657 S. Flower StreetThere are probably a lot of high end pizza restaurants in Los Angeles. Heck, I think we even passed a few in our daily travels, but sometimes, the carry-out counter service pizza is just what sounds good and after three days in L.A., that’s exactly what sounded good to us.
Our workday got over a little after 8:00 local time. We started to head back to the hotel when my co-worker said he just wanted pizza for dinner. I pulled out my phone and started looking for a quick carry-out kind of place. It wasn’t too hard to find something in downtown L.A., but if we were going to do a chain, I wanted to at least do a regional chain.
We picked Big Mama’s & Papa’s Pizzeria on South Flower Street near Willshire Boulevard in the heart of downtown. The restaurant is on a busy street and parking was an issue. I didn’t want to pay $15 at one of the nearby lots just to pick up a pizza so I drove around the block several times until I found an open meter only to find that meter reverted to a 5-minute loading zone from 6 PM until Midnight. I decided to chance it because it was raining and we were only going to be about ten minutes. My gamble paid off.
Big Mama’s & Papa’s has been around since the early 90’s. The first shop was a carry-out only place in Burbank. They now have 19 stores in the greater Los Angeles area. Their claim to fame? A huge pizza. 54″ x 54″ That one has to be pre-ordered and costs $250 for just a plain cheese, but just on a regular day you can order a 36″ pizza which is twice the size of their X-large.
The store is set up with a counter near the pizza ovens. The menu board that includes wings and sandwiches in addition to the pizza hangs over the counter and on the wall. There is a warming case for pizza by the slice. If they have the flavor you want, you can get a slice pretty quick. If not, they can make one for you from scratch which will take a little longer.
This small restaurant also has tables to make this a dine-in pizzeria. We walked in a little after 9:00 which is about an hour before closing time and all of the chairs were already up on the tables. They told us we could take some down while we waited but both of us had been sitting most of the day so standing felt good.
We both ordered a 14″ pepperoni pizza to take back to the hotel. My co-worker asked if we were getting just one but I assumed we’d each get one. I hadn’t eaten much all day and I like cold pizza left overs. I figured the 14″ would be enough for tonight and breakfast the next day.
The price of each pizza was just under $15 and it took less than ten minutes for both to come out of the oven and be boxed up for us.
We hit up the 7-11 on the way back to the hotel for some drinks. When we got back, I flipped the box open and went right in. The crust is somewhere between a thin and thick crust. It’s a really firm, dense crust that holds up really well to the sauce and toppings. The other edges had a little bit of a crunch to them while the middle was softer but not soggy.
There was a real thick layer of cheese on top of thin, sweet sauce. The pepperoni’s had curled up and were crispy around the edges. Nothing about the toppings were overly exciting, but it was a solid pizza
Big Mama’s & Papa’s Pizzeria was exactly what we were looking for this night in L.A. We had eaten a lot of burgers up to this point and since neither of us are really fancy meal kind of guys, pizza was perfect. I’m always on the look out for the regional stuff when traveling and this was a good find even if finding a parking spot was a pain in the butt.