Joe's Pizza: The Walking Slice

What can be said about Joe’s that hasn’t been echoing through the New York streets for years. Joe’s is a staple for a reason. It’s simple, it’s classic, it’s the ideal New York slice. It’s where you go at four in the morning when you’re out on the town and need a place to park yourself. It’s the cliche pictures of celebrities on the wall kind of place you go to if you’re from out of town, but it’s also the kind of place you go if you live around the corner and you just need a bite on your way home from work. Hell, I’d hop off the subway to avoid the rush hour commute and get a slice here.

Joe’s is so standard, so quintessential, that if you’ve never had New York pizza in your life I’d send you here first. Each slice is ideal, with an excellent cheese to sauce ratio and a strong crispy crust to hold it all up. According to founder Pino “Joe” Pozzuoli, the recipe hasn’t changed in the sixty years since they opened.

The cheese is melty, purely mozzarella, and doesn’t dry out a bit. So many pizza places make this fatal error of using cheap mozz or using too little and it becomes dry and rubbery, but just looking at the regular slice at Joe’s you can tell they have a formulaic approach.

There’s not much more to say about Joe’s. It’s exactly what you should be looking for. Go there and get a regular slice, you’ll see what I mean.