Beau Jo's Review

I wrote the other day that 1958 teams have attempted the Beau Jo's Challenge since 1973. Only _11_ have finished the monster pizza in 1 hour. Now make that 1960 teams.

Jimmy and I meet up at high noon in Idaho Springs to take on the challenge. I had tried this in 2006. He had tried earlier this year. Both of our attempts were just that. Attempts.

We were definitely hungry. Definitely focused. We wanted it. Our strategy going in was to just eat. We didn't want to focus first on the crust or down the toppings first because of the possible flavor fatigue in doing that. The other team that was taking the challenge at the same time went the route of eating the toppings and bottom crust. They left the outer crust until the end. Actually when they were done with their pizza's inside they re-assembled the outer crusts into almost a complete circle.

The starting weight of our pizza, and coincidentally the other team's pizza, was 14.4 pounds. I was hoping for a weight closer to 12 pounds (their ad says 12-14 pounds) but it's all good. Six pounds of crust, three pounds of cheese, three pounds of meat, a pound of mushrooms, and over a pound of green peppers and onions.

At 20 minutes in, we had just about half of the pizza done. Good pace, no doubt. At 40 minutes in, there was maybe 1/4 left. Uh oh. 10 minutes later, we had not finished off much more. Then, we were out.

In the end, even though our approaches were radically different, our two teams ended up essentially tied. By weight remaining, we had 3.5 pounds and the other team had 3.2. So they won by weight left, but I think our remainder would have been easier to keep eating if we had to. That crust is just too thick and requires too much chewing at the end. Six of one, a half-dozen of the other.
Our remainder
Remainder for other team

The owner of Beau Jo's had come down to watch these two teams try the Challenge. He got plenty of photos and video. It's not too often that there are two simultaneous attempts. And each of the teams also had $75.00 bills. The owner crumpled those up, along with the bills for T-bonz and Jimmy's peeps. That was cool! Thanks again, Chip!

On the morning of the Challenge I weighed-in at 147.0 lbs. Later that day, a few hours after the Challenge my weight was 157.0 lbs. Even though I ate more than at Cactus Jack's I felt much better at Beau Jo's. About 20 minutes after the eating, and outside the restaurant, about 4 ounces of recovery water came back up. Technically a reversal, my fourth since I started eating in September 2005.

I will have a complete gallery of photos and some video up soon.

Here is a link: Link to an attempt by two guys in Denver. Their pizza was only 12.1 pounds!

Full gallery of our attempt.