Canadian Pizza - 4th St. Long Beach, CA

Another spot I've driven past a thousand times in the "hip" area of Long Beach, down on 4th St. I've asked around about this place and no one has eaten a pizza from there. Of course maybe after reading this post, they'll be like 'oh THAT Canadian Pizza place!'

It's right next to the locally known punk rock bar Fern's. Every big city with about a half million people has a couple of them these days, you know, where the jukebox has Rancid and it's considered old school punk. Oh, I'm just teasing. Nothing is wrong with Fern's.

So I started poking around online about Canadian Pizza in Long Beach. I usually check out what people on yelp.com have to say... BUT, I don't take peoples reviews as last and final! Always have to remember: most people eat drive-thru every day and those same people write reviews on public websites like yelp. So a lot of reading-between-the-lines is involved, you gotta sift through it. The same people who think Pizza Hut meat lover's pizza is the best pizza pie they ever ate is going to tell you garbage tastes like a slice of heaven.

I don't want to drive across town on a school night to pick up a shitty pizza, but I'll do it if I know there's a fighting chance it'll be better than the cardboard served at the mega-chain Domino's. So I called in my first order and went down.



A couple of people waiting in line when I got there. Brief chit chat revealed that the lasagna at this place is supposedly really good, but I'm not here for that. I'm not sure if I'd drive halfway across town to order that from a place called Canadian Pizza anyway. And immediately, I started wondering about the Canadians who run this place. Did they know something about pizzas that I hadn't heard about?

Then I realized maybe not everyone who worked there is Canadian. But it doesn't matter, maybe the pizza chef has a Canadian recipe that traveled its way down south to the Greater Los Angeles Area.
A good look at the inside of the narrow front area revealed nothing particularly looking out of place... Like, you know, a Mento's candy commercial. I always thought their commercials were just a liiiiittle different but I could never put my finger on it. Then I finally heard it was from our friends on the other side of the northern borders and it all made sense.
Then I was asked, very politely, "what are you taking photos for?"

Nothing, just for fun. Looking for the best pizza in Long Beach so I came to check it out. You guys run this place?

"Yeah, I'm Luis and this is my daughter Gabriella. It's a family business..."

Ok, so it's looking like they might not be Canadian. But that does not change how the pizza will turn out.
Rushed home with our piping hot pizza. As our first pizza, and especially since Sasha likes her pizza with minimal toppings, we decided on going for the most basic: pepperoni. But since it was a 2-topping special, we got a large with double pepperoni.

Opening the box revealed it to be standard greasy pizza affair:
Oh, the special included wings too:
But after my first few bites, I decided it wasn't just standard bowling alley greasy pizza. It did have a little more to it than that. The crust had lots of little crumbs. Not a bad thing, it was just their style of crust. I'm sure all their ingredients were ordered and delivered from a big generic truck, but the pizza really was more than I expected.
Maybe not 5/5 or even 4/5 that most yelp.com people were posting about but definitely better than pizza mega-chains.
Would I go back? If I was in the area, I'd definitely go for a slice. Otherwise my search continues... and I may already have found a pizza pie that I would nominate Best in Long Beach.

Stay tune for that and have a solid Independence Day!