Voting is open: Vote for the best Pensacola area pizza place in first round of PNJ bracket
March Madness is almost here, and to celebrate we're giving our PNJ bracket a a twist. We’re taking a look at 16 of the best places to get pizza in the Pensacola area, with voting from our readers each week until we’re down to one champion.
We want our readers in on the action, which is why as soon as the month of March kicked off, we began polling our readers for nominations. With over 600 nominations, we have used the 16 top nominations to build our bracket, starting with a Sweet 16 match-up.
The time has finally come to cast your first vote below. Voting for the Sweet 16 round is now open through 2 p.m. on Saturday. At 10 a.m. every Monday, look for a new story announcing the winners and opening the next round of voting. We'll announce the final winner on April 8.
Meet your Sweet 16 finalists
Flour-ish Comfort Food Truck
Mobile food truck
Husband and wife duo Chase Gilroy and Jess McAtee launched Flour-ish Comfort Food Truck in 2022 to create pizza that not only tasted good but felt good in your body. This starts with sourcing high quality ingredients. One of the menu standouts, and the pizza that started it all, is the white pizza with a house black garlic ricotta sauce, smoked chicken, spinach and feta.
Founaris Brothers
6911 Pensacola Blvd.
When you think about where to go for a slice of pizza, a Greek restaurant probably isn't at the top of your list, but Founaris Bros. Greek Restaurant will change your mind. When it comes to its Greek Pizza, Founaris keeps it simple. A few specialty pizzas are offered, like meat lovers, smothered, house and Super 7. Or you can make your own from a selection of regular, premium and ultra premium toppings.
Sky’s Pizza Pie
5559 N. Davis Highway
Sky’s Pizza has been a Pensacola pizza fan-favorite since 2013 for its cheesy and wide-sliced pizza pies. If there’s one thing that’s true about Sky’s, it’s that you won’t leave hungry. While they prioritize locally sourced, high-quality ingredients and fresh dough made daily, they make a pizza that appeals to the masses because of their affordability.
Lillian’s Pizza
14514 Perdido Key Dr.
After spending the day on the beach, sometimes all you want is a delicious pizza. Well, Lillian's is the place for you. After serving up pies since 1989, they've become a bit of an institution in Perdido Key. Though pizza is their bread and butter, they have a pretty eclectic menu with items like seafood quesadillas, hot wings and even reuben sandwiches. Their specialty pizzas include pesto, hot Hawaiian, stuffed, taco and more.
Papa’s Pizza
18 E. Garden St. and 400 Pensacola Beach Blvd.
When you walk up to the counter of Papa’s Pizza, you’ll likely notice the hand-stretched dough being tossed high in the sky, and New York style slices being pulled in and out of the oven. The special thing about Papa’s Pizza is you can customize a single slice to your liking with unlimited toppings for about $5. If a full-blown specialty pizza is too much for you, you can recreate all your favorite flavors for just a single slice.
Santino’s Pizza & Grinders
Multiple locations
Santino’s has four locations in the Pensacola area, with the goal of offering the best salads, pizza and grinders (signature toasted sandwiches) on the Florida Panhandle. Everything on the menu is made to order and the pizza dough is homemade and prepared in house. Some of the specialty pizzas include the Greek, Hawaiian, Garlic Chicken and Mighty Meathead, a house meat lover’s pizza.
Graffiti Pizza
210 S. Palafox St.
Positioned in the heart of downtown Pensacola, there are few places more satisfying when late-night hunger hits than Graffiti. The dining room already stays open fairly late, closing at 9 p.m. Sunday-Wednesday, at 10 p.m. on Thursday, and midnight on Friday and Saturday. But even after the chairs get stacked inside, pizzas can still be ordered one to two hours afterward from the bar outside, serving until 2 a.m. on Friday and Saturday. Specializing in New York-style pizza, Graffiti delivers pizza either by the pie or slice, with a variety of signature flavors and a rotating pizza of the month.
Piazza Pizza Pensacola Beach
2 Via De Luna Drive
Piazza Pizza brings New York style pizza to the white sands of Pensacola Beach. Piazza is a carry-out only pizza place positioned inside the Hampton Inn Pensacola Beach hotel, but is a chef-driven, from-scratch style kitchen. Dough is made and rolled by hand, drizzled with a house-made sauce and topped with high-quality ingredients before being loaded into a custom-made pizza oven to create a thin, crispy crust. The shop has been open under a year, but has already received rave reviews for its quality, crust and fast delivery.
Georgio’s Pizza
3000 E. Cervantes St.
Georgio's has been a Pensacola fixture since 1984, and it hasn’t been by accident. The quaint diner-like restaurant, still with its original oven intact and black-and-white checkered floors, brings people back to old-school Italian eating. Be prepared for a thick pizza, reminiscent of a Chicago deep-dish, but not quite as deep. The crust, glazed with a garlic butter, is just as much of a treat as the fresh toppings and gooey cheese.
Jet’s Pizza
2620 Creighton Road
When Jet’s Pizza opened in January, it brought something Pensacola didn’t know how badly it needed: Detroit-style deep dish. Jet’s strives to give Michigan the credit it deserves for its signature steel pans, which are held responsible for giving the pizza the pillowy depth and the crust its crunch. Pensacola’s Jet’s follows the company’s standard menu, including the three main menu items the brand is best known for: its eight-corner pizzas, Jet’s Turbo Crust and their homemade Ranch dressing sold by the squeeze bottle.
Tuscan Oven
4801 N. Ninth Ave.
The Tuscan Oven, inspired by the food scene in Southern Italy, is largely known for its signature zesty marinara sauce, homemade dough mixed fresh daily and wood-fired oven. Here, you will find high quality ingredients to load up on unlike anywhere else, including imported fontina cheese, spicy capicola ham, whole milk mozzarella, capers, lean prosciutto and anchovy.
East Hill Pizza
2030 N. 12 Ave.
East Hill Pizza is a local, veteran family-owned business that serves as a neighborhood staple. It also is known for being charitable to the community in its Pizza Pay It Forward Project, which offers free meals to those in need, no questions asked. In addition to their humanitarian efforts, they are known for their creative flavor concoctions, including a specialty Cuban pizza, bacon cheeseburger pizza, Korean BBQ pizza and most recently added, a pickle pizza.
O’Zone Pizza Pub
1010 N. 12th Ave.
Nestled in the basement of the Old Sacred Heart Hospital, the eclectic pizza joint is delightfully spooky, but still welcoming and friendly. You’ll likely see locals lining the bar and children’s coloring pages slathered over the walls. The shop makes a special Roman-style pizza dough daily, along with a homemade pizza sauce and special mozzarella cheese blend. Also worth noting, the shop offers a vegan cheese on any pie.
Rolling Embers Brick Oven Pizza
Mobile food truck
A wood-fired crust is always a nice addition to a pizza, and Rolling Embers offers that, even while serving homemade pies from a mobile food truck. Rolling Embers started in 2013 out of the owners love for wood-fired, brick oven pizza. Some of their specialties include the classic margherita, barbecue pork or chicken, buffalo chicken and spinach pesto made with fresh ingredients that testify to their quality with flavor.
New Yorker Deli and Pizzeria
3001 E. Cervantes St.
A Pensacola staple since 1991, the New Yorker is a neighborhood restaurant specializing in – you guessed it – New York style pizza. Each pie is made with its own sauce and hand-tossed dough with a variety of signature combinations on the menu to choose from. One of the specialty items being the New Yorker Special, made with extra cheese, ground beef, mushrooms, onions, Italian sausage, tomatoes, black olives, meatballs, green peppers and pepperoni.
Lost Pizza
1200 Barrancas Ave.
An East Nine Mile Road favorite, Lost Pizza Co., opened its second Escambia County location in December in downtown Pensacola. Lost Pizza is a Mississippi-based pizza company that first made its way to Pensacola in 2018, marking the farthest South that the franchise had ever ventured. It has maintained a reputation across the country for its signature house-made dough, hand-cut vegetables and creative flavors. Even though it's a franchise, there is no uniform way of decorating at Lost Pizza, which gives each shop its own fun, unique identity.
Brandon Girod contributed to this story.
This article originally appeared on Pensacola News Journal: Pensacola Best Pizza 2024: Vote for your favorite in our March bracket
