hello everyone this is running on empty food review well hello ladies gentlemen
and everyone watching welcome one and also this newest edition of the running on empty food review
series i'm your host the report of the week thanks for being here checking in tuning in just thanks
for watching boy this is going to be a crazy one and you could already tell for a number of reasons
why this is going to be as i just said a crazy one number one i'm going with a bow tie today and i
don't do that for every review most of the time i think every time up until now i've just i've worn
a bow tie just because i want to maybe that's actually why i'm just wearing one tonight but
to make it sound more interesting i'm wearing this one because it's absolute insanity and i couldn't
think of anything else to wear to even even try to begin to express just how incredible this is
what you are about to see is a crossover unlike any other a combination that up until this very
forgetting about what happened a year ago has never happened
you are going to see a crossover between fast food
and professional athletes that already did happen i'm sure many many times but
again trying to make this sound more interesting papa john's has brought back the chakaroni pizza
look at him he's back he made it the shackaroni pizza has returned isn't that something yeah
the chacaroni pizza to be serious for a couple seconds um this was a meal deal that papa john's
had last year they had it for a little while then they got rid of it now it's back again um it's a
collaborative a collaborative effort between of course the professional athlete shaquille o'neal
and papa john's right the fast food pizza chain and what they did is they decided let's release
a pizza fit for uh you know a professional athlete like shaquille o'neal right a shack sized pizza so
what this is it's a thin crust extra large pizza with extra toppings extra cheese it's a pepperoni
pizza so it's got extra pepperoni extra cheese stretching all the way to the crust it's a big
pizza you know something for like a big guy like shaq or someone with a very ravenous appetite
and it's available the price of 13 bucks so it's a big pizza again thin crust lots of toppings
but at a good price as well um so that's you know that's that's the whole appeal of it a big pizza
at a good price and um you know for shaquille o'neal right they released it last year and i
tried it a year ago and i found it enjoyable i mean i thought it was pretty tasty i thought the
value was good i i already reviewed this i gave it an eight out of ten so you might say well if
you already tried it then why are you trying it again well one thing that i've noticed in the
years i've been doing these food reviews a lot of fast food places are subject to variability
and i've personally observed a lot of places you know even between releases they'll make various
tweaks and adjustments to the recipes etc and the quality can really change even in one single year
between releases so because i liked this the last time i want to see if papa john's is maintaining
the standards if it's just as good as it was the last time or if it's lacking because granted 13
bucks is still 13 bucks and it's a lot of food so i would always say hey it's wise to just see what
you're in for um you know before you kind of pull the trigger on this and see what you're gonna get
but anyway that's that's the pizza that's the concept uh what i do like is that it comes in this
shack themed box right there again now we'll get a proper uh view of it see there he is
right there he's looking at you he's holding up the uh pizza slice he's got that what does
it say pizza loves everyone and everyone loves pizza now this is actually a piece of priceless
sports memorabilia you could see his signature right there and what i did a year ago when uh
i got this pizza after i was done with the review i cut the front of the pizza box off because i'm
such a big fan of shaquille o'neal i actually took this and i i i taped it up to the ceiling above my
bed so when i go to sleep i'm closing my eyes that's the last thing i see every day and then
when i wake up that's usually the first thing that i see too and it just gives me a lot of motivation
to to go from to start the day so i'm gonna have to switch this out and get a new one going um
taking a look so here's what we got
it's a big pizza all right look at that let's get a thumbnail right here
yeah something to that extent but you could see it's a big pepperoni pizza it is not square cut
all right it's your traditional eight slice pizza
but again you can see how it definitely gets all the toppings stretching right to the crust it does
come with garlic dipping sauce and it also comes with the the infamous pepper right there and uh
let's grab a slice these are big slices as i said looks like it could have been cut a
little better toward the center but i guess that is what it is again you can see how
right it is a little more thin cut but greasy oily you know what would be expected i would wager
and again you can definitely see the pizza slice to review bra had a comparison
right there it is pretty big so definitely a lot to this pizza you know what's on it i know
it's on it really this time around i just want to verify the quality and what it tastes like
and uh we'll just see how they're how they're doing if it's maintaining the standards or not
we'll go from there so chacaroni pizza from papa john's trying it out again it's going in
so a year ago when they first released the pizza you know there were
there wasn't a concrete explanation at first as to why this was called the chacaroni pizza you know
now obviously many right then and there assume that it has something to do with
with the shaquille o'neal right
i mean he's in the name of the pizza his face is on the box he's appeared in commercials
um but a number of conspiracy theories did emerge at the time that you know maybe there was a little
bit more um a little bit more to this you know than just some sort of celebrity endorsement right
maybe the pizza wasn't just crossing the boundaries of sports and fast food but it was also
reaching new frontiers in the world of science as well
because people started raising the question so shakaroni not pepperoni what is that
what's the deal with that is that just branding marketing or is there something else to it
so some theorize that this pepperoni might not be you know 100 pure pepperoni right from the
pepperoni beasts um but instead maybe it actually contains like you know absolutely microscopic
fragments of shaquille o'neal's you know dna and you're actually it's not pepperoni it's chacaroni
um but that was debunked and it's just regular pepperoni pizza and it just has it's just a
regular pizza with shaquille o'neal's branding and they just collaborated for that partnership
as you can see this is a big pizza these slices are bigger than usual it's an extra large pie
and i like it i like it i think it's a little it's a little much for me most of the time
because granted you know i'm not a competitive eater i don't really have a ravenous appetite
i'll say this though i bet one pizza like this would be enough you know to kind of have a pizza
night for the family or something or you know if you've got some friends over i mean these
are these are real big slices i i have to say despite it being thin crust a little goes a long
way and it's quite filling um it's your standard fare from papa john's you know consistency wise
it's not chewy and it's not doughy you can see on the bottom a little bit of a bake
right a little bit of a bake firmness you know it's not floppy or anything
um but you know neither is it breaking my teeth in terms of any sort of um crunch either it's
got a nice balance you know it's definitely got that structure it's a very oily pizza
that's one thing that i'm definitely noticing perhaps more so than what i noticed last year
in that i think you could see when i was showing you the close-ups of the slice
you could see all the grease in the oil from the pepperoni and even from the cheese as well
it's a very greasy and salty pizza at that um definitely something that you know i'm
glad i have the water here for because again i noticed that it's a bit on the saltier side
not garlicky or anything just salty
and it does come with the garlic sauce though which i'll you know crack open for the heck of it
it doesn't look like there's any sort of seasoning on the crust but we'll verify that in a minute
overall though it's pretty standard pretty standard pepperoni pizza again like i said
a little more on the greasier side than maybe it was a year ago some of that is offset with
the robustness of the tomato sauce but actually because of all the extra pepperoni that's on this
pizza i would say that just the greasiness and you know saltiness kind of is actually the prevailing
flavor um but still you know you kind of dip it in the garlic sauce we'll just try it here real quick
i always like the garlic butter that they
have i'll take a bite out of the crust for the fun of it
crust is pretty good it's light you could see it's not really doughy or anything but
it's actually light fairly airy nice little baked to the crust though but
again nothing to excess i think the pizza is cooked great and um
i think factoring in the greasiness of the pizza the garlic sauce is probably it actually
complements the crust best because it could be a little bit too much of a good thing i think
with the rest of the pizza this time around um but overall i would say that it really hasn't changed
much in the last year i think they're still maintaining the standards it's a nice pepperoni
pizza there's a lot of food i think again they got the consistency good very very nicely cooked
and it still tastes pretty good too again maybe just a little greasier than i would have
preferred but that's really just a minor little thing because honestly it tastes good it looks
good smells good i mean i'm i'm fine with this pizza i don't really have any complaints with it
it's a big pizza at a good value i know i could kind of poke fun and have a lot of
jokes with the name and concept but in the end i'm happy with this item um like i said
it's a bit much food for me but i think for a lot of folks this might really work out good
and uh again nice sized pizza at a good price as well so out of 10 i think i'm
still going to maintain the rating that i gave it the last time around an 8 out of 10.
um because again my complaint was really really minimal um not bad at all so i think this pizza
will still get an 8 out of 10 rating also factoring in the size and value as well
so today we tried out the chakaroni pizza from papa john's had some fun with it and still a good
pizza after one year thanks for watching and until next time i'm your host the report of the week