Turoni's Pizzery & Brewery - Forget Me Not — Restaurant in Evansville

Turoni's is widely know to be (allegedly) the best pizza in Evansville. I'm not entirely sure of the source(s) for this assertion but I'm guessing they don't get out much. We went on a super busy Friday night. The parking lot was jam packed, people were waiting to get in, and the drive up pick up window was doing a brisk business. All good signs. We ended up in the corner table with the view of the Lloyd Expressway. To be honest, it was great for people watching, inside and out. We ordered some Cokes and an order of breadsticks and proceeded to scope out the decor and watch the employees' performance.

The decor is old, funky, and homey. I take issue with the wallpaper patterns not being properly matched up but that has no effect on the pizza so I tabled it. The employees were running full tilt and were always on top of things. To be honest the customer service here is probably the best I'd ever had in a dining establishment, even taking into account places with the prerequisite snooty maitre d'.

We sampled the beers and aside from a strangely sour IPA (which actually complemented the pizza) the rest were so-so. The stout was smoky yet thin tasting which was a disappointment considering my love of all things stout. The pizzas. Where to begin... Thankfully we didn't order the thin crusts because the crusts were already thin and crackery. They slice their pizzas into squares (which seems to be a regional affectation much like those hoagies they call stromboli down here) and looked passable. $25 for a large cheese pizza (12")? Obscene. That was on top of the rather plain, tasteless bread sticks. We also had a house special pizza. It was nice to see fresh mushroom and green pepper sliced razor thin. The sauce was unremarkable, however, and the sausage was almost flavorless.

We ended up paying over $80 for the two pizzas, breadsticks, and a couple beers and Cokes. Worth it? Not by a long shot. Go to Sandy's pizza up in Fort Branch. At least that's the best we've found so far and that doesn't compare to Pizza Transit in Michigan or to pretty much any pizza on the East Coast. I've heard it said that Midwest food is insipid and with few exceptions that is true across the board. I'm not sure if a lot of people realize how bad it really is unless they've traveled. The bar is LOW!

Save yourself a few Jacksons and go to Little Caesar's, a DiGiorno, or make your own at home...

Good food and great service. Had lunch with a companion. Both of us got a 9" pie (House Special for me and a BBQ pizza for companion). I had a honey blonde beer. Water for companion.

We ate it all. There's wasn't a crumb left. Great as always. Only regret is not getting larger pizzas so there'd be plenty to take home. Beer was very fresh and cold.

Only slight negative is we sat in a booth in the bar area and it's so dark there we couldn't read the menu. In fact, we we surprised when we got up to leave to see that each table actually has a small lamp which made zero difference. But, that's nitpicky. There's plenty of tables elsewhere by the windows with plenty of light.

Will, of course, go again!

UPDATE: Another great visit today! Me and companion shared some breadsticks and a House Special pizza. The breadsticks were great! Only downside is a large house special is now $28! It's only a 15" pizza, too. I'm not sure any 15" pizza is worth $28, unfortunately. We'll have to cut down on our visits based on...

They have REALLY good pizza. I love their crust, its thin and crisp. They don't skimp on the toppings either. There salads are good also and large. I didn't read what all came on their side salads so that's my fault for not reading, black olives are included (I don't like olives).. other than that the salad was really good, and the dressing (French) very good. If I had to guess, they make their own dressings? Very few places give enough dressing for my salad but Turoni's not only serves a very large salad, they give a generous amount of dressing. The employees are all really friendly and gave us great service. I've been eating at Turoni's for many years and have never had anything that I didn't like. The atmosphere is cozy. I'm not a big fan of the booths though, they sit too short in the seat and the tables are too narrow so you find yourself laying on the table almost just to keep from dropping food on you. I feel like its a bit too dark at the tables also, I have a hard time seeing the menu at night. (Maybe I'm...