I put on a new dealer in the northern suburbs of Indianapolis recently and we went to have a bite to eat at a restaurant that he was familiar with in Carmel - Goodfella's. He said their pizza was pretty good and they had a full selection of sandwiches and other Italian foods. It sounded good to me and we went there for dinner.
Goodfella's is actually a small chain of eateries that started on Staten Island over 15 years ago. 34-year-old E. Jay Myers was making $40,000 a year working as a regional manager for Estee Lauder. One Sunday while he and his brother-in-laws, Scott and Marc Cosentino, were standing in line waiting for a Brooklyn pizza joint to open up, Myers decided that it was foolish to come all the way over from Staten Island to get a good pizza. Myers, a Jewish boy from Albany, NY who knew nothing about pizza (other than he liked it), and who knew nothing about starting a restaurant, began to plan out a pizza parlor that featured people would remember.
The Cosentino's (Scot was a carpet layer, Marc was an NYC cop) and Myers each ponied up $25,000 - Myers came on a loan from his father, who thought Myers was nuts - and they began to work on their pizzeria each night after they worked their day jobs. The most important part of the pizzeria was going to be the authentic wood-fired pizza oven, something that wasn't in a lot of pizza places across the city. They also did their own marketing surveys, asking people at the Staten Island Ferry terminal how much they'd pay for a pizza with fresh ingredients. In 1993, after reading countless pizza trade magazines and a few books on the art of making a pizza, Myers and the Cosentinos opened their first Goodfella's Brick Oven Pizza on Hylan Ave. on Staten Island in what was a former small office space. It was an immediate hit.
Within a year the Cosentinos and Myers opened a second location in Brooklyn before expanding their original location on Staten Island, doubling the seating (from 35 to 70) and putting in a second brick oven. They began offering Goodfella's as a franchise with owners/operators starting in the late 90's. A third location opened on Staten Island and another opened in Freehold, N.J. Seven years ago, Mr. Abul Rahman bought a franchise and put it into far away Carmel, IN.
Salvatore Russo is the head chef for the Goodfella's restaurants and works out of the original location on Staten Island. Goodfella's has won numerous awards over the years including Best Pizza at the International Pizza Expo in 2001 and 2007. While Myers left the business in 2007 to run a Bonefish Grill franchise in New Jersey, Marc and Scott Cosentino continue to run the day-to-day operations of Goodfella's.
It was around 7 p.m. when we got into Goodfella's, located in a small strip mall on Hazel Dell Parkway, just north of 131 St. (Main St.) on the east side of Carmel (see map). The restaurant is partitioned into a dining room and a bar area. Actually, the dining room was rather nice. The booth we sat in was nice and roomy. We were given menus and not long after we were seated a waitress brought out fresh bread and olive oil for dipping.
My dealer raved about the pizza, which is thin-crusted and topped with many fresh toppings including homemade mozzarella cheeses. They have a variety of sauces including a vodka tomato sauce that helped give Goodfella's their first Best Pizza awards in 1994 and 1995. Their Sally Pie - which features lemon garlic chicken and roasted rosemary potatoes with a combination of fresh mozzarella, cheddar cheese, sauteed mushrooms and onions, then topped with a cheddar/scallion cream sauce - won the Best Pizza award in 2001. Their Smokin' Goodfella - which has smoked mozzarella, Italian sausage, roasted pepper sauce, roasted peppers and onions - won the award in 2007.
In addition to their pizzas, Goodfella's also has a full Italian menu, along with sandwiches, salads and appetizers. They also have a wood-fired steak and a wood-fired pork chop on the menu. Goodfella's was far from being a basic pizzeria like it started out to be in their original location in 1993.
While I was in the mood for pizza, something caught my eye - the Goodfella sandwich. It featured fresh prosciutto, salami, provolone, their homemade mozzarella and topped with oven-roasted red peppers and a cream Italian dressing, then warmed in the brick oven until the Italian bread is nice and crispy on the outside.
Now, a confession - one thing that I really miss from my youth are the "Hoagies" from Pizza Hut. The taste of the Italian meats, cheeses and that tangy Italian dressing was to die for when I was in my teens. Unfortunately, Pizza Hut doesn't offer the hoagie any longer - it would be the only reason why I'd go into a Pizza Hut. So, anytime anything that resembles a hoagie pops up on a menu, I have to give it a try. Much to the protestation of my dealer, he said he'd get a small Smokin' Goodfella pizza - old world style with slices of fresh mozzarella - while I got the sandwich. The sandwich came with their homemade "house chips", but I asked the waitress if I could get a small dinner salad instead of the chips. She said there would be a small up-charge, but I didn't care. She asked, "Would you like some of our homemade mozzarella on the salad?" How could I say no?
I wasn't half-way through my salad when she showed up with my dealer's pizza. She said my sandwich was on its way. There wasn't a lot of people in the restaurant that evening and it doesn't take much time for the pizza to be made in an 800 degree (F) brick oven. About the time my salad was finished, my sandwich showed up at the table.
The sandwich was sort large and bready. It was topped with a lot of meat and cheeses, plus there was the tangy Italian dressing taste to it. Other than it being a little chewy, it was pretty good. I've had worse Italian-style sandwiches before.
My dealer's pizza was interesting. It actually reminded me of a pizza from Pinocchio's, a wood-fired pizza place in the Illinois Quad Cities. The sausage was crumbly, not the big chunks that I like. Still, it smelled pretty good. But I was happy with my sandwich.
I was back in Indianapolis about three days later and I was out in the Carmel area again for the evening. I decided to go give Goodfella's pizza a try. It was around 8:30 p.m. when I got in there and I ordered a 9" personal size Italian sausage, pepperoni, mushroom with grated mozzarella and the regular tomato sauce. Yeah, I should have tried the Smokin' Goodfella, but I need to have my standard pizza for my first visit. Well, it wasn't my first visit, but it was my first visit to get a pizza.
It took about 10 minutes to get my pizza and it was piping hot when it came to the table. The pizza was OK, nothing great. The crust was light and crisp. But I've definitely had better pizzas. I just don't like the ground sausage on a pizza. I've read where some pizza makers prefer to do it that way so you get a taste of sausage in every bite. I'd rather have the big chunks and the taste sensation the sweet Italian sausage gives off when you bite into it.
I've already made a mental note to go back to Goodfella's and try a Smokin' Goodfella pizza at some point in the future. The sausage, pepperoni and mushroom pizza was OK, but if the Smokin' Goodfella is as good as advertised, it could make up for the tepid reaction I had for a Goodfella's pizza.
(Update - Not long after my last visit to Goodfella's, they closed the doors for good. The Italian hoagie sandwich was good, but the pizza was just all right. I guess the Indiana translation of the self-acclaimed "Best Pizza in the World" didn't come out as good as the New York edition.)
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