Location: The two premises are separated by a small parking lot on West Street, one of the town's main meeting and dining areas.
The Z's retail space was previously inhabited by Tim Horton's, and therefore has a vaguely familiar (for people who have been in Tim's a few times) commercial atmosphere, as well as a drive-thru which is only convenient for people travelling toward main street via West Street.
The standard two-door Tim Horton's entry is mildly irritating, as one is confronted upon opening the first door with an identical door perpendicular to the first. However this entry gives an added barrier between the building's interior and the street, an effect further achieved by the doorway being recessed from the sidewalk. This separation of the interior from the street gives one the feeling of being securely inside a building.
The customer entrance to Louis Gee's contains a single door which opens directly from the sidewalk. The establishment feels slightly more pizza parloresque than Z's, with heavier, patterned floor tiles, a counter along the street window, shoulder boards along the walls, and Star Wars posters.
Value: A jumbo slice (roughly 1/4 of a 16' pizza) is $4 even at both locations.
Service: The Z's employee cut the slice down the middle, which was a convenient touch, yielding two regular sized slices to making sharing or leaving over more lucrative. Otherwise, service was almost identical. There was a small line at Louis Gee's and the Z's employee took a few seconds to get to the counter. The slices at both places were presented in identical square white boxes.
Product: Z's pizza has a thicker crust, which makes the slice a bit more stable during consumption, whereas LG's has a thinner floppier crust that is more chewy. The Z's crust was pleasantly crisp on the surface, with an airy interior. LG's sauce has a more sweet, salty taste, while Z's sauce is a bit zestier but no less salty.
Z's had only a ham topping available which was nicely executed with small juicy and crispy bits
of ham on nicely melted cheese that was pleasantly crisp in places.
LG's had several options; hawaiian, cheese, pepperoni and pepperoni and ham, of which I chose the latter. The ham was quite similar to the Z's ham, but in slightly bigger and less profuse chunks. The pepperoni, though abundant, was a little bit less baked than one might like, having been placed under the cheese, which although more liberally applied than the Z's cheese, did not have the same crispy and tender texture.
Overall, both Z's and Louis Gee's had a solid fast food pizza offering at reasonable price, and had a product with characteristics exclusive to their respective sources.
