Provencher, Kenaston, Henderson and soon to be Broadway Cafe 22 and Main St @ Leila Pizza Hotline.
Thank you again for your honest feedback...we take this stuff seriously and will make every effort to improve. I hope you'll give Provencher another try!
Great blog! Ron Chan - Director, Franchise Development Pizza Hotline rchan@pizzahotline.ca