MJ's Pizza & Wings — Restaurant in Lakeland

I’m sorry to have to write this but I recently spent $50 here, solely based on the claim that this is NY Pizza. I’m from NYC- born and bred, and this sadly is no where near, in any way, shape or form, NYC pizza. It may be BUFFALO NY style pizza or UPSTATE NY Pizza but NOT NY CITY Pizza, which is what this claim insinuates. It resembled and tasted just like the kind of frozen pizza you would find at a concession stand of a sports arena or Sams Club. That’s the best way to describe this pizza. Cheap processed weird “mozzarella” cheese that breaks apart when stretched (reall mozz doesn’t break apart when stretched) and an undoubtably chemically conditioned dough. I’d bet that every one of their pizzas look identical too. Nice enough people but their claim to be from NY, making NY pizza, is VERY misleading and when a customer forks over $50 based on that claim it amounts to fraud, sorry. Where in NY are they basing their style of pizza is from and did you own a pizzeria in NY and if so where, should be the questions asked if this claim is the basis for you placing an order. *update- the owner very politely responded and indeed verified that this is in fact UPSTATE NY style pizza. NOT NY PIZZA. The term NY Style Pizza means NYC, ALWAYS- not the countryside of a small town in Upstate NY. Upstate NY is worlds away from NYC when it comes to food along with everything else. To the owner- your food was fresh and the presentation was excellent but the $50 spent for something that wasn’t what it claimed to be is where the problem lies- hence my review. You should live up to your name. It’s VERY easy to make NY CITY pizza- it all starts with good quality/real cheeses and meats and from scratch ingredients (your dough and sauce) that are free from all processing and chemicals. If you’d make those small changes, you’d be able to live up to your (deceptive) name, you’d be rich and very popular with all of the NYC transplants here...

I was introduced to MJ's Pizza & Wings by another parent that suggested we give them a try back in August 2022 after a middle school cross country (XC) meet at Holloway Park. We are usually at Holloway Park at least 3 times during the XC season. MJ's has been our go to place after the meets for lunch. Again MJ's was our go to place for the XC 2023 season too. The pizza is fresh and always hot. I ordered a garden salad on our last meet (10/28/2023) for the season. The size of the salad was more then I expected and was fresh. Our friends usually order the garlic knots and the wings in addition to the pizza. All of which is very good. Service is always very friendly. When they see our boys and their teammates walking in, they always ask if we want to pull the tables together. We appreciate the employees hospitality. They do not have a soda machine or ice machine. They do have 2 liters of soda, single soda cans or you can get bottled water. This could be a deal breaker for some, but our kids do like their pizza and most of the time are drinking water. - Thank you MJ's for another good season. We are not locals. So we will be back in August/September 2024.

Restrooms, dining area and tables have always...

This was our first time here. We ordered garlic bread with cheese and a calzone which only come with mozzarella cheese and we added pepperoni and sausage. We were disappointed with the garlic bread with cheese because it was more like garlic do with cheese. It was like a thick mini pizza with cheese on it. It was okay. The marinara sauce though was excellent!

Then our calzone came out. They told us sometimes the cheese is not melted in the middle to let them know if they needed to put it back in for more time. So I barely opened it up from the top I could tell that it needed more time it look like ricotta cheese in there which I do not like. So I sent it back and they cook it longer and when it came out the top was semi burnt. When I cut it in half the cheese was still not melted in the middle. I cannot stand non melted cheese. We are at the edges we didn't want to wait any longer. I just brought the rest home. The sausage in the pepperoni it tastes good and it would have been good if it had a little bit more pepperoni and the cheese was melted. Again the marinara sauce...