Joseph's Pizza

Gluten Free Hawaiian pizza

9. You also have a lot of vegan items...

Yes. Just like the demand for gluten-free, we started getting a lot of requests for vegan items. We're not vegans ourselves but we realized that a lot of our items are complementary to a vegan diet so we point that out on our menu so that people who do want to eat vegan are aware that they can do so at Joseph's. Because we cook to order it's also very easy for us to adapt many of our dishes for a vegan lifestyle. For example, if we leave the parmesan cheese off our shrimp scampi it is completely vegan. We're very flexible about working with special orders and we encourage people to let us know when they have a special request. That goes beyond gluten-free and vegan. If your child can't have cream, for instance, just let us know and we'll leave it out of anything we sauté.

10. Are pizza toppings changing or do they stay pretty consistent?

Toppings are changing all the time. Last year bacon was really popular. We've used Canadian bacon for 40 years but we only introduced US style bacon last year because we had such demand for it. Gyros are also popular now so we've created a gyro pizza.

With toppings, pretty well anything we put out there people will try. If we offer salmon or butternut squash as toppings, people will try them out. 25 years ago that wasn't the case. Our father brought out a whole wheat crust 25 years ago and it didn't sell at all. We ate it but nobody else did. We had to take it off the menu until about 8 years ago when we brought it back. People started asking for whole wheat crusts and we went to the safe and pulled out the original recipe. We made whole wheat pizza crusts and sub rolls and now they're really popular. Fortunately our baker is still the same baker who made the original whole wheat recipe.

A sauce that's become very popular is the Alla Rosa which is a sautéed combination of our homemade Alfredo and Marinara sauces. It's available on pizza and on our pasta dishes.

11. Do most people come to Joseph's for your pizza or your other items?

It's about 60% pizza and 40% other dishes.

12. Do you offer delivery for your pizza?

We deliver for catering events. At our Atlantic Beach location we use doorstep delivery for individual orders, which is a third party who provides delivery for multiple different restaurants.

13. Who is the audience for your catering?

It's a wide variety. We do everything from business lunches to wedding receptions. We provide a lot of entrees - lasagna, chicken parmigiana and chicken cacciatore are our most requested items. For business meetings we do a lot of sandwich platters and sandwich boxes. We've had golf tournaments ask us for 150 boxed sandwich lunches to serve as part of the event.


Sandwich platter from catering

14. What would you recommend to someone coming to Joseph's for the first time if they wanted to get a sense of what your cooking is all about?

The first thing to try is our pizza. Americans love pizza and if they find a good pizza they'll keep coming back and will eventually work their way through the other items on the menu. People will often come in for the pizza many times and are really surprised to learn that we have a full bakery to create our own rolls and breads that go into our sandwiches.


Joseph's Pepperoni Pizza

15. Which pizza would you recommend?

Unless people have a strong preference for a particular style of pizza I'll tell them to start with one of our pizzas made with the traditional Joseph's crust and then move thicker or thinner from there. You can order a thick, thin, or traditional crust for any pizza on the menu. By starting with the traditional crust you'll get to experience the crust we're really known for. The classic crust is the one that's in-between the thick and the thin versions.