John's of Bleecker Street - Review

Intro
John's of Bleecker Street - Recommended
278 Bleecker St, New York NY 10014
Btwn 6th & 7th Ave
Phone: (212) 243-1680

There's nothing quite like a proper slice of NY style pizza and John's definitely represents. John's was one of these places that I never had any desire to visit due to the really long lines. Well, glad that I did check it out on a less busy day as the crust was uber delicious. Sorry for the blurry photo, but this was after a wee bit too many brews at our favorite watering hole - Blind Tiger.

Our Menu

Pepperoni Pizza **

The best pepperoni pizza I've ever had. The crust was the real star here - chewy, crisp, and insanely flavorful with a nice char from the coal oven. The pepperoni was also perfect - crisp and big time flavors. Unfortunately, the cheese and tomato sauce were an after-thought, but the crust and pepperoni were so phenomenal it really didn't matter.

Sausage and Mushroom Pizza *

Crust was spot on, but because there was no spectacular crispy/flavorful pepperoni, the weakness of the sauce and cheese were more apparent. The sauce was not bright and flavorful, but a tad dull and bland. Still a good slice of pizza due to the phenomenal crust, but subpar comparatively.

Rating System
--- What the F - in a bad way | (no stars - poor to average) | * Good | ** Great | *** What the F – in a good way

Overall Restaurant Experience

• Food (8.0/10) – A really delicious pizza with a phenomenal crust. Sauce and cheese were a bit of an afterthought.
  
• Service (7.0/10) – The service was pretty slow and pizza took a long time to come out.
  
• Atmosphere (8.5/10) – Divey type feel which I always dig. They got the requisite celeb pictures on the wall and it has the old school local pizzeria feel - wood panel walls and wood tables. Was there on a Monday at 9pm and it was pretty empty, so we were seated right away. There were maybe 2 couples in the main section. 2-3 hours earlier and you would have seen a line 10-15 deep. The noise level was relatively low there, before our large boisterous group arrived, but I can see it being a louder place.
  
• Price (7.5) - About $14 a pie, so definitely priced well especially for the quality.
  

Closing Comments
A real delicious slice of pepperoni pizza, but I'm not necessarily sure if I would go back since the wait's are usually insanely long. Pepe's is by far the best for me still, but this maybe up there for tops in Manhattan. Lombardi's has much better sauce and cheese, but I'm curious to see how the dough stacks up. May have to do a dude's compare coming up soon...