There's a joke here that I can't pin down...

When I was a kid there used to be this Sicilian pizzeria down the block from my grandmother's house. My grandfather, a northern Italian, wouldn't go there because he said Sicilians were dirty, but I enjoyed walking down the block from my grandmother's house, stepping into the dark, smokey interior of the little pizzeria on the corner and ordering from the dusky, surly men behind the counter. They spoke in grunts, never smiled, constantly smoked, and made the best fucking pizza I've ever had*. I've since judged every pizzeria I've ever been to on a spectrum based on that place - spooky/quirky/delicious on the good end, and Dominoes on the other.



Decent Pizza in Tallahassee sits squarely on the end of this spectrum farthest from Dominoes. Rather than make the obvious and hackneyed attempt at a witticism on the name, I'll just relate here that it's the best pizza in Tallahassee and a pretty good place to hang out in, too. Booths run down one side of the space and ovens line the other. Tattooed, mustachioed guys throw pizzas the old way behind the counter, and they make all the sauces and bread right in the kitchen (i.e., nothing's shipped in). Black Sabbath is as likely to be coming out of the sound system as Steve Earl is, and they have Dr. Pepper in the old-fashioned little bottles (the 8 oz. kind). Along with rotary phones, asbestos ceilings and rubbing dirt in your wounds, smoking in the kitchen has gone the way of the shag carpet, but this is the kind of place in which I wish it were still OK. It would fit it.



Their pizzas are huge - really big; but you can order by the slice and they have a few beers on tap to wash it all down with too. I can't say I have any specific memories to relate to Decent Pizza as such, but it is a hell of a place to grab a slice and I'll miss it heaps. Oh, they close kind of early for my taste (10 on weekends and most weekdays), but it's worth the effort of getting there early to have a bite. In fact, it's a pretty good place to start off your evening with a couple of beers and a pie, come to mind, so maybe the early cut-off is intentional.



No, probably not. Lazy hipsters**.




*Until I ate at Satchel's Pizza in Gainesville, that is. That shit's the BEST!
**Incidentally, Halima is not a drunk. That is my beer.