January 21st, 2020

In our ongoing search for a perfect pizza place (i.e. a pizza restaurant that has pizzas that both Tim and I like as our tastes differ on this particular issue), we happened across a strong contender this past weekend.

Actually we noticed the sign for this place a week or so ago.  We were driving down Tamiami, which, for those of you who do not know, is a rather busy road. It is especially busy right now because we are deep in the throes of "The Season".  And it's not just busy with traffic.  Both sides of Tamiami are packed with all sorts of businesses:  restaurants of all stripes, car washes, furniture stores of many different varieties, retail shops of every kind you can imagine and then a few more.  There are grocery stores, exotic car facilities, gun ranges, churches and of course, a lot of road construction because well, I don't think there has been a time since we lived here when at least part of Tamiami wasn't being worked on. 

Tamiami, by the way is a very long road.  It is so named because it is the road that runs from Tampa to Miami.  Just a little trivia for you today :)

Anyway, on that day roughly a week ago, as we were driving along, we noticed one of those sandwich board signs on the side of the road in front of a small plaza.  I saw the word pizza (of course I did)  We passed so quickly and in such busy traffic in each direction that we thought for sure the sign said, "Big Mama's Pizza".  An intriguing name.

I looked it up on my phone and there was no lising for Big Mama's Pizza. But there was one for Mama Maria's pizza which was also somewhere on Tamiami.  But like I said, it's a LONG road.   So we assumed that either we read the name wrong and it really was Mama Maria's Pizza OR it was so very new that they did not yet have a web presence.  Ok.

Fast forward to this past weekend.  On Friday evening, we passed the sign again.  This time we read it more carefully.  Big Mike's Pizza!!   Big Mike's Pizza does have a web presence despite how very new they are to the area.  And according to the reviews I read online, their score was 5 out of 5.  5 out of 5...holy cats!

Very encouraging.  So Saturday evening, we checked it out.  

Tim called in the order.  He ordered a small pepperoni pizza for himself, a small Margarita Pizza for me and an order of wings.    When we went to pick it up we accidentally passed it and had to circle back.  As I said, it's a busy road.

The people were incredibly nice, the place was clean and smelled great.  They did have a decent sized onsite dining option that we weren't aware of.  It was not fancy but serviecable for sure.  Oh my, it smelled so good I couldn't wait to get home and dig in.

SO  GOOD!  Tim liked his wings but next time would order a spicier one.  He enjoyed his pizza absolutely and proclaimed it (so far) his second favourite here.  Wow~  I Loved mine.  I loved every part of it.  The cheese, the sauce, the crust me oh my.  And on Sunday I had the rest of my pizza leftover straight from the fridge and it passed that test as well.  Note:  not every pizza can stand up to overnight in the fridge and still be edible.  It's important.

So here it is.  If you live locally, Big Mike's has great pizza, if you like spicy wings don't be afraid to order spicy instead of medium, and there were lots of other things on the menu.  If you don't live locally but already have a favourite Pizza place..hurrah!  If you don't have a favourite pizza place, don't give up!  It's out there somewhere.