TOURNAMENT OF PIZZA PREP >>>

Katie Downs Tavern & Eatery

3211 Ruston Way, Tacoma, 253.756.0771

Born: 1982

Pizza Style: Deep-Dish Pan

Skinny: The waterfront restaurant and bar serves 6-inch and 12-inch deep-dish pizzas loaded, and we mean loaded with cheese. They offer eight theme pizzas, which they call "classic combinations." You can also create your own pizza. Each pizza is hand rolled and baked for 20 to 25 minutes.

Notes: It's a 21 and older joint. Named after original co-owner Mike Ebert's grandmother. Initial orders must be placed at counter, then the wait staff will check on customers after. They accept pizza to go orders. Happy hour is 4-6 p.m. Monday-Friday, 9 p.m. to close Sunday-Tuesday.

A restaurant with a past is much more comfortable than a restaurant with a future, which can fill a body with a sense of unease and sad nostalgia for the old days. True, a certain excitement is missed - that wonderful electric hum of progress is dimmed down to moth-flutter on a candle flame - but candles hide the dust in the corners and make your blind date's nose seem slightly smaller. Katie Downs is such a candle, still going strong after Dr. John Hilger and Mike Ebert opened the tavern - which is now a bar - in the fall of 1982.

Katie Downs serves deep-dish pies so fat and smothered in golden-browned cheese; one slice is enough for a meal. The red sauce is rich and tomatoey - although most folks prefer the white sauce, as in the Rainier with its bay shrimp, artichoke hearts and red onion. The crust is buttery thick and chewy - so tasty that, long after your stomach is full, you just can't stop.

The menu also offers a wide spectrum of choices, from burgers and flat-iron steaks to gulf prawns and chips.

Yea, yea, blah, blah - you have to stand in line to order food and drinks. That is a bitch. However, those memories fade while watching the game (without brats bouncing sausages of the side of your head) or daydreaming about owning that sailboat drifting past the wall of windows - as you spin your fork around and around for a cheese lollipop.

Hours: 11 a.m. to 11 p.m. Sunday-Thursday, 11 a.m. to midnight Friday-Saturday

The Weekly Volcano will host a South Sound Tournament of Pizza competition in March 2011, much like our Tournament of Tacos. Our readers will seed the tournament.

FORUM: Best pizza in the South Sound?