Decatur: Johnny's New York Style Pizza

Still going with the pizza theme here. Johnny's is near the Decatur MARTA station. It has a refreshing college look. It's lived-in. References to bands and concerts abound. I've been spending too much time in suburbia.

The pizza does live up to the advertising as New York style. I got two slices, one vegetarian and one meat. Once again, your mileage may vary since this wasn't a fresh pie. But they were good. You should also beware that I got through half of my first slice thinking that the meat slice was lacking in meat before I realized that I was eating the vegetarian slice. But it was good---I loved the strong presence of olives. The meats on the other slice were well-spiced and tasty. The crust was quite good and of the proper thinness and chewiness. My only fault with this pizza is my general complaint with Atlanta pizza, namely the cheese. I think there are two ways to go with pizza cheese. Either you use an extremely fresh mozarella or you go with the gluey Mafia-style cheese. One of the mob's rackets is to require their local pizzerias to buy third-rate cheese at inflated prices. The taste is one of those so-bad-its-good things.

I can't resist commenting on the name for the benefit of Atlanta pizza entrepreneurs. If you're really going for the New York feel, you have only two choices of name: a variation on Ray's or the blue-label generic choice, Tony's Pizzeria.

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