Jack's Pizza was started by Jack Hoyt back in 1966. In the early days, friends and family ran a handful of Jack's Pizza restaurants. Today, there are about fifteen stores serving the greater Indianapolis area, mostly on the south side. The focus nowadays is on delivery and carryout, although a few locations have inside dining. In 2001, there was a company split, resulting in the creation of Circle City Pizza and the loss of some Jack's Pizza locations.

Jack's claim to fame is pizzas loaded with toppings. They offer pies in 10, 12, 14 and 18-inch sizes with all the popular toppings as well as anchovies, green olives, salami and jalapenos - and you can choose from sausage and Italian sausage. Their specialty pizzas emphasize "piling it on." The Big Jack is a deluxe pie with nine of the most popular toppings - what my dad would lovingly call a "garbage pizza." The Meat-eor aka Meat-zilla, and the Jack Rabbit all-veggie pizza are other incarnations of the piling it high principle. Jack's has salads, wings, garlic bread and sandwiches too.

We ordered an 18-inch pepperoni and Italian sausage pizza and a 14-inch Jack Pot. The Jack Pot is Jack's "around the world" pizza with everything on it but the kitchen sink (no anchovies either).

About 30 minutes after ordering, our pizzas arrived. True to our expectations, the Jack Pot was loaded with toppings; it was close to an inch tall. It was a welcome change of pace from the usual two or three topping pizza and was a balanced mix of ingredients, not overwhelmed with onions or peppers. The pepperoni and Italian sausage wasn't as tall as the Jack Pot, but still had plenty of pepperoni and hunks of sausage. Both pizzas had a thick blanket of mozzarella and spicy sauce. The weakest link was the crusts - they were on the tough side, almost leathery.

Jacks' yellow pages ad says: "Order a pizza that weighs as much as this phone book." We decided to put their pizza to the test. They don't get too specific about what size pizza or how many toppings are required to qualify, so we just weighed the pizzas we ordered, comparing them to the phone book. Our 18-inch, two-topping pizza weighed-in at 5 pounds, 12 ounces. The 14-inch Jack Pot weighed 4 pounds, 2 ounces. How much does a phone book weigh? Ours was 3 pounds, 9 ounces, substantiating Jacks' claim with pizza to spare. Using pizza math (the formula involves pie), I figured that a two-topping 14-inch would just about make it, and any 16-inch would easily qualify.