In the five years since Waldo Pizza last won this category, Phil Bourne's KC institution has inched nearer the quarter-century mark with an ever-growing beer list, a popular gluten-free crust and yet another expansion of the original site. What hasn't changed: the place's dead-solid reliability. That might sound like faint praise, until you remember the second law of restaurant thermodynamics: entropy. Even beloved destinations occasionally coast, sometimes to a full stop. Not Waldo Pizza, where Bourne and a crew including not just regulars but lifers keep vigil over the details while attending devoutly to customers. A wall of Saturday-night families, a switchboard lit up with delivery orders, a keg about to run dry — none of these eventualities lead to so much as a stray green-pepper sliver when your pie shows up in front of you. But bring on the green peppers — and the banana peppers and the spicy beef and the cheddar and everything else on a menu that's long on good ideas and longer on flavor. It's impossible to have a bad pizza or a bad time here.
