Mark & Philly's Pizzeria
 Akron, Ohio             Date of Visit  05/24/14              
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Driving an hour just to lock up a building and head home doesn’t make much sense so we thought we would try to catch some dinner in the Falls. We have passed a little pizzeria a few times running up Bailey road and thought we would give it a try. The building seems like a converted Lawson’s from the old days. It shows evidence of years of use. It seems pretty clean where it counts (including the open kitchen) but you can tell years have passed since any major renovation.
 



 


 
 


Way Open Kitchen...Several Customers Hung Out At Counter & Chatted With Owners
 

We were served by a small crew of wonderfully disorganized ladies. There is no system but it (I know this is going to sound goofy) feels like they are taking care of us out of the simple goodness of their hearts.

Yep, goofy…but it’s true…and it works really well. Mark was running the deck ovens, it seemed every customer coming in to pick stuff up knew him, the woman who took point in serving us (maybe Philly?) and the rest of the staff. It just reeks of plain down home goodness here.

We ordered wings (famous), a two piece chicken and jojos dinner and a small specialty pie. The wings come in BBQ or Hot BBQ, we went with hot. The sauce is not a traditional Buffalo but a dark sweet Q with a splash of some pepper. It doesn’t get near hot and remains mostly sweet with a little tang of spice. Odd but doable. The problem I had with the wings was the absence of a trip in some oil leaving them really flabby…no sauce would have saved those.
 

 
 
The Wings Came With Bleu Cheese & Unique Sauce Mix...
 

But Really Needed The Fat Rendered Out Of The Skin
 
 
 

The chicken dinner certainly appeared fried and came with two sides…we ordered double starch…the jojos and potatoes au gratin. The breast was sauntering towards dry and had a crisp but unremarkable crust while the wing held a bit more moisture. The jojos were cut differently than I’m used to, thick half circles rather than long triangular planks. It works, the greater surface area means a greater breading to tater ratio and the crust seemed to lend more taste to the spuds than the chicken. The cheese taters closely resemble the au gratin scalloped potatoes I remember from family and Easter dinners from years ago. Almost exactly like that.
 

 

The Two Piece Chicken Dinner Is Stacked
 

The Chicken Needed A Seasoning Boost & Just A Bit More Moisture
 


Strange Jojo Shape Worked Very Well

 


Seriously Old School Au Gratin
 

The specialty pie is Sicilian style, the very nice lady actually referred to it as “their baby” when she dropped it off. I have had pizzas labels Sicilian before and theirs was not what I was expecting. Other versions I have had are more like a regular pizza built atop a crust as thick, heavy and filling as a sewer cover. M&P’s is a stuffed crust with two thin layers of bread packed with toppings and a light smear of sauce. The top crust is then topped with cheese which is baked to a beautiful brown goodness. This thing is every bit as filling as the super doughy versions except here it is the toppings doing the stuffing instead of the bread. It’s literally like a pizza topping piñata, but it won’t be one of my favs. For me everything was perfect but it needed more sauce to tie it all together and add that acidic and round flavor I was missing. Good but not my thing.
 


The Sicilian Pie Looked Incredible
 

From All Angles
 

Serious Cheese But I Really Wanted More Sauce To Tie Things Together
 

But Every Bite Explodes With Pizza Topping Stuffing
 


Our To Go Box Was Loaded
 


And We Each Got A Little Treat For The Road
 

We were given little boxes of Junior Mints while they boxed up our hefty leftovers and I left glad we had given them a try. In the future I will try one of their medium crust versions to see if it gets a different dose of sauce. To this point it remains good pizza from great people.
 

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  B- A- C B+ D B-  
        JoJo's & Toppings Flabby Wings    
 
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