Winding up the family vacation in lovely Lake Tahoe, the ladies wanted to hit some shops near the California-Nevada border. While my hope of reviewing my first pizza joint in the state where legalized gambling began, I settled for a well-rated place on the Cali side called Vinny’s Pizzeria. I have always thought that Vinny’s and Tony’s were the best names a pizza place could ever have.

My son, The Philosopher, and I slipped away from the shoppers and walked over to Vinny’s which was only a few blocks from where we all were browsing. Before we made our way inside, somebody, maybe even Vinny himself, caught us taking a photo of his shop. His speculative reaction was that he thought one of us must have been named Vinny.

Photo out of the way, we made our way inside through the small dining room to the counter where we went to order a couple of cheese slices and a beer for the Philo. For those of you who may have wondered, I gave up drinking (alcohol that is) a long time ago when I decided it just wasn’t doing me any good.

It was an odd hour with lunch having long died and dinner not yet ready to start. I asked if they had any slices left, and he said that they had just two. Well, that wasn’t a sign of freshness, but we went ahead anyway and let him resurrect what he had. They were $3.50 each and didn’t take long to reheat.

Vinny’s deal turned out to be a great value in that the slices were gigantic double-wides. Nice and paper thin they were, they also carried a dark colorization. The tomato sauce on top had a roasted look to it which the taste soon bore out. Tasty. The crust however was not so tasty but was rather flat and dull. The cheese was good enough, but it was that roasted flavor that gave Vinny’s slice its appeal.

Finally, while our slices were good and hot, the crust was a bit mushy and really void of any real crispness. I suspect this was attributable to these slices having sat out awhile before making their way to the oven.

We were hungry and enjoyed what we ate. In the end, my son and I found two decent places during our short stay in Tahoe, a tourist town that seemed to be full of a lot of bad pizza. I then remembered that pizza wasn’t the reason why we came here it visit in the first place!

PIZZA SNOB RATING ***½ Working on a Good Thing
Vinny’s Pizzeria
3940 Lake Tahoe Blvd.
South Lake Tahoe, CA 96150
530-544-7827
vinnyspizzatahoe.com