This past Friday, we visited Me-N-Ed's Pizzaria in Camarillo, CA and while this one didn't fit the bill for being "independently owned" as is our usual Friday Lunch Bunch criteria, in our defense, we had my two sons, ages 7 and 11 and my nephew age 8 joining us. God bless them, but they are loud, especially when they all get together. So after driving around on Ventura Blvd and not seeing anything particularly kid appropriate we ended up at Me-N-Ed's Pizzaria in the Albertson's shopping center in Camarillo, CA.
The first table we sat down at was one of the only booths available and it was right under a TV that was turned up to a volume I would expect for Monday night football, not a quiet afternoon in Camarillo. We quickly repositioned ourselves in a semi booth under a TV that was thoughtfully muted and the kids spent the entire wait for the pizza playing on the video games without actually having money to play them. (Score one for mom!)
Barely peeling them away from the video games, we finally dragged them back to the table (Mind boggling that they could have been having so much fun pretending to play the video games) where the five of us shared a large pizza with pepperoni and sausage and garlic (garlic only on half - obviously for me!). As pizza goes, it was pretty good, but nothing compared to my absolute favorite: Topper's Pizza. In my opinion, the crust was good, and far better than Domino's, but the kids complained that it was burnt and in fact, there were a couple of spots that may have qualified as such. For the price, I tried to ignore it as it didn't seem overly burnt, just crispy and the flavor was good with the right ratio of toppings to crust.
Pricewise we couldn't have found a cheaper lunch. The pizza was $10 bucks and fed all five of us with at least 2 pieces each. Since I'm such an ogar, the kids all had water and I bought my dad a coke which I may have snagged a couple sips from. So at the end of the day, we all at for under $13 bucks. (Granted, after we were done we went over to Rite Aid where where the kids enjoyed Ice Cream Dibs and a fudgecicle for another $6 or $7 bucks!)
Definitely a place I will visit again, especially if I have kids in tow and want a satisfying meal for dirt cheap. On a scale of 1 to 5 pepperonis, this place rates 4 pepperonis. I would have gone 5, but had to take one away since it is a chain and the crust was on the verge of burnt.