Cuisine: Pizza
Everybody loves a circus, right? Elephants and clowns and shit? Especially one that serves pizza. Not “zoo” pizza, mind you. The moniker we’ve given to that bread-and-cheese-based thing they serve at amusement parks, Church fairs, elementary schools and zoos (of course). The stuff with the grainy strips of cheese that don’t quite melt, the cardboard crust and sauce that might as well be ketchup mixed with a little oregano. Point is, if you judged Pizza Town USA merely by its cover, you might think you were in for some serious zoo pizza. And when the guy with the neck tatts and first-day-of-freedom uniform (paper slippers, ill-fitting poly pants and rough coat) holds the door for you, you might think you were in for even more than just a pie.
Turns out, this guy’s first stop on his way from whatever institution he was just released from was at his favorite pizza joint. A taste of home, I guess. And, let me tell you, the guy knows pizza. And I will admit that despite looking like a circus, this ain’t no circus pizza. Or, uh, zoo pizza. But, yeah, Pizza Town USA ain’t gonna win any interior design awards. It’s basically a pizza counter surrounded by a glass enclosure that they presumably open up in the summer to the outside. The day we arrived, it was really cold out. Like Upstate New York cold in North Jersey. You order your pizza and drinks at the rough-hewn window that has presumably existed since 1958 and take a seat at one of the few picnic tables shoved into the space between the booth and the glass sliders. There is some vintage signage around, some hand-written, some printed. It’s certainly throwback-y. It does look like they’re in the process of putting some new lighting in the dining area to presumably shed some usable light on the situation. I’m not certain if they were previously depending on natural light only under the thin, tin overhang or what, but I imagine this is an upgrade. I can’t say the place is well-insulated, but with our jackets on, we were fine.
Now, the pizza. We got one pepperoni and one plain for four of us. The pies aren’t small, but the crust is relatively thin, so we thought we’d still be taking home some slices. We were wrong — Hipster Jr. is a pizza fiend, and we should have remembered his game. Their site claims that their pizza is Brooklyn style. I’d say that’s a pretty accurate description. Though the distinction between NYC and Brooklyn-style is probably negligible, if even a thing. But it’s what you’d hope — and what I do enjoy. It’s a lighter, crispier pie. As that jackass, Portnoy, would say: no flop. There’s a crunch to the bottom crust. Which is incredibly satisfying. The pies aren’t loaded down with cheese. It’s not going to be one of those slices where the cheese stretches or even slides around too much. The sauce is plentiful, but not overly… wet. It’s also a sauce that is a bit more savory than sweet, which kind of intensifies the saltiness and richness of the slice, as there’s not much sugar to balance it out. Which, again, I happen to really like. And Hipster Jr. Jr., who is averse to almost all sauce, actually enjoyed the pizza despite its preponderance of the red stuff. Granted, I was really hungry — as was my family — and I think three out of the four of us burned the absolute crap out of our mouths trying to wolf that first slice. The crazy thing is the pepperoni. They don’t slap full pepperonis on there, but chop up a thicker type of pepperoni and spread them over the whole pie. It’s not a thing I’ve ever seen a place do, but I wasn’t mad at it. Just a little confused at first. I think, if you reconstructed the somewhat thick pieces, that you’d have a pretty robust amount on there. It added to the sodium level, but washing it down with a nice fountain Coke made my day.
And, look, I’ve seen some photos from other customers where they got burnt pies. Or said the servers were rude. We got two perfect pies and the people working there couldn’t have been nicer. In fact, a couple of them were having very robust, friendly convos with our ex-con friend and another dude who was raving about the pizza, telling them it was better than his favorite joint in South Jersey. Granted, we were there at a pretty slow time and brought our pizzas like five feet from the order window to our table before digging in. So, we may have had the optimal situation for both pizza cooking and service. That said, we had to do some incredibly insane New Jersey highway maneuvers to get to this place — risking life and limb on at least two occasions to merge and cross lanes of fast-moving traffic — but it’s certainly worth a go if you happen to live within fifteen or twenty minutes. It’s kitschy, to be sure, but we also had a great experience and will definitely white-knuckle it again if we ever pass through Elmwood Park on our way to anywhere else.
95-111 Route 46 West – Elmwood Park
201/797-6172
pizzatownusaofelmwoodpark.com
