▼ Café outside, chewy-on-the-inside crust out of the 550-degree stone oven. Ingredients also make a difference at this restaurant, which has been family-owned since 1982. Between sauce and toppers, Pizza Heaven goes through 10 pounds of fresh basil and 60 pounds of fresh garlic a week — and if that’s not enticing enough, it’s got the best selection of melty and meaty vegan pizzas in Phoenix. Pizza Mart 1329 East Main Street, Mesa Pizza Mart in Mesa is a total blast from the past. In fact, not much has changed since it opened in 1970. The A-frame building houses vinyl booths, old-school arcade games like Galaga and Donkey Kong, and throwback prices. A large cheese pizza is $7.25 ($8.95 if you add pepperoni), the salad bar is $5, and a soft-serve cone is 50 cents. Current owner Jess Slade started as a dishwasher in 1977, right out of high school, and runs the place with the same nod to nostalgia. You won’t find high- falutin toppers like artichokes and arugula here — heck, the mushrooms are canned — but you might just find gum stuck under the table. Allison Young Golden Oldies Where to get throwback pizza. BY ALLISON YOUNG I f you like a bougie pizza — the kind that comes with artisan everything, down to the heritage flour in its dough — you can easily find one these days. But sometimes you just want pizza without pretense, a slice of comfort from no-frills mom-and-pop purveyors slinging the kinds of pies you ate growing up. Lucky for you, there are plenty of spots around town to satisfy that craving — some that go back decades. For what it’s worth, National Pizza Day came and went, but it’s not like anyone needs an excuse for a slice of old-school pie. Here’s our list of ten local places to indulge the craving. Stumpy’s Pizza & Subs 1331 East Northern Avenue The kind of place where everyone calls you “honey,” Stumpy’s is a North Phoenix neighborhood hang that delivers both friendly service and a superior slice. Two types of tomatoes go into the housemade sauce along with basil, oregano, and olive oil, and the dough is made with molasses for a lighter, fluffier finish. With ten signa- ture standouts on the menu, you’re guaran- teed to pick a winner, whether it’s the Works, a salami, Canadian bacon, pepper- oni, mushroom, onion, green pepper, black olive, crumbled sausage and mozzarella medley, or the Philly, topped with roast beef, green pepper, onion, mushroom, American, cheddar and Jack cheeses. And kids will love the $5 monster slice. Pizza Shack 3018 North 16th Street, Suite 2 “I like to do things the old-fashioned way,” says Shawn Culp, owner and one-man show behind Pizza Shack, a grab-and-go operation off 16th Street. That includes answering your phone order from his rotary telephone, making his own sau- sage from scratch (and grinding his own pork), dicing up fresh vegetables (noth- ing pre-cut), and slinging thin-crust pie Stumpy’s delivers family-friendly, familiar slices. reminiscent of the kind he grew up eat- ing in Southern California. The dough is a no-yeast secret Culp developed in his kitchen, and the resulting crust comes out of the double-gas Blodgett oven with air pockets and built-in bubbly layers. There’s also no plastic in the joint. Soda and Topo Chicos come in glass bottles, including an 8-ounce Coke for a buck. Pizza Heaven Bistro 5150 North Seventh Street The secret to Pizza Heaven Bistro’s pizza and longevity is the water. Owner Patricia Hasbun’s dough combines salt, sunflower seed oil, flour, yeast and purified water — no tap water here! — for a crispy-on-the- Pizza A Metro 2336 West Thomas Road Size matters at Pizza A Metro. The 20- seat restaurant — located in a strip mall next to a convenience store near Inter- state 17 — may be small, but the pizza is mighty. A small is more like a medium, a regular more like a large, and the Metro is just mega — the largest pizza in Arizona, coming in at 39 inches long. That’s three feet of slow-cooked sauce, housemade mozzarella, meatballs, and dough that cooks up crisp and chewy, the 600-degree olive wood-fired oven’s effect showing in the crust’s burnt bubbles and puckered edges. When you come up for air, take in the eatery’s colorful seaside mural, and finish with the cocoa-dusted tiramisu if you have room. Oregano’s Pizza Bistro Multiple locations It’s tough not to get lost in nostalgia at Oregano’s, the local chain founded >> p 24 Organ Stop Pizza’s Mighty Wurlitzer, the largest pipe organ of its kind in the world. Organ Stop Pizza 23 phoenixnewtimes.com | CONTENTS | FEEDBACK | OPINION | NEWS | FEATURE | NIGHT+DAY | CULTURE | FILM | CAFE | MUSIC | PHOENIX NEW TIMES FEB 17TH– FEB 23RD, 2022
