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Pizza Plus made moving day to Ripon great
ripon pizza sideways copy
A half pepperoni and half combo pizza.

I’ve always heard that moving across town is much harder work than moving across country.  I thought it was a strange saying until last weekend when we moved less than 10 miles away from our old home.  We had been packing boxing for weeks and felt as prepared as could be for our short move from Manteca to the city of Ripon.

On the moving day we picked up a 20- foot U-Haul truck at 7am and with the help of a dear friend willing to help us move, we were ready to go.

 Less than 10 miles, it should be a breeze, so I thought. Between the U-Haul and our personal vehicles, we went back and forth a good dozen times in between breaking down furniture, gym equipment, appliances, TV stands and even dismantling a hard plastic shed that had no business being so huge to begin with and let alone filled with so much junk.   We shuffled item after item from one house to another with the roof to that darn shed, being the last item to move 14-hours later. 

 We were delirious, exhausted and even a little disgusted with it all by the time our heads hit the pillow that night.  The next morning, still exhausted, we reflected on all of the work that had taken place the day before and without question, it would have been easier to move across country.  There was one wonderful highlight during our treacherous moving day however—pizza from Pizza Plus.

 

I had been hearing about this pizzeria in Ripon for a while from the friend that helped us moved.  More than once he had described it as “The best pizza ever.”  I thought maybe he was just a wee biased being that he grew up in Ripon nevertheless, he was helping us move so I was willing to give it a try.

 During what I thought would be the half way mark of our moving day, I took a break and found my way over to Main Street where I spotted the quaint pizzeria.  Before even stepping inside, I could see it was packed and not just with Little League baseball players after a long game on a Saturday afternoon which is typical for pizza joints. Instead, it was packed with families, friends, individuals, the younger crowd, the older crowd and all sorts of people just hanging out, smiling, laughing and chatting it up at Pizza Plus.

 Once I opened the doors to the pizzeria the aroma of fresh garlic, onions, bacon, and pepperoni baking in the oven hit me, it was wonderful.  Since I was a Pizza Plus newbie, I wasn’t sure what to order and there was so much to choose from.  Specialty pizza items such as:

 *All Meat: cheese, salami, pepperoni, ham, linguica, bacon and sausage.

 *Moe’s BBQ Chicken: cheese, Sweet Baby Ray’s Barbeque Sauce, red onions, chicken, pineapple and bacon.

 *Vegetarian: cheese, yellow onion, mushroom, black olives, green peppers, artichoke hearts and tomatoes.

 There were also appetizers and sides such as, The Riptown Garden Salad, bread sticks, spaghetti and meatballs and raviolis with garlic bread along with a variety of oven toasted or cold sandwiches served on a French Roll with chips to choose from.

 Drooling over the menu and taking in the aroma made me want a sampler platter of everything but I eventually settled on the Super Plus Pizza which I discovered was generously covered with cheese, pepperoni, ham, yellow onion, mushroom, green pepper, and bacon.

 

 When the server handed me the pizza box, I lifted the lid and immediately caught the flavorful scent as I took in how the fresh toppings were baked perfectly into the crust.  It looked good and smelled good but the true test would be the first bite.  I brought the Super Plus Pizza to our new home, doled out slices and then took a bite.