Like an Okay Pizza Pie

The last stop on the grand four tour for SpeedGaming 2025 wasn’t even really an intended stop. As one of the staffers working the event I got to partake in a pizza party thrown by the event on the last day. All the volunteers and staff were invited (along with a few others just so no pizza went to waste), and all the pizza was purchased from local joint, Vocelli Pizza. They’re a chain of pizza places largely located along the eastern seaboard (including Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Virginia) along with three more locations down in the south (two in Alabama and one in Tennessee).

Now, as anyone can tell you, chain pizza is never as good as properly made stuff from a local joint. I hadn’t heard of Vocelli before so I had hopes that this would be a decent place for pizza. Knowing what I know now, that the chain has over 70 locations and stretches across a good portion of the United States, I probably shouldn’t have set my expectations that high. And, indeed, the chain failed to deliver.

The part had a few pizza options that were provided. There were, of course, the standard cheese, pepperoni, and sausage pizza options, and then we had a couple of specialties: a Meat Magnifico (think “Meat Lovers” from other chains) and a Deluxe (think “Supreme” or “The Works” from other chains). We did also have a couple of small, gluten free Hawaiian pizzas, although I didn’t partake of them (solely because I was saving those pizzas for the gluten free eaters that needed them and not just because Hawaiian is a pizza of specific taste that I have to be in the mood for). I grabbed a piece of the Deluxe and a piece of pepperoni, along with a scoop of Garden Della Casa salad, and sat down to feast.

Of the two slices I sampled I enjoyed the Deluxe more, but understand this was only by degrees. The Deluxe comes topped with red sauce, mushrooms, green pepper, red onions, black olives, Italian sausage, and mozzarella cheese. It was fine, flavor wise. IIt didn’t exactly knock anything out of the park, being maybe a little on the bland side. The crust was floppy and unremarkable, maybe even a little powdery. The sauce didn’t have a lot of bite or salt to it, and the veggies were all pretty bland. The sausage was at least noticeable, adding a bit of flavor to the slice, but overall it was pretty disappointing.

Note that I said this was the better slice of pizza, though, and that’s because the pepperoni was so much worse. The pepperoni Vocelli uses (at least at the Chantilly location, although I’m sure, as a large franchise, they source all their ingredients from specific hubs) is way too salty. Don’t get me wrong, the pizza needs a bit of salt, but the amount in the pepperoni tasted disgusting. All I got from the pizza, which had red sauce, pepperoni, and mozzarella on it, was the salt. I barely tasted anything else, and couldn’t even finish the slice.

Honestly, the best part of the meal was the salad. The Garden Della Casa (i.e., “house salad”) is composed of fresh mixed greens, red onions, green peppers, black olives, ripe tomatoes, mozzarella, and imported Pecorino Romano cheeses. If you go to the website and look at a picture of it, the salad looks lovely. Trust me when I say that the one we got in the giant catering tray didn’t look nearly as nice. But it did have all those toppings, and amid all the bland pizza and too much salt (plus a week of poorly eating before this because I was at a convention) a nice, traditional salad with some Italian dressing (out of a packet, because we’re fancy) hit the spot. It wasn’t mind blowing, and I wouldn’t even call it particularly good, but in comparison to everything else it was exactly what I needed.

I was legitimately disappointed by the food. While I don’t think Vocelli Pizza is as bad as some chains, like Dominos, I absolutely wouldn’t go to them if there was someone else better around. And by better I mean Pizza Hut, or Papa Johns, let along an actual small, local store that made pizza with care and heart. This was C-grade chain pizza at best, and doesn’t even hit the Top 30 for pizzas I’ve had in the past. I’d eat this if I had no other choice, but in Northern Virginia there are plenty of other choices on every street corner. There are very few instances where I’d ever willingly go back for a Vocelli Pizza on my own after having these slices from the pizza party. It just wasn’t good enough.