Keep Your Friends Close, but Your Pizza Closer

Wise Guys Pizzeria

4957 Yorba Ranch Road

Yorba Linda, CA 92887

My parents are pretty much creatures of habit when it comes to the restaurants they frequent. They have lived in Yorba Linda for over 40 years, but are reluctant to stray from their favorites in the area. Mimi's Cafe, Chili's, Habit Burger, Ruby's, Chick-Fil-A, and Polly's are some of the places that they hit up in a heavy rotation every week or so. One of the major reasons for this is that all of these places have a loyalty program that they have joined and they get coupons and other special offers on their birthdays and such. Almost every phone conversation I have with them includes a briefing on what deals they had gotten the week prior.

I bring this up because I have made it my mission to break them out of their comfort zone when it comes to restaurants. Whenever we come up to North OC, we try to eat at a restaurant that they haven't eaten at yet. Pretty crazy that after 43 years there are places they haven't been to yet, but we are working on it. Pizza for my parents is usually Costco or Pizza Hut. These were not going to happen on my watch, so we met the family at Wise Guys Pizzeria.

This local pizza place is situated in the same shopping plaza as OC Wine Mart, The Wild Artichoke, and Domino's Pizza. Back in the day, this used to be the home of The Ranch Enchilada, and before that, when I was in high school, The Whole Enchilada. Wise Guys opened in 2015, and they have two other locations, one on Chapman Avenue in Orange and another in Grapevine, Texas.

Wise Guys is pretty much unrecognizable from the old days when this used to be a Mexican restaurant. They darkened it up a bit, added a bar to the left-hand side of the restaurant, and put up six large TVs on the walls. There's a patio to the left-hand side of the restaurant also, which might be a better option than the rather cramped and loud quarters of the inside of this restaurant. Ordering is done at the counter and the food is brought out to you as it's ready. The menu features many Italian appetizers, salads, pasta dishes, sandwiches, calzones, and of course, pizza. The nine of us quickly made our food choices and waited patiently for our food to come out to our table. Here's how it all worked out for us at Wise Guys.

Between all of us, we tried three of the eight salads that are offered at Wise Guys. Katie had the House Salad ($4.49). This base model salad included chopped romaine, pepperoncini, tomato, mozzarella, and your choice of dressing. My dad went a little crazier here trying this Antipasto Salad ($7.95). This one had a whole cavalcade of ingredients in it. Sliced up hard salami, pepperoni, and capicola, chopped romaine, tomato wedges, radishes, olives, and pepperoncini, and was finished off with plenty of grated and sliced mozzarella. My dad was pretty pleased with himself that he ordered this one. It was good-sized, had plenty of items included in it, and filled him up, which was a good thing for me since we were splitting a pizza, it meant more pizza for me. Bonus. My sister was equally over the moon about her salad selection, the Candied Walnut Salad ($7.49). I have always asserted that women love salads with fruit in them, and my sister added to my theory by loving this salad that contained sliced apple, dried cranberries, red onion, candied walnuts, and gorgonzola all bathed in a balsamic vinaigrette. She loved the texture of this and the wide-ranging flavors. It kept her interested throughout the short life of this salad. Salads are fine and all, but I was ready for some real sustenance.

I've become a meatball maniac all of a sudden, and could not resist the chance to try the interesting-sounding Spicy Chorizo Meatballs ($2.29 each). I zeroed in on this appetizer when I checked out the menu the week before coming here. The chorizo meatball came in a very well-done hatch chili cream sauce. I thought the chorizo was going to be too greasy, but it was not overbearing, held together well, and was made even better with the chili sauce, which was plentiful, and I used it to dip into the garlic knots below. Not sure why they call these spicy because they weren't, but still a nice change of pace from the usual meatballs you get in pizza places.

If you go anywhere near the Yelp page for Wise Guys and read the reviews, you'll see a flood of admiration for their Garlic Knots ($6.49). These are littler than a lot of the ones I have had at other places, but they did give you plenty. These knots are made from the pizza dough, brushed with garlic and sprinkled with parmesan, and then served with marinara and ranch dressing. Not bad, but I thought they were baked a little too long. I like a softer, more doughy garlic knot. Everyone else seemed to like them though.

I had a feeling that we were going to be having a lot of food on the table between the nine of us, so my parents and Katie, and I decided to split pizzas. Katie and my mom went with the Personal sized Pepperoni Pizza ($7.68). This four-sliced pizza was perfect for the two of them. They both really enjoyed this pizza. Katie liked the cheesiness of the pizza, while my mom was fond of the crust. My dad and I split a small The Don All Meat Pizza ($9.95). This carnivore's favorite included all the meats from behind the counter; pepperoni, sausage, Canadian bacon, meatball, and bacon. I liked this pizza but had wished that the meats were baked into the cheese more, as they fell off rather easily when I picked up my slices. The cheese to sauce ratio was pretty good for me with this and I liked the thicker than usual crust. A solid pizza that I'd probably get again if I was in the mood for a meat lovers pizza.

My sister and her side of the table tried these Italian Hot Wings ($9.95) to start out. I believe there were ten to an order. I got to try one, which I found to be just okay. The chicken was overly fried with not a lot of meat included on these pretty puny wings. The sauce was okay but needed to be a tad thicker and spicier. The ranch dressing used here was above average.

My brother-in-law was eager to give the Raging Bull Meatball Sandwich ($6.49) a try on this early evening. This half sandwich came with two meatballs on this, which were covered with plenty of marinara sauce and mozzarella. They use Amoroso rolls, so the bread was sturdy and made to hold plenty, just like they do at any good Philly cheesesteak place. The sandwich was good according to Jarrod, he liked the melting cheese and marinara sauce, but felt they could have snuck another meatball in this half sandwich to make it even better. This also came with your choice of potato chips or the pesto pasta salad he selected. With the addition of the pesto in this pasta salad, it kicked this up a few notches in my book. Pasta salad can sometimes be boring, but this one was flavorful with well-made pesto.

I also wanted to share a picture of their larger pizzas. The folks on the other side of the table got this Large Pepperoni Pizza ($19.24) which they all seemed to enjoy but did not finish. I thought nearly twenty dollars for this pizza was a little over the top, but I hear that Wise Guys frequently dispenses coupons to locals in the mail and they also have family specials that are offered at the time that you are ordering, which would help cut down on the price. This ended up being a good solid pizza, made with better ingredients than you can get through any delivery pizza.

Wise Guys Pizzeria ended up being a great meeting point for the nine of us. even though the restaurant is a bit compact, we made it work and it helped that we got here before the big rush of people that came after us. The pizza here was good, but not noteworthy. It's not going to blow your mind, but it's slightly above average and if you are in the area Wise Guys would be a good place to try. The food runners and people running the registers were all awesome, and really were working pretty hard clearing plates, getting refills, and fetching my mom an endless supply of ranch dressing. Guess you can never have enough ranch dressing. Glad I could break my parents out of their Pizza Hut and Costco pizza rut by having them try this place. Hopefully, they will be back.

Out of five toy soldiers, (because the 80's TV show Wiseguy featured Martika, who famously sang the song Toy Soldiers), five being best to zero being worst, Wise Guys Pizzeria gets 3 toy soldiers.

For more information about Wise Guys Pizzeria, head to their website here: http://wiseguyspizzeria.com/