Johnny Mo's Pizzeria — Restaurant in Seattle

My partner and I visited Johnny Mo's on a Saturday morning two weeks after their opening. We were greeted by none other than Mo of Johnny Mo's. He was magnanimous and happy to share his love of Chicago deep dish with Seattle. The co-founder is the one who loves NY style pizza. The other employees were great too. They were personable and happy to answer any questions. As of this writing, Johnny Mo's is a new restaurant but they have the whole aesthetic from the decor to the menus all locked down. You would think it was a chain based on how put together the menus were. This will also be a great place to drink. They have a good selection of alcohol and TVs for games. As for the food, I had a slice of pizza alla vodka and cheese pizza, and a brunch calzone, the morning delight. I was totally impressed by everything. The pizza alla vodka was so flavorful with the cheese and vodka sauce. The crust was nicely thin with good chew as well. As for the cheese pizza, it was a dead ringer for the slices I've had in NYC. The slice was fresh out of the oven with a perfect blend of cheeses that slid off the crust like it's supposed to. The tomato sauce was bright and acidic that balanced the rich cheese. To top it all off, the char on the bottom of the slice was exactly as I remember the NYC slices. The bitterness of the char rounds out the ideal cheese pizza slice. Finally, the morning delight calzone was the best calzone I've ever had. The dough and fillings were cooked perfectly. The dough was crunchy and soft with a great mix of scrambled eggs, sausage, and cherry tomatoes. The side of tomato sauce was the perfect condiment as well. We took the time to personally thank Mo after the meal because it was so great. While we didn't order a Chicago deep dish pizza, he went on to tell us that their version is somewhat lighter and is more palatable without being a gut-buster. His cousin from Chicago actually was working to make sure the deep dish pizzas were up to snuff too. I was extremely impressed with Johnny Mo's and hope every pizza fan gives it a shot. It's already one of the best pizza joints in Seattle. I'm already planning...

Where to start? The pizza we had was genuinely pretty good; we went with NY-style which based on negative reviews of the Chicago-style was probably the right choice.

To call the service lackluster would be an upgrade, though. I ordered a Greek salad to start and waited close to an hour for it. We were done with our pizza before I asked if we could just get the salad to go, to which the response was "Sure". Our server clearly forgot that it was ever ordered at all. No apology, no explanation. I get that mistakes happen, and I wasn't expecting it to be comped or anything, but a simple "Whoops! My bad!" goes a long way. When it finally arrived, the "traditional" Greek salad was 90% Romaine, despite the fact that Romaine isn't a traditional Greek salad ingredient and isn't listed in the description of the salad, when greens/spring mix/Romaine is listed with the descriptions of all of the other salads. I would have skipped it altogether if I'd known it was mostly Romaine, but I suspect the salad I received was just mismade altogether, based on the menu.

Our waiter seemed very unhappy to be there in general, which I get. It's a beautiful Saturday afternoon, I wouldn't want to be at work either. That's 90% of customer service, though. He was outright rude to a couple of people who stopped by during our visit. The "masks required for entry" sign was clearly for show only, since about half the guests were wandering around unmasked (and at least one staff member, who brought the salad out, and since he was kitchen staff probably made it too, so straight to the bin it goes).

All in all, not a great visit. If it were possible to give 2.5 stars, I probably would based on the pizza, but good pizza isn't hard to come by in this city, and it's generally accompanied by at least...

We hit this joint on a whim, pizza near me search! It was number four on the list but the only one in the top four that we had not visited.

We arrived and found the area was difficult to find parking, like most places in Seattle these days but just as I was ready to give up, we found a spot.

When we walked in we were immediately welcomed in and offered indoor or outdoor seating. We chose inside and were given a choice of tall table or short. We sat down and used our phones to obtain the menu.

The menu has lots of options and pizza styles, New York, Chicago deep dish, etc. I'm not going to lie, I was a little skeptical.

We chose the family style with wine that offered a large pizza, an appetizer, a salad, a dessert and a bottle of white or red wine.

We chose the 18" Thunderbird Pizza that included, mozzarella, dollops of homemade vodka sauce with imported tomatoes, pepperoni, sliced meatballs, portobello mushrooms and fresh garlic! OMG, off the hook, 🔥!!!

The salad was great, the caprese was great, the pan cookie with vanilla ice cream was great, the bottle of wine was great, the ambiance and vibe was great but above all.....the service was fantastic! Our server was attentive and always on time, spending time with our table conversing about the spot while paying attention to the other tables and taking phone orders! He also monitored our meal and brought our food out as we were ready for the next course. And here's the capper, he brought us new plates for the pizza so we didn't have use our vinegarette soaked plates! Check mate!

We will be returning to try the Chicago deep dish and other menu items but based on my first visit, I list the spot as must try! If the deep dish is good when I go back, I'll upgrade my recommendation to a "must...