Two more days to Joe’s Pizza
The voice on the phone said, “Friday, maybe Saturday we’ll open. How’d you hear about us?”
Oh, it’s only the most anticipated pizza shop opening since Pizzeria Mozza if you pay any attention at all to Chowhound’s Los Angeles board.
Joe’s makes the definitive old school New York by-the-slice pizza**. In my teens and twenties, I devoted myself semi-monogamously to Joe’s when I still lived in my native New York City. No, that’s a lie. I’m a pizza slut. In Greenwich Village (at the time), there were other great pizza practitioners like Ben by Frank’s and John’s that served up notably distinct variations of New York style pizza, and I whored around with all of them.
In the mid `90’s, I moved away to California, and I missed Joe’s Pizza like you’d miss your high school sweetheart just after you split off to different colleges many states apart. Inevitably, the distance makes the heart long for more geographically desirable loves.
I stopped whining a long time ago about how you can’t get a good slice of New York pizza on the West coast, and felt proud of that closure in my life. But now comes Joe’s Santa Monica store, like running into ol-whutzer-butt at the high school reunion. I wonder what she’s like now…?
Joe’s Pizza
111 Broadway (West side of street, 1/2 block from Ocean Ave)
Santa Monica, CA
310-395-9222
** By “definitive old school New York by-the-slice pizza,” I mean in Manhattan. Brooklyn fans of DiFara Pizza can sit back down.
November 8th, 2007 at 9:28 am
Hope you are not disappointed, pessimist that I am, I don’t think we can ever recreate the exact flavor sensation of something that we grew up with, once we leave home base. Somehow the replications never measure up to the original, the neurons can’t be fooled.
November 8th, 2007 at 3:55 pm
How does it compare to Mulberry Street?
November 8th, 2007 at 10:46 pm
Stevo, haven’t been to Mulberry Street. After getting burned once too many on “NY” pizza in L.A., I sorta felt like Charlie Brown with the football. This new Joe’s situation makes me want to take another pass.
Big Fella, I agree, this story’s more about love and the past than it is about food and the future.
December 2nd, 2007 at 6:55 pm
So did you end up going to this new Pizza joint? Would be interested to hear your thoughts. I will be heading to the States in February and want to start up a list of good places to eat so that this time I will be prepared.
December 6th, 2007 at 8:58 am
I’ve been there twice since it opened. It’s every bit the authentic NYC slice joint I remember. While there are arguably better examples of the genre in New York City, there are none finer in Los Angeles.
June 27th, 2008 at 10:46 am
If Queens is part of your ancestry, do you remember Gloria Pizza on Main Street in Flushing? (Feel free to e-mail me privately to discuss NY, & pizza.)
June 27th, 2008 at 11:00 am
Small world. I went to weekend Japanese school at PS 20 in Flushing during the late 1970’s. I don’t remember Gloria Pizza by name, though. I didn’t hit my pizza stride until junior high, when I was old enough to hit these places unsupervised, and by that point, Japanese school was on the Upper West Side. That’s when I could start exploring the city by subway, bus, and LIRR.