Review: Mac’s Pizza Pub

by julie on August 19, 2008

Mac’s pizza
Originally uploaded by winemedineme

Before our friend Jay’s band’s gig at Rohs Street Cafe, Terry, Ted, Ron and I decided we needed a) beer and b) sustenance. We all met at my place and I suggested what I thought was a sports bar down the street from Roh’s Street Cafe. It turned out to be a pizza place with really, really cheap beer. Score!

Mac’s is right next door to King Wok on MacMillan Avenue. There is usually street parking, but there is also parking in the back. They have a pretty extensive menu– our awesome server informed us that the 10 or so specialty pizza choices were narrowed down from 30! In addition to pizza, also has sandwiches, wings, burgers– typical college fare. We split the pizza between the four of us– half Flying Pig, which had a ton of different meats and half goat cheese and spinach, which had garlic butter instead of sauce. Though the meat side was good, the goat cheese and spinach side was the best. The flavors were great, fresh-tasting, and a little different than your normal college pizza place.

During the week, they have a lunch buffet for busy college kids, and in the evening they run drink specials during various sports event. I’ll definitely be going back– for the goat cheese pizza and some beer!

Chris S

You can find me over at Macs at least once a week. Definitely stick with the pizza (everything else on the menu is quite frankly not worth the money, although the waffle fries aren’t half bad)

I was much happier when they still had the bar harbor blueberry beer on draft (a favorite of mine from the “old hometown” for a “black and blue”) but all said they still don’t have a bad selection of beers. When the college kiddies are back in town it can be quite hectic, and don’t expect “service” there unless you are at the bar…

That said however, for a pizza pub (and all you would expect at that type of establishment) they really are not too bad, and the pizza is pretty darn good.
Beefy Muchacho

Macs is awesome indeed, and the pizza is a can’t miss…

I’d also recommend their Mac-over, which is sort of like a giant, eggroll with pizza ingredients. They used to have fried zucchini, but alas…gone.
Dan

I really like Mac’s pizza. It is by far my favorite thing I’ve had there. I’d actually put it up as one of my favorite pizza places in the city (Dewey’s) and certainly one of the best non-chain.
Mark Miller

The pizza is awesome indeed, but Mac makes an awesome Zinover too (for any of you who might remember the old Zino’s). For a real treat you have to try the blue balls. In fact all their blue food is good (especially the beer). Not just another chain; this is an honest-to-goodness hometown hangout, run by an authentic son of Cincinnati.
Mark Miller

The pizza is awesome indeed, but Mac makes an awesome Zinover too (for any of you who might remember the old Zino’s). For a real treat you have to try the blue balls. In fact all their blue food is good (especially the beer). Not just another chain; this is an honest-to-goodness hometown hangout, run by an authentic son of Cincinnati.
UncleRando

Love, love, love Mac’s. I’m usually there about 3-4 times a week for drinks, food, or just hanging out.
vudutu

Zinos that brings back some memories!
Chris S

Blue balls are no more. Haven’t been there for a while now. Those were my favorite app, but alas, no more blue balls and no more blueberry beer.
Julie

Chris– Blueberry beer? Oooh. I need to try that sometime. And I’ll be sure to stick to the pizza.

Dan– I wonder if the Mac-over was their version of the Zinover?

dan– I totally agree. It’s better than Lucy Blue’s (a later post) and I like their crust better than Dewey’s.

Mark– Zinover! I so miss Zino’s. Sigh. Blue food? Blue balls? Oh, my.

Uncle Rando– now I know where to find you.

Vudutu– Terry never got to experience Zino’s. This is a sad thing.

Chris– you get me excited for blue berry beer and then nada. Where can I find it?
Chris S

I am pretty sure I have seen the Bar Harbor blueberry beer over at the party source. I don’t ordinarily get it in bottles because it was so much better on draft. If I remember from talking to the brewmaster, I think they add some blueberry extract during the bottling process for the bottles, but for the kegs they do not. Since most of the sugars are fermented out out of the blueberries, the keg version is less sweet than the bottled version (which isn’t too sweet, but theres def a hit there).

My personal favorite with the bar harbor blueberry is making black and blues. Just like black and tan, but use the blueberry beer for the lower layer. Yum! Unfortunately, I don’t know of anywhere around here who carries it on draft any more so I’ll have to stick to the bottles until I can find a new source!
TJ Jackson

Clarification: the “blue balls” were chicken cordon bleu nuggets.Or at least that was the intention. They were not very good, and they were not bluish in color, rather looking pretty much like any other batter fried bite-sized piece of chicken

The macover is very good but they’ve almost doubled in price in two years. The pizza is also quite good, though I hope by now that the owner is making his own dough (he had bought a mixer, but was buying dough from a local bakery)

Their grilled hamburger is very, very good, and they will cook to order.

Their menu (http://www.macspizzapub.com/MacsMenuBack.pdf) originally included a number of items that gave them a certain uniqueness, but many of those unique items like the blue balls have been taken off the menu, making this place less unique and more like a typical college campus pizza bar.
Chris S

Eh, they say the “cook to order” for burgers, but as far as I am concerned, their burgers are not even a top 20 in cinci burgers. Mostly because while they say they cook to order, of the 30 or 40 burgers I have had there, maybe 2 – 3 were actually cooked to the temperature I ordered (most were cooked far beyond the doneness I had ordered). Medium rare should not be that difficult.

And yes, bleu balls were chix cordon bleu nuggets… but as tasty fried poppers go, they were a pretty good starter (given that the fries and rings at macs are less than primo)