Restaurant Review: Momo’s Pizza as Big as Your Head

It was divey-er than I remembered & much more crowded. Packed with ‘Noles fans who had just baked for four hours in the Florida sun & smelled of sweat, sunscreen, beer & cigarettes. We communicated via hand gestures & text messages across the room as B held two bar stools for us while I waited in the colossal line, dodging waitresses carrying 30″ pizzas & plastic cups of $3 Blue Moon. Momo’s Pizza was nothing like I had remembered it being ten years previously – it was better.

Momo’s Pizza is a Tallahassee institution, offering pizza by the slice (literally as big as your head), whole pies (up to a colossal 2′ 6″ of pizza), & calzones the size of footballs. We jammed into the original Tennessee Street location following the Seminoles 52-0 victory over Wake Forest. Fans were hungry, sunburned & in a festive mood. As we waited for our slices & calzone, we nursed ice cold, ridiculously cheap, draft beer (something I could never do as an underage undergraduate!).

The slices, at least a foot long, came out first. Cheesy, pepperoni-y, saucy &, well, huge. We dug in, flimsy knives & forks scraping against the metal pizza pans that held our doughy treasures. They were perfect – some of the best pizza in the country.

Our slices were followed by a calzone rivaling the size of a regulation sized football. My Italian heritage makes me particularly picky about my calzone & Momo’s continues not to disappoint. The stretchy dough is a perfect pillow for meaty toppings – no veggies here!

As we tipped back the last of our cheap beer, stomachs satisfyingly full, sun dipping low in the Panhandle sky, I looked over at B & smiled. “Momo’s is dirtier, more crowded & crazier than I remember it being ten years ago,” I commented. “It’s absolutely perfect.”