Owensboro Restaurant Unveils Insane ‘One Person vs. One Pizza’ Eating Challenge

One of Owensboro's best kept secrets is The Oven. It's a small, but incredibly mighty and popular pizza place on East 4th Street here in town. I'll admit it. I was late to the party myself. I didn't hear about The Oven until it won 'Best Local Pizza' honors in an Owensboro Times poll. By the way, it keeps winning that annual poll because it's just so darn good.

I stopped by a few weeks ago and chatted with James Harlen, who opened the restaurant back in 2018. That evening as I waited for my order, he teased me with some tantalizing news. He told me that he was working on developing a deep dish pizza challenge- a one person vs. one pizza challenge- and he was about to release the details. James was inspired by similar challenges being offered at a couple of Mexican restaurants here in town and he wanted to offer his customers a piece (or rather slice) of the action.

Monday, on The Oven's Facebook page, James unveiled his Pizza Challenge, which officially gets underway on Saturday, January 27th. From Noon til 4pm each Saturday, The Oven will be baking up a 14-inch, 6-pound Chicago Deep Dish Pizza.

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That pizza will be loaded up with three meats of your choice and you'll have 30 minutes to finish it. If you do, the pizza is FREE!

To participate in the challenge, you'll need to make a $40 deposit. Naturally, if you complete the challenge successfully, you'll get that deposit back.

So, what do you think? Could you eat this six pound pizza?