Every October, Berks County Eats marks National Pizza Month by visiting pizza places across Berks County. October also is when Julie and my alma mater, Kutztown University, hosts homecoming weekend.
So what better way to celebrate both than with a visit to one of the college town’s pizza places?
TommyBoy’s Pizza and Cafe opened in the fall of 2014, taking over a space that I remembered from my time in Kutztown as the Main Street Cafe.
It’s not much to look at inside. TommyBoy’s is your basic take-out place with a few tables in the front of the counter (there are two counters, actually, one that holds the pizzas for slices and one for placing orders.
We arrived around 12:30 on a Sunday afternoon and found a group of students sitting at a table for four. By the time we left a little after 1, it was full with more people calling in and picking up orders. If I remember correctly, 1 p.m. on a Sunday is breakfast for most KU students, especially on homecoming weekend.
TommyBoy’s distinguishes itself from other Kutztown pizza places – and all others in the county, for that matter – with its slices. Like everyone else, slices are cut from the display pies and reheated in the oven.
Unlike everywhere else, those display pies are 30 inches around.
I may not have been a math major at Kutztown, but that means every slice is 15 inches. The slices are so large that it takes two plates to serve them.
We decided to order three slices: one for me, one for Julie, and one for us to share with Jakob. It may seem like he has an insatiable appetite sometimes, but there was no way our toddler was going to be able to finish a slice by himself.
For my slice, I ordered the Frank White, a white pizza topped with ricotta, tomatoes, spinach and garlic. It’s one of my favorite styles of pizza because I love ricotta. This was a really good version of it, if a little heavy on the garlic powder. The crust was done well – not burnt, but plenty crispy that I could actually pick up the slice and eat it like normal.
Julie could not say the same for her chicken bacon ranch slice, which she had to cut into smaller pieces to manage (maybe it was the extra weight of the toppings?).
It was a typical chicken bacon ranch pizza, just a lot more of it, with ranch in every bite. “Hearty,” is the word Julie used to describe it.
Of course the day that we order him a giant slice of pizza is the day that Jakob decided he wasn’t going to eat for us. Julie and I ended up eating about half of his slice of margherita pizza (they were out of plain cheese at the time we ordered and this was the next best thing).
From what I tasted, it was very good. The basil was very fragrant and was the dominant flavor, followed closely by the lightly sweet tomato sauce. I liked my own slice a little more, but that’s mostly personal preference as both were done right.
Because the slices are bigger than other pizza places, the prices are a little higher. Prices ranged from about $4 to $6 per slice. With a bottle of water and an iced tea, that brought our total to about $18. That’s still a good price for a lunch anywhere, and we certainly didn’t leave hungry.
If you’re wondering, TommyBoy’s does make normal size pizzas (14- and 16-inch round pies, 16-inch Sicilians and personal-sized gluten free pies). They also offer Stromboli, wraps, sandwiches, wings and one-third pound burgers.
TommyBoy’s wasn’t a part of our college days, but the mega slices are certainly going to be a big part – pun intended – for today’s students and the whole Kutztown community. And we were glad to get a taste.
BCE Rating
Food: Good
Service: Very Good
Ambiance: Fair
Price: Very Reasonable
TommyBoy’s Pizza & Cafe
313 W. Main St
Kutztown, PA 19530
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