How 'Bout Them Knockers: 1st Quarter Review

Three months in and Quesa-D-Ya's looks like the restaurant to beat. They slipped past the early leader, Nandina Asian Tapas, the week of January 26 and have held on since, easily brushing off a few feeble challenges.So as the first quarter closes, we pause to assess the highs, lows and...

By Dave Faries

March 30, 2009

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Three months in and Quesa-D-Ya's looks like the restaurant to beat. They slipped past the early leader, Nandina Asian Tapas, the week of January 26 and have held on since, easily brushing off a few feeble challenges.

So as the first quarter closes, we pause to assess the highs, lows and averages of home delivery thus far...

Overall Standings

Quesa-D-Ya's 94

Nandina Asian Tapas 93
Roti Grill 88
Scalini's Pizza & Pasta 87
i Fratelli Pizza 85
Spiatzas Pizzeria 80

Chef House 79
Panda Delite 78
Dallas Gourmet Grill 71
Skillman Wok/Border Express 54
Zini's Pizzeria 51
LA Gourmet Pizza 47

Average promised delivery time: 45 minutes
Average actual delivery time: 45.08 minutes

Shortest promised delivery time: Spiatzas Pizzeria--25 minutes
Longest promised delivery time: LA Gourmet Pizza/DiningIn--75 minutes
Shortest actual delivery time: Quesa-D-Ya's--29 minutes
Longest actual delivery time: LA Gourmet Pizza/DiningIn--89 minutes

Best delivery performance: Nandina Asian Tapas, beating promised time by 15 minutes
Worst delivery performance: Zini's Pizzeria, late by 27 minutes

All in all, we've waited 541 minutes (a tick over 9 hours) for 12 home delivery orders.

Some highs and lows from our scoring summaries:
Best crust in the world (without actually trying all the crust in the world) (Scalini's): 50
It's pizza, and someone brings it to you (LA Gourmet Pizza): 39
Knieval-like daring-do of ordering Tex-Mex from a Chinese kitchen (Skillman Wok): 35
Free chips and salsa (Quesa-D-Ya's): 33
Fact that they deliver steaks (Dallas Gourmet Grill): 30
Lost delivery guy turns out to be a hippie look alike (Chef House): 30
Credit for delivering smallish portions and call it Asian tapas (Nandina): 24
Altering their flagship menu item's ingredients without question because my wife doesn't like bell-peppers and onions on her pizza (i Fratelli): 20
Nobody got food poisoning (Zini's): 20
Leaving out the fortune cookie (Chef House): -9
Ice-cold marinara dipping sauce that come with the breadsticks which cost $2.49 (i Fratelli): -10
Beef cooked to level orange choking threat (Dallas Gourmet Grill): -12
Delivering a pizza on foot without using a heat bag on a freezing day (Spiatzas): Priceless (or in this case: -20)
Minutes between first bite and onset of grease-induced coma (LA Gourmet Pizza): (minus) 35

The second quarter begins next Monday...

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