Did Someone Say Pizza?

Ginny's is relatively new to Westmoreland County. It opened in 2019 ten minutes down the road from us in Export, PA. We don't lack pizza joints in the eastern part of the county, but while Ginny's has "pizza" in its name, it offers a fairly extensive menu of other foods.  The restaurant is also right on the  edge of the suburb of Murrysville, a high-median-income 'burb where people like to see and be seen (our home technically sits in Murrysville, but we're definitely not part of the hip crowd). Plus it sits directly on the Westmoreland Heritage walk/bike trail, and offers outdoor seating. From the start, Ginny's has been popular. It's hard to get in on a Tuesday night without a reservation, much less a Friday. So when we learned that my friend Laura from Philadelphia was staying the night on her way home from a trip, we decided to make an evening of it and give the pizza a try (we'd been there once before but didn't eat pizza). Susie and G

We weren't certain whether Norvelt Pizzeria, our Saturday night intended dinner location, had dine in or if it was carryout only. It was hard to tell from either the website or the Facebook page (note to pizza establishments: this is an important piece of information to have front and center for new patrons). So if we weren't able to dine in, we had a backup plan to hit their secondary location in Scottdale. And then the planned pizza destination almost changed because of an encounter with an employee at Laurel Highlands Meadery, where we stopped for a mead flight before dinner. We mentioned our goal of trying 50 independent pizza places in the county, and she told us all about her favorite (which is on my list BTW). I was slightly tempted, but decided to stick to the plan. Norvelt has an interesting history. It was a planned community built in the early 1930s and renamed in 1937 to honor Elea NOR Roose VELT. I'm not certain if it was ever a bustling locale, but today ther

Friday afternoon while prepping to try another pizza place with our friends Jim and Beth, Chip and I talked about how astonished we were that we've lived in this area for 26 years and have never tried Jioio's. A little research revealed that Jioio's was founded in 1950 in Latrobe by the grandfather of the current owner Tony Jioio. Jioio's Greensburg was recently voted 2022 Best Pizza in Westmoreland County, so we were excited to finally make the pilgrimage. We arrived a little before 6 pm, and the parking lot was already packed and the lobby full. I quickly noted that another spot on my list, Giannilli's, is catty-corner to Jioio's so we had a second option if the wait was too long. But we realized as soon as we walked in the door that the majority of folks were in the take-out line. There were only two tables ahead of us to dine in. As we were waiting in the lobby, we giggled over this caution sign posted right next to the dining room entrance.  We only had to

Chip is in California for his brother's birthday, but Avery and I decided to forge ahead with trying another pizza place last night.  Lilja's Premiere Pizza (known as simply Premiere Pizza) has a primary location in Greensburg but a carryout location in our town of Delmont. We decided on delivery, knowing full well that it would be a long wait on a Friday night. When I ordered they told me it would be "a little more than an hour." Um, make that 1 hour 50 minutes . It was ridiculous. Thankfully, the pizza was hot when it arrived, which means they are short-staffed in the kitchen rather than lacking in delivery drivers. Major points deducted, though. Premiere has a pretty extensive menu, including specialty pizzas, calzones, hoagies, wings, and appetizers. They note on the menu that you can select "sweet sauce" rather than their regular sauce. Since I don't really like sweet sauce, I was happy that it wasn't standard. Avery wanted to try the BBQ chicke

Chip is heading to California January 4th through the 10th for his brother's birthday, so we decided to start early on our pizza adventures. We had lunch at the North Huntingdon location of Pizza Marsala the week before New Year's. The restaurant is in a strip mall, but the strip mall is one of those unusual shopping centers that has not only a row of shops with exterior entrances, but also one interior corridor and that's where we found Pizza Marsala.  We were the only people eating in, although the phone kept ringing the entire 50 minutes we were there - leading me to believe that they survive primarily on carryout and delivery.  It was definitely a strip mall atmosphere, but the menu was extensive. In addition to many types of pizzas, they offer pasta, soups, salads, calzones, hoagies, burgers, and lots of appetizers.  We ordered a medium sausage and mushroom pizza. At many of the pizza places we frequent a medium is a 12-inch pie, so we were surprised to see their medi