Wig and Pen Pizza Pub (Ankeny, IA) Review

4.5* (out of 5)

Food: 5*

Atmosphere: 4*

Value: 4*

Service: 5*

02/05/2023

My wife was hungry for chicken wings and found an article stating that Wig and Pen had some of the best, so we came back to try their wings while in the area. We started with a Bloody Mary (see picture) since it was on special for the day and really enjoyed it – good flavor and not to spicy or salty.

For an appetizer, we ordered Breaded Mushrooms (see picture) – a solid offering if you like them but nothing super special. For the meal, we ordered Wing Zings (see picture) with Big Ben sauce. The Big Ben sauce was good, but we found the wings to be awfully salty with a very thick, crunchy breading / crust. For us, they were again solid, but not what we would put in the upper echelon of wings that we’ve eaten.

If you are hungry for wings I wouldn’t pick this place first, but if you are looking for deep-dish, really cheesy pizza, this is still one of my favorites!

12/04/2022

We stopped here with our son and daughter-in-law after watching the Christmas Tree Lighting at the District. This place had been recommended to us, so we were anxious to give it a try. While we were seated within about 15 minutes, we were warned that the wait for the deep dish pizzas would be at least 30 minutes and the menu also pointed out that the wait would be 30-50+ minutes.

We first stopped at the bar (see picture) and ordered a beer (see tap selection picture). We were called to be seated before finishing our drinks and given the wait for the pizzas, we ordered Cheese Balls (see picture) and Garlic Cheese Bread (see picture). If you don’t like cheese…this isn’t your place – as both the cheese bread and pizzas (described later) had LOTS of cheese. In my book, that made them Oh So Delicious!

Last came the pizzas (see pictures) and yes, they tasted as good as they look. Based on our waitress’ recommendation, we went with their specialty Flying Tomato style for both. As the pictures show, for this style you have no idea what kind of pizza it is since there is SO much cheese on the top…and both were covered with slices of tomatoes. The pizza was SO good – while I’m often not a huge crust fan…I found this crust to be delicious and didn’t hesitate to eat all of it.

The only negative that I can come up with is that both my son and I like to use our forks to cut the pizza. The provided forks were very thin (cheap?), and both of us commented how much they hurt our fingers to use. Other than that, if you love pizza – you will definitely enjoy a stop here!

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