Sometimes you walk into a pizzeria and know you’ve made a mistake. That was the case with Gallucci’s.

Cavernous and institutional, and empty in January. But I’ll bet it’s rockin’ in July.

We were staying in Lincoln City for a couple of days making arrangements for some work on our new house prior to moving. (See Left Coast Life over at GoodDayRome.com.)  We figured this was a good time to start learning the pizza options in our new town, and Gallucci’s was close by.

We walked into this cavernous place teeming with rugrats and found it was self-service. Order and pay, then they call your number to pick up your pie. Charming. At least it was cheap.

The whole pie, cut American-style, which is actually nice when you are going to share.

This is everything that is wrong with American pizza. I put it in a class with Shakey’s, Roundtable, and Godfather’s: a very low class. The unremarkable crust was piled with too many ingredients and topped off with cheese that does not melt so much as fuse in a browned, chewy layer. The meat on the pizza was okay, the veggies fresh, but there was just too much stuff, perhaps to obscure the lackluster crust and meet the American need to have everything be huge.

The salad bar was not bad.

There was a salad bar that was not-too-bad, but from the quality of the wine they served, I’d say they don’t serve it too often. This is more of a beer place.

As far as atmosphere, I’d give it a 1 on the OWP scale. This was a very cold night and the interior was anything but snug and cozy. It is designed to serve large groups of tourists in the summer and the small children running unrestrained, coupled with the biggest game room outside of Chuckie Cheese (another sad excuse for a pizzeria), made it less than ideal.

This gives a better perspective on how much stuff was piled on. No wood-fired oven.

We will be moving on to try others in Lincoln City, never to return to Gallucci’s. Funny thing is, before our time in Italy, we probably would have accepted this as average.

Pizza Quality: 1 

Service: 1 The employees were nice enough, but the self-service model was awful.

Unsupervised children and a game room.

Ambiance: 1  Children running amok, video games, paper plates. Go here if you are in the company of 3-to-10 year olds who you prefer not to sit with.

Total Points: 3

Returnability: DNR – Do not return under any circumstances. Mistakes were made; do not compound them.

Unremarkable outside and in.