Photo by Howie Southworth
"A slice of pizza is a remarkably complete lunch. Starch, dairy, and vegetables."
“A Table Down The Street” follows Howie Southworth, author of "A Taste of Alexandria," one local barstool at a time. No reviews. Only encounters. The bartender chasing perfection, the chef with a story, the regular who swears this place was better before you found it. Food and drink may be the excuse. People are the point. A corner seat can tell you everything.
Behind the glass case, whole pies sit elevated on metal stands like exhibits in a museum devoted to dough and heat. Mushroom pies, pepperoni pies, the white pie with ricotta, and the unchallenged monarch of the display case: plain cheese. I order a slice on instinct.
Some habits form early and never leave you. Just off King Street, that itch is scratched at Andy’s Pizza with the perfect wedge and twenty seconds in the oven. Just twenty. Wakes the crust up again. When the slice comes back out, the edges sing. The bottom turns crisp. The top bubbles slightly as if remembering its first round in the oven.
Photo by Howie Southworth
Andy's Pizza is up for a RAMMY award this year.
The rest of the ritual happens automatically. A paper plate. A can of cola pulled from the cooler. A dusting of crushed red pepper and dried oregano from the shakers on the counter. Lunch is ready. For a kid in New York, this was its own kind of midday ceremony. You already know what to do.
The slice shop was never a place where you lingered. It was a place where you paused just long enough to find yourself before the day continued. Andy’s captures that feeling perfectly. No chandeliers. No reservations. No tablecloths or polished silver. Just pizza and movement.
There’s a rhythm to the place. Orders called, pies rotated, boxes folded, pizza wheel hums, wielded by pros.
A man in a suit grabs two slices to go and disappears back toward King. A delivery driver ducks in, announces a name and leaves with a stack of pies for Mary. A young dad lifts a stroller through the door, and stands by the window with his pizza correctly folded in half just long enough to exhale before continuing the walk. It is brisk. Efficient. Urban.
Photo by Howie Southworth
"Behind the glass case, whole pies sit elevated on metal stands like exhibits in a museum devoted to dough and heat."
I take my slice to the marble counter by the window and decide to linger. There is something about a slice shop that gives you time. No waiter checking on you. No menu decisions left to make. No social obligations beyond the simple communion of human and crust.
A slice of pizza is a remarkably complete lunch. Starch, dairy, and vegetables. The nutritional triumvirate of pleasure on the go. In that moment, it scratches a very specific itch. It is democratic.
Everyone stands in the same line. Everyone orders the same way. Everyone eats the same geometry. No one stays long, yet everyone belongs. Andy’s understands this.
There is no performance here. No creativity. No negotiation. This is not the place to identify yourself with custom toppings. Fine, a whole pie is another matter altogether. For a slice, you take what is there and meet it as it is. The same wedge handed to a contractor, a lawyer, a kid playing hooky, a tourist, someone killing ten minutes between meetings. It asks nothing of you beyond hunger.
Photo by Howie Southworth
The crust is thin but sturdy. NY gold. Crisp underneath with that faint crackle upon the fold. "The sauce has that vaguely sweet tomato tang that true pizza people recognize instantly."
And maybe that is why it works. In a city that asks you to say something about yourself every time you grab a table or belly up to the bar, the slice asks you to do the opposite. To step off the wheel for a moment. No hard decisions. No wondering whether you ordered right. Just heat, bread, cheese, and a place to stand. You don’t plan around the event. You receive it.
On the wall hangs a small illustrated tribute to great New York pizza institutions, including a personal favorite, the legendary Di Fara. It’s a wink to the lineage Andy’s clearly respects. Quality by association? Perhaps. But this slice speaks for itself.
The crust is thin but sturdy. NY gold. Crisp underneath with that faint crackle upon the fold. The sauce has that vaguely sweet tomato tang that true pizza people recognize instantly. The cheese stretches just enough to remind you that this is still comfort food at its core. Simple and done right.
There is fresh lemonade here too, prepared with meticulous care. Cut lemons floating in small jugs as a real artisan measures out the juice and syrup with quiet precision. I ask him an obvious question: what slice sells the most? “Meat lovers,” he says without hesitation. I stare for a moment.
The cheese slice sits right there in the case. Perfect, balanced, doing everything a slice should do. Meat lovers? I nod politely, but internally this feels like democracy gone a touch too far.
As the lunch rush moves through the door, Andy’s becomes what a slice shop has always been at its best: a brief intersection in the daily life of a city. People arrive from every direction. They cross paths for five minutes. Then they scatter again.
I finish my slice and wipe my hands with eight of those whisper-thin napkins wound tightly into the metal dispenser on the counter. For a moment, Alexandria feels a little like New York.
Then a guy in seersucker strolls in and orders the perfect lemonade. And just like that, I’m back.
Photo courtesy of Howie Southworth
Author Howie Southworth
Howie Southworth is a seasoned denizen of Old Town Alexandria and the best-selling author behind "A Taste of Alexandria: Modern Restaurant Recipes That Echo Our City's Past."
Southworth is the author of a new book, Hemingway’s Spanish Table (Insight Editions), released March 17.
Past works include "Chinese Street Food," "One Pan to Rule Them All," "Kiss My Casserole!" and "How to Cook Anything in Your Dutch Oven." Howie is also a regular essayist for Salon.com.
