Martha’s Pick:

Copps Pizza
7204 Jones St
Fare: Pizza and Wings
Cost: $50 for two wing orders, two pizzas and one dessert
Reservations: Not needed

I think it’s fair to say Copps Pizza has been on my radar since we wrote to you about Pacific Eating House. I remember there was this growing roar on various food groups I follow on Facebook – always talking about this new pizza joint that was coming up with crazy delicious pizza creations and magical chicken wing flavors. Given that we had just enjoyed My Pie Pizza, we didn’t anticipate hunting down a pizza place for a while. But I couldn’t escape the buzz about Copps – so here we are.

Jaclyn and I hadn’t hung out face to face for a few weeks so we opted to order for pick up and take it back to her place to hang out, catch up and chow down. We placed our order online and the confirmation screen told us our pies would be ready in 25 minutes – which honestly, on a Friday night in the 6 p.m. hour, we were impressed.

When we walked inside Copps, the place was buzzing with your typical Friday night activity – with over 90% of it being to-go business; we think we saw one family sitting, enjoying their dinner. Behind the counter, Copps’ staff was in constant motion, cooking and boxing and taking phone orders and ringing up walk-in business. It was clear to see we weren’t the only ones either checking it out or coming back for more. A local, family owned venture opened in October of 2019, Copps appears to be enjoying a breakout first year.

Wings ($6.99 ea) – PB&J & Hot Honey
Pork Burnt Ends Pizza ($10.99) – Signature cream cheese sauce, pork burnt ends, onion, bacon, BBQ sauce drizzle

Having heard such great things about the wings, there was no doubt we’d give them a try. You can get them in three styles: traditional, boneless or char-buffed. We went with the latter. (Note: If you ever see char-buffed as an option, always do that.) We opted to have ours double dipped, too.

There were a lot of flavors we wanted to try, but we calmed down and ordered two: PB&J and Hot Honey. Both were pretty delicious. Between the two, Hot Honey was the best. The PB&J were good, too, but neither of us could taste any sort of jelly flavor. I let Jaclyn keep the leftovers and she declared them just as tasty the next day.

Jac took a bite of her pizza – nodding her head as if to say, “not bad” as she contemplated her initial thoughts. The flavors she liked the most were the BBQ sauce drizzle, bacon and onion. The pork burnt ends didn’t really taste like burnt ends – just big chunks of pork. And even though she saw the cream cheese sauce, she couldn’t taste it at all. So she can’t say whether their signature claim-to-fame sauce adds a whole lot to the experience.

Buffalo Chicken Pizza ($9.49) – Signature cream cheese sauce, grilled chicken, banana peppers, buffalo sauce drizzle

First thing I want to commend Copps for is their generous and creative menu. On their Facebook page, they go so far as to say if you don’t see something that sounds good or if you have an idea for something to add to their menu, let them know. According to older posts, that’s how they added Peanut Butter and Jelly wings to their menu.

I couldn’t wait to experience their much bragged about Signature Cream Cheese sauce. Leading up to our visit, I knew I would choose any offering if it had that and I landed on an individual size Buffalo Chicken pizza. The chunks of chicken are large and blackened, which I presume and hope means it’s charred a little bit right on site – but I can’t confirm.

Like Jaclyn mentioned, if the cream cheese sauce is supposed to elevate my experience and change what occurs in my mouth with each bite – I didn’t notice. And I’m quite sad about that. I’ve been requesting to add cream cheese to my pizza since my first experience at Yia Yia’s in Lincoln. So the prospect of this signature sauce really intrigued me. But if I had to choose between a signature sauce (that I didn’t notice) and adding cream cheese as a topping, I’d choose it as a topping. Then at least I’ll get to enjoy the happy little creamy blobs as I work through the slice. And I’m sure Copps DIY creations could accommodate such request.

Cinnamon Crumble Dessert Pizza ($8)

I was too full to attempt a bite of the dessert pizza, but Jaclyn had a slice. She felt underwhelmed by the “crumble” – which was just oatmeal and some cinnamon here and there. The icing was very thin and didn’t add much in way of sweetness. Overall, she was disappointed. She had a few bites the next day, but ended up throwing out the rest.

Final Bites

Do you remember the first Pirates of the Caribbean movie? I swear, I listened to people rave about it for over a year. Everybody I met insisted I go see it, rent it as soon as I could. I fully expected to be blown away and changed-in-my-soul forever by watching it. When I finally saw it – on my couch, in a dorm room, on a small TV – I was relatively ‘meh’ towards it. It didn’t live up to they hype I built in my head. But I had to own that it was probably my fault. I didn’t see it in the theater, with chest-shaking surround sound, fresh out of the Hollywood oven. I feel the same way about my first Copps pizza experience.

Jaclyn is also not sure if Copps fans oversold her on the pizza – setting her expectations pretty high from the start – or if it’s just her. Even though Jac admits she just doesn’t understand the hype, she’d try it again. Their fans were right about the wings, though. Jac would gladly return to try more flavors of those char-buffed goodies.

Overall, the only thing I kept thinking would make my first Copps experience better was if we dined in house and ate the pizza as fresh as could be, straight out of the oven. I can’t hold it against them that COVID makes things weird or that we chose to drive home to eat. We love the accurate and prompt ordering/pick up process; we love the creative and accommodating menu (keto options, anyone?) But we can’t shake the feelings of ‘huh?’ and a little ‘meh.’

Our lukewarm feelings aside, business must be good for this not-yet-a-year-old pizza palace: Copps recently announced they’ll be opening a second location at the Shadow Lake Towne Center in Papillion – nearly my neck of the woods. When that location is up and running, I’ll definitely visit and dine in to compare and discover more of the menu.

Cheers!
The Good Bite Gals

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