NYC Pizza Adventure: John's of Bleecker Street

"When we get a pie we just tell 'em one thing, 'Burn it!'"

My coworker and I have just returned from a special 'on the store' lunch break to John's Pizzeria (also known as John's of Bleecker Street I guess to avoid confusion with a Times Square restaurant also called John's Pizzeria whose broken website implies some connection with the Bleecker Street institution.) The owner of the guitar store across the street goes on, describing his perfect pizza, "and no onions or green peppers!" My co-worker and I look at each other, I shrug. "They make the whole pizza soggy!"

There are about ten pizzeria's within lunch break walking distance from my job (ten that I know about at least), so inspired by my friend Pam's NYC Food Adventures blog I will try to document to some extent my lunchtime pizza expeditions. John's of Bleecker Street is probably the oldest pizzeria in the village (no evidence here, just a guess since it opened in 1929) and the uncomfortably upright and narrow booths are covered with the initials and names of years and years of customers waiting with hungry hands.

"What do you want to get?"

"I'm not sure, do you like olives?"

I stare down at the menu, there are about 30 different pizzas described, each with more toppings than the last and at the bottom of the list an invitation to "create your own!" I'm sure the list is meant to be helpful, but in my head it just leads to more indecision. We later learn that the second round of employees out to lunch at John's avoided this problem by ordering two large pizzas with everything. Later in the day another co-worker complains, "those anchovies seemed like a good idea at the time, but . . ."

The restaurant isn't crowded and the pizzas arrive quickly, a couple across the room sit with a two decker pizza holder, maybe their way of avoiding having to make a decision. John's seems to be one of the standard bearers for "NYC style pizza" (thin, crispy crust) and a red neon sign in the window brightly shines "no slices".

"How about tomatoes?"

"Well, there's tomato sauce . . ."

"Yeahhh"

The air conditioner blows a constant gust of cold air straight down on us from the ceiling, wearing a t-shirt and shorts I start to dream of either the hot humid street outside or a hot slice of pizza in my stomach.

"Are you guys ready to order?"

"I guess so . . . we'll take one with mushrooms, olives and . . . green peppers."