Phoenicia Pizza 28 — Restaurant in Town of Shandaken

If you want a great slice, drive straight by Phoenicia Pizza 28 and head east a few more miles to Village Pizza in Shokan. The bottom line about Phoenicia Pizza is simple: they have no love of pie. I’ve given the joint several tries, and each time I’ve been sadly disappointed. I have really wanted to be wrong, but this place is seriously lousy. Thick puffy crust, way too much tomato goop, an indistinguishable amount of cheese. None of it hangs together. Just a wet slice. Each time. Every time.

For the love of Caesar, even if the place is “Family Owned and Operated,” there is a complete absence of anything pizza-family feeling about it. Even if Mother and Father happen to own the business, the very last thing this place feels like is a “Mom and Pop” shop, as they want you believe. It’s just a money wheel whose product is low in taste and lacking in quality. Seems more like a family with hefty financial backing took a once really good pizza place (like Danielle’s was), updated it with the newest electro-techno gadgets, and totally messed up the end product. I mean, who can afford to mass mail color brochures advertising 2 for 1 specials every three months? (Granted, I've been a sucker twice.) You’ve gotta be seriously bankrolled to drive such a meh place so hard.

This is just one of those location-privileged joints seeking to cash in on blind hungry tourists who don’t know any better (even if you’d think folks from the city—coz pizza, hello—would). To do good pizza business you’ve gotta love pizza first. Then, you make the money. Product first, profit second. Spare me the cute names of dishes like “Shokan,” “Hudson,” “Reservoir” that scream Not From Here But Desperately Seeking to Cash In Like I Am. There are no local vibes here at all. Actually, there’s no vibe here at all, except ka-ching. They could just as well be selling tennis balls, soap, or floor mats.

You wanna great slice? One that's got flavor, texture, and that intangible local pizza grit? A place that leaves you with a mmmmm good feeling? Where a pizza joint feels like a pizza joint? Head on down to Village Pizza, 3091 Route 28, right next to Fruition Chocolate. That’s where you’ll find the true love of pie and feel real good about dropping the workers a buck or two into the...

My Wife, Daughter, and I have been staying in the Catskills for about a week and decided to do the rail explores tour. While riding down the tracks we spotted a pizzeria as we past and being from New Jersey we tend to gravitate towards pizza for some reason that I can’t explain. With that being said we decided to place an order once we were done with the tour. We got a small plain for my daughter. The calzone and grandma pie were for the wife and I. The order was done quickly and the staff was very inviting and friendly. The plain pie was good, it had a nice crust and the sauce was good. The grandma was a little different than what we are used to back home but still tasty and I enjoyed the sauce on the pie, but the star of the evening was the cheese calzone. The dough was light airy and delicious, the ricotta and mozzarella were perfect. The calzone was honestly one of the best we have ever had and that’s a lot of calzones in our lifetime especially being from the tri-state area. When we venture back to the Catskills we will definitely stop back in for some pizza and that...

Having grown up in an Italian/Jewish neighborhood on Long Island I’ve always known good Italian food and pizza. Truth was you couldn’t walk down the block without someone’s mother trying to feed you which resulted in a bunch of fat little Jewish and Italian kids. Recently my wife and I moved up to Saugerties where I am sorry to say I was highly disappointed in what people thought were good pies in the area. That is until recently when Pizza 28 opened up and made me a believer once more. I had given up and started making my very own pies from scratch. Their dough was as good if not better than some of the best known pizza places in NYC. The sauce would have made my childhood friends’ mothers proud! I may live 24 miles away from Phoenica but as a lover of good pizzas the trip is...