Customers Rave That One Frozen Pizza Brand Beats Restaurant Quality

When it comes to frozen pizza, there are a lot of differing opinions about which ones are the best and worst. Motor City Pizza Co., Screamin' Sicilian, and Red Baron are a few brands that customers call their favorites on Reddit. However, the one that many shoppers say is even better than restaurant quality is Home Run Inn.

At Daily Meal, Home Run Inn landed in eighth place in our ranking of nine frozen pepperoni pizzas. While we acknowledged the exceptional cheese coverage and pepperoni spacing, we felt the tomato sauce was too sweet and the crust was too crumbly and dense. However, that doesn't discount how happy customers as a whole have been with the quality of this brand. In one Reddit thread, a shopper said, "Yeah, of all the frozen pizza that you can easily purchase at the store, Home Run Inn is definitely the best. It's the only frozen pizza that has those extra spices (like anise seeds, I think), and you can definitely taste the difference."

Another customer said about their experience on Reddit, "I'm always on the hunt for a really good frozen pizza that approximates fresh, and this really might come the closest. Great flavor and the way the cheese came out was outstanding. Melty, plenty of it, with a great pull." In response, a commenter noted, "We used to live in the Chicago area and honestly I prefer the frozen version over the restaurant [emoji] I was talking to another woman recently who said the same thing." Many other patrons have echoed that sentiment in various posts.

The Home Run Inn frozen pizza brand started out as the Tavern in the South Side of Chicago, Illinois, in 1923. The restaurant started making tavern-style pizzas and subsequently became known as Home Run Inn in the 1940s. By the 1960s, it became one of the pioneers of frozen pizza, with its first ones being delivered to local grocery stores. The company, which still operates six pizzerias in Illinois, has only offered nationwide distribution of its frozen pizzas since 2022.

It seems that many Home Run Inn frozen pizza customers choose and love the classic crust variations. You can find sausage and mushroom, Margherita with sausage, and supreme options alongside the traditional cheese, meat lovers, and veggie lovers. Many are available in the frozen sections of stores like Aldi and Walmart. The brand uses simple ingredients instead of artificial ones, and the mozzarella is minimally processed and rBST-free, which means it comes from cows that aren't treated with the artificial growth hormone.

While Home Run Inn provides specialty recipes as ways to upgrade its frozen pizzas by adding extra herbs, spices, and toppings, the secret to restaurant-quality frozen pizza doesn't require extra ingredients. Instead of putting your pie into the preheated oven while still frozen, James Beard award-winning chef and restaurateur Ann Kim recommends removing the packaging and letting it defrost on a cooling rack or cutting board first. Then, place it directly on the middle oven rack like the instructions say, but reduce the baking time and rotate halfway through for even baking.