Williams Chicken in far east Dallas is only Williams Chicken to offer pizza

by Teresa Gubbins

DALLAS — There is no shortage of Williams Chicken outlets in and around Dallas: This list tallies more than 30 branches, from Carrollton to Mesquite to DeSoto to Arlington. All serve fried chicken, be it 3 tenders with a roll for $2.99, or a 9-piece dark meat combo, wings and thighs, for $6.99. Most also serve hot wings, and some even offer livers & gizzards.

But only one Williams Chicken among them serves pizza: the Williams Chicken located at 2844 North Buckner Boulevard, right by the intersection of Peavy, where you can get a large pizza with one meat topping for $5.99 or a slice for $1.99.

Is this the best pizza you will ever have eaten? Maybe not. However, they promise that they're making their own dough, the tomato sauce is sweet, the mozzarella is melty, and for $6, it's a not-bad alternative to a greasy chicken dinner.

Staffers are reluctant to identify themselves, or divulge statistics about how well the pizza is selling, or how they, an unlikely cog in a medium-sized chicken chain, came to be doing pizza. One manager, "Jerry," admitted it was an idea he and the store owner devised to drum up business. "Gotta try something new," he said.

He claims they taught themselves to make the dough, that they make it every day, and that they acquired an oven specifically for the pizza. He didn't have much to say about the dough recipe nor about the source of their meat toppings, which are three: pepperoni slices, crumbled sausage, and kibble-like beef pellets.

The restaurant sits on a rather dreary stretch of Buckner, right at a bus stop, with an apartment complex behind it, placing it right on the path of hungry customers. At lunch, women came in twos and threes and ordered chicken to go; one said, "You doin' pizza? How long you been doin' that?" before ordering her 3-piece dark for $2.69, to go. Almost no one sat in the spare dining room which, happily, held only a whiff of the cooking oil. The floor may not have been freshly scrubbed, but the ventilation was effective.

The pizza took about 10 minutes; it was assembled and baked in the back, out of view. The large was about 16 inches. A "slice" looked like 1/4 of a pizza, and was served, piping hot, in a small white box. The crust was like a light, airy bread, similar to the product you get with Rhodes Bake-N-Serv, the yeast dough sold in the supermarket freezer-case.

While it could hardly be compared to an artisan pizza a la Olivella's or Fireside Pies, the Williams Chicken pizza did have one characteristic in common with the finest pizzas in town in that it benefited from being consumed immediately, while you could still discern the textural difference between the "short" crunchy bottom and the bready, airy top. As it cooled on the ride back from Far East Dallas to Pegasus News HQ at Preston and LBJ, it quickly turned softer and pliable, giving it a more prominent cardboardy personality.

At the office, Alex said it evoked the pizza you'd get at a bowling alley, while Mike -- who spotted this anomalous pizza offering in the first place -- said it reminded him of the pan pizza at Pizza Hut, an evaluation with which both Jeremy and Chris agreed, with Chris calling this similarity a "win" for Williams.

Even those unlikely to drive out of their way for the pizza itself might appreciate the bold departure this pizza enterprise represents. According to "Jerry," Williams is a franchise that allows a bit of leeway among individual owners -- leaving open the tantalizing prospect that other Williams Chickens could jump on their trail-blazing pizza bandwagon.

Mike Orren contributed to this story.

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