re: TulaneLSU’s top 10 pizzas in Metairie history

Friend,

Don't sleep on Stella's Pizzeria on Clearview.

Yours,

Tank

Friend,

How good is Stella? Its location at 4421 Clearview is one of the most important in the history of Metairie pizza. Starting in 1991, Pizza Roma began a proud lineage of good pizzerias there. It changed ownership and name, becoming Mr. Roma Pizza in 1993 or 1994. I was a regular at the Mr Roma just off Jackson and Magazine in the late 00s and early 2010s.

From 2000 until 2008 it was The Pizza Gourmet. Husband-wife team, Kevin and Amanda Price, bought the pizzeria and introduced Metairie to deep dish, opening the first location of That’s Amore in 2008. It was in those early post Katrina days that the city’s best ever gelateria, Gaspare’s opened next door.

When did Stella open there? We should plan a visit where we can compare notes.

Yours,
TulaneLSU

TulaneLsu, would you ask your older family members if they recall The Deli a pizza place located at 1534 Melpomene? As a young boy I lived in the 2300 block of Prytania. I have fond memories of The Deli pizza circa mid 70’s.

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Also french dressing on pizza is delicious

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Lol

Friend,

Thank you sincerely for your inquiry. I queried Grandfather on The Deli. He immediately burst into laughter when I asked him about it.

“TulaneLSU, what I am about to tell you is for your ears, and certainly not Grandmother’s. Yes, I remember The Deli. It is not the pizza that I remember, so much. No, back long before you were born and before it was The Deli, that little house or building was known for something more than pizza.

“I was at The Whitney doing banking one afternoon. It might have been 1962 or 1963. As I was walking home to our second home, several police cars were gathered around that building. I asked one of the officers what was happening.”

“Prostitution sting. We’ve known about this place for a while now. Got a couple of them and their Johns. Gone,” said the police officer.

Grandfather continued, “We were friendly with the Garrisons at the time. He was a gentleman and believed in equality, quite a decent man. So a few weeks after the incident at Melpomene, I ran into him at The Napoleon House and asked him, ‘Jim, what is going on over at the massage parlor on Melpomene.”

Grandfather told me that Garrison had told him that that parlor had been operating a prostitution ring for several years and the wife of a well known politician had complained that her husband was going there. The police set up a sting, but they did not catch the politician, and instead just a commoner.

“I think it was called Jeanne’s Massage Parlor at the time. Of course, no one we knew ever went there, but after the owner was arrested, it flipped from one business to the next without any consistency until Joe bought the building.”

“Joe McAuliffe, was an acquaintance of my brother and he bought the building around 1973 or so and turned it into a pizza shack and deli. Funny you brought it up – the deli hadn’t crossed my mind in the longest time. Well, a few years ago there was a quick blurb about it in the Times Picayune, but nothing much. I only went there once or twice, and I cannot remember if it was good or not – probably not since it was not on my eating rota. Joe ran it for about 10 or 12 years before selling it to a woman who changed its name to The Legal Deli in the mid-80s. It did not last long before it became a bar with live music before getting torn down.”

Yours,
TulaneLSU


P.S. I will certainly try Stella, based on tanky’s recommendation and concurrent dismissal of Regenelli’s, which every pizza lover knows is in the same realm as Italian Pie. Meaux Jeaux’s has good reviews from locals, but it is in the 4/10 range, similar to Papa John’s.

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Antonio Bongiorno

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What is he up to these days?

Miss Cafe Nino terribly.