Brooklyn-style pizza on the Mississippi Gulf Coast?
Pie maker: James Powers
Yep, I said it, one of the tastiest pizzerias in the country is located on the beach in Gulfport, Mississippi. The pizza recipes were created in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn, and eventually migrated down South.
Owned and operated by two Southerners, the restaurant is a local staple and top site for tourists who visit the area. Mark and Darlene Cruthirds, the pizzeria’s proprietors, moved to the Gulf Coast in 1993 after a 15 year hiatus spent in Goldsboro, North Carolina. There, Mark had been a police officer and Darlene was a firefighter. So how did these two public servants learn how to toss up pies?
In Carolina, one of Mark’s friend’s was a New Yorker–born and bred in Bensonhurst–and his family had a pizzeria in Goldsboro. The New Yorker trained Mark to stretch, throw, and slice up the stuff. Then in ’93 when he was ready to start mixing his own dough, Mark was a regular New York Pizza man.
He and Darlene have slowly expanded the menu over the years to include subs and various italian specialties. Their goal is to make Brooklyn a real New York experience for Mississippians who can’t make it all the way to the Big Apple on their lunch break.
The staff is pretty awesome too!
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Garlic knots, pizza, calzones… and basically everything else they serve is as good as it comes!! It doesn’t get much better than this anywhere in the country.