Restaurant Review: Johnnies NY Pizzeria

Posted on June 2, 2011 by Kelly

Full Disclosure: I paid for this meal with my own money and I was in no way reimbursed for this blog post. The opinions are completely my own.

After spending the first day in California at the 3rd Street Promenade, I decided it was to find some lunch. I walked up and down the road a couple of times, but I was having a hard time deciding where to eat. So many choices is kind of overwhelming! Eventually I got pretty hungry and just had to choose. I ended up at Johnnies NY Pizzeria at the 3rd Street Promenade.

I ordered a medium tomato basil and garlic pizza. I knew that size would be more than I needed for lunch, but I figured I could always take it back to the hotel and eat it later.

After I ordered the waiter gave me some garlic knots as an appetizer. I was SO excited to see these. As you probably already know if you have been reading my blog for more than a day: I love bread. And also garlic. I have seen a few other bloggers making these recently, and I’m not sure why I haven’t yet, but, oh my, I’m now convinced I need to. These were SO good. I had to try very hard to not eat the whole basket of six before my pizza came. They were soft, garlicky and slightly doughy. Delicious.

Then my pizza came, and it was huge! OK, it wasn’t THAT big considering what I ordered, but it was definitely larger than I needed. Especially after those garlic knots.

It was very good! The crust, sauce, and cheese all tasted very fresh and delicious! It wasn’t super greasy either. I ate two pieces and took the rest home for later.

After checking out their website after the fact, I realized that Johnnies is a small chain that is mostly on the west coast with one location in Florida and one in Texas. It does seem a bit odd to me that a “NY Style” pizzeria would only have locations on the west coast. But it was delicious, so they must be doing something right!

Taste: A+, the garlic knots are to die for, and the pizza was pretty delicious too.
Cost: A, it was around $14 for the pizza and garlic knots. I’d say that is pretty reasonable.

Would I go there again? Not on this trip, but I’m glad that I know they are quality in case I have to make a decision between them and another restaurant in a future trip!