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What's Still Great
At Leo’s
In search of history, boxing titles, and America’s best pizza.
Every city likes to boast it has the best pizza in America. I used to think my hometown Fisher’s pizza was pretty good. The restaurant specialized in St. Louis-style pizza with a super-thin yeast-less crust smothered in Provel cheese. (Provel, for the uninitiated, is a mixture of provolone, Swiss, and white cheddar peculiar to St. Louis.) Fisher’s is still making pies, but the quality went downhill back in the 1980s, along with family farms, the Soviet Union and Bob Dylan’s career.
Naturally, my girlfriend had her own idea about where to find America’s best pizza, so we pointed the truck north and headed toward her hometown of Jacksonville, Illinois, where there’s this little Italian joint just off the square called Leo’s Pizza.
Leo’s serves more than pizza — there’s a very nice ravioli with artichoke and spinach dish — but ordering anything else would be like visiting Chartres Cathedral for the great parking.
You come for the Sicilian stuffed pizza.
Describing Leo’s stuffed pizza is about as futile as describing Chartres Cathedral; it really must be experienced first hand. I can tell you, however, that what sets Leo’s apart is the homemade sauce and the homemade dough which they roll themselves. It is not uncommon for former residents to road trip from as far away as Kansas City and Indianapolis for Leo’s. Happily, our drive took only two hours.
Jacksonville, it should be noted, is more than Leo’s Pizza. It is a seriously bookish town with two private colleges (Illinois College and MacMurray College) and the Illinois School for the Deaf. A good many of the residents move here for the latter institution, and Jacksonville’s second language isn’t Spanish, but American Sign. Across town, there is a school for the blind, as well as the public and Catholic high schools; on just about every corner there is a school of some sort. With all those bookish people, it’s no wonder the city has two major book binderies: Bound to Stay Bound Books and Perma Bound Books. For non-readers, there is the Ferris Wheel factory, whose products are as ubiquitous as the schools, and makes for an interesting dichotomy.
AS FORTUNE would have it, we visited Jacksonville the weekend of the Fifteenth Annual Grierson Days.
Jacksonville has many favorite sons, but the most noteworthy are General Benjamin H. Grierson and Ken Norton.
Norton twice held the North American Boxing Federation Heavyweight Championship title in the1970s — once after he defeated Mohammed Ali. This was Ali in his prime, mind you. And Norton didn’t just beat Ali, he broke his jaw.
There is a street named after Norton here, though it appears to be a not very prominent thoroughfare. In some of the taverns off the square you can find faded, flyspecked photographs of various proprietors posing with the former champ.
As for Gen. Grierson, he has quite a following still. Every year the Grierson Society puts on a reenactment of Grierson’s Raid. The reenactment is held at the city park, which for one day is turned into a mock Civil War battlefield complete with cannon, horses, white tents, banjo pickers, and, on the bandstand, Abe and Mary Todd Lincoln impersonators. One toothless, bearded fellow, sweating in his Union Calvary garb (it was 100 degrees in the shade), buttonholed us and commenced a long, garbled tale about his being drummed out of the corps on account of being caught “sleeping naked with his tent-flap open.” Sadly, this was not part of the reenactment.
Grierson was a music teacher, who nursed a lifelong grudge against horses after being kicked in the head as a child. Nevertheless, he was saddled with the job of leading a cavalry brigade 600 miles from Tennessee to Baton Rouge. Along the way, he destroyed everything in his path, before meeting up with Sherman for the Battle of Snyder’s Bluff.
Grierson’s Raid was actually a diversion, but one that allowed Grant to land unopposed on the east side of the Mississippi and take Richmond. The Battle of Gettysburg gets most of the credit for turning the tide of the Civil War, but the almost simultaneous surrender of Vicksburg, Miss., on July 4, 1963, was the one-two punch that signaled the Confederacy’s doom.
We didn’t stick around to watch the actual reenactment — so I can’t tell you how one reenacts a diversionary tactic — because we were getting hungry and we still had some leftover Leo’s pizza in the fridge.
Leo’s, by the way, sells half-baked pizzas. You can eat your fill and order another to go. At home you pop the pie into the oven, let it bake a half-hour, get out the napkins and plates, and it’s just like being back at one of the tables at Leo’s Pizza in Jacksonville — which we intend to be, every chance we get.
About the Author
Christopher Orlet writes from St. Louis.
Letter to the Editor View all comments (31) | Leave a comment
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Northern Rebel| 7.2.10 @ 1:59PM
My vote goes to New Haven, Connecticut! Pepe's used to be the place where people came from Italy, and NYC, to experience the best thin crust pizza on the planet.
If Pepe's is no longer #1, I'm confident #1, is still somewhere in New Haven.
I lived in New Britain Ct. for 3 decades, and a place migrated north from New Haven, called Pepino's, which also has the best chicken wings on Earth.
Now I live in northern NY, so it is harder to find good pizza. Thank God some retired mafiosi make their homes up here, otherwise italian food would be extinct in this neck of the woods!
Nate| 7.2.10 @ 3:58PM
At last we agree on something. Pepe's is the best pizza on earth. Sally's is a close second, but Pepe's wins the day. New York? What does New York know from pizza?
Margie| 7.2.10 @ 3:19PM
Speaking of pizza~ when I lived & worked in NYC, there were 2 pizza shops that were run by Jewish owners. Boychick's and Girlchicks. I have never yet since had better pizza! On my lunch hour I used to go and sit at table with the many Hasidic Jews, and others, and enjoy my slice. OK~ I did enjoy their white pizza with spinach the best, more than the tomato pizza. Does that still count? Now how's that for a pizza story!
WAKE UP| 7.2.10 @ 6:04PM
Hey, you New Yorkers! The best pizza in the world is a whitebait pizza from the Fat Pipi in Hokitika, on New Zealand's South Island's west coast, washed down with a Speight's beer while eating it on the beach watching the sun go down. Bliss. Cheers :)
Margie| 7.2.10 @ 8:57PM
Whitebait pizza? Hmm. Are you talking about fish pizza?
WAKE UP| 7.2.10 @ 9:12PM
Yep. Very very small fish. Who woulda thought it? Even New Zealanders are amazed at how good it is (including me :).
Margie| 7.2.10 @ 10:54PM
Hey, I'd be willing to try it. I used to eat sushi for awhile and loved it, till I got worried about those microscopic critters that could get into your gut. But you're right. Never heard of it. Though it's not too awfully surprising being that they have Buffalo chicken pizza, Potato & egg pizza, Baked ziti pizza, Taco pizza, Italian hot dog pizza, Eggplant parmigiana pizza, and kitchen sink pizza.
Enjoy!
Mark| 7.2.10 @ 6:20PM
Pennington Pizza in Pennington, NJ, is the best I've ever had.
bob alou| 7.2.10 @ 7:17PM
Imo's pizza in St. Louis is unique and, while there are many good pizzas of other kinds, supremely the best on its own merits.
daddio| 7.6.10 @ 2:32PM
AMEN!!!!
Northern Rebel| 7.2.10 @ 9:11PM
Margie:
I guess the best pizza, is the pizza you like best. They all count!
I once had a sales gig, walking in on businesses cold, in the black section of the city. It's important to this story to know I'm not just white, I'm translucent!
My job entailed leaving the product for 3 days, (sports videos) then coming back and filling orders, if there were any. This truly was a notorious section of New Haven. (whalley Ave. and Dixwell, for people familiar with the territory.)
I walked into some dark places, some legal, some obvious fronts, where there wasn't a white boy in the zip code. I was a brave and desperate fellow, needing to succeed at this job, to feed my family. Some of these places were quite intimidating, but I guess I'm a good actor, too.
Of the 100-200 places I visited, I was tested quite a few times.
Upon returning to pick up my product and fill orders, do you know how many times I was ripped off, or taken advantage of?
ZERO.
Once beyond the initial bluster, and bench jockeying, I was treated with respect, and did quite well in a sales territory that was given to rookies expected to be eaten.
People are people, are people, are people.
It was during this time that I learned to love pizza.
Before this, I could take it or leave it. If I had pizza twice a year, it was OK.
But in these New Haven parlors, I discovered the real thing, with fresh ingredients, and I was hooked for life! To this day I am fussy, because I can't settle for less, anymore. It's like the difference between Crown Royal, and kerosene.
So I'll always remember that sales job because of the pizza, (and some out of the world fried chicken shacks!) but mostly because of the black folks living in a tough neighborhood, who often went out of their way to make a young white boy feel comfortable, and renewing my faith in the human race, no matter what color we were.
Margie| 7.2.10 @ 11:13PM
NR,
Great story! I can just picture you, you have a way with words and I can understand how they'd like you without hesitation. You're just that kind of guy. When I worked in NYC I met and befriended people of all kinds of races and nationalities. I became part of the melting pot myself. Once, I became close to a black young lady and we'd go to lunch every day. Some of our co-workers used to call us salt & pepper. Nowadays they'd probably get fired for race discrimination for saying that. It really is true that when you're friendly toward others and show no prejudice most everyone responds in kind.
Once when I was eating my pizza in Boychicks, a Hisidic Jewish man, quite a bit older than me "asked me out." I politely turned him down. Maybe he thought I was Jewish, somebody did once tell me I looked like a Jewish princess. but that was a long time ago. I don't really know what they look like though! Anyway, I'll never forget that pizza, or the fact that there is kosher pizza, it was fabulous!
PCC| 7.3.10 @ 7:26AM
Sadly, New Haven's best days are way behind it.
I worked briefly in New Haven as a youth, and I remember Whalley Ave. as the heart of a neighborhood in transition; that is from an obviously once-respectable to a downright dangerous place at night.
I also remember Pepe's pizza. Simply outstanding!
Northern Rebel| 7.3.10 @ 10:07AM
PCC:
Unfortunately, it is not New Haven only. Every good size city has parts you don't want go through.
Since moving to NY, I worked in various places in Syracuse, which is a terrific city, BTW.
However, some of the parts of town where I libored, were seemingly innocuous during the day, but you wanted to be out by sundown brown!
Northern Rebel| 7.3.10 @ 10:09AM
What is libored?
I hate typos!
Labored!
Rick Z| 7.3.10 @ 4:48PM
We doan need no steenkin' Spil Chuckers.
St. Thor| 7.4.10 @ 11:42AM
Unfortunately only a small number of people had the opportunity to devour the best pizza ever made in the United States. Earl Britt's pizza at Earl's in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. Earl's was destroyed by Urban Annihilation in the "70's when bureaucrats built a parking ramp six feet from Earl's entrance, cutting off his light and the visibility of his shop to the public. Earl's closed soon after and Earl himself died only months later, taking his dough and sauce recipes with him. More victims of the federal government.
PCP Smoker| 7.5.10 @ 9:54AM
Flamiglia's in Groton, Ct. Nothing like getting off the sub to have an authentic Sicilian pie.
Bizzaro's in Indialantic, Fla. When vacationing along the space coast, the taste of good pizza is never far.
Phil DiFebo| 7.6.10 @ 10:09AM
Buona Pizza in Scranton, PA.
daddio| 7.6.10 @ 2:37PM
Chris-you should try Monte Bello's Pizza off of Weber Road near the city/county line. Best thin crust ever. True St. Louis style. Similar to Imo's but homemade. My parents went there when they were dating (in the 50's) so it has been there a while. Same owners who live upstairs make the sauce and sausage by hand. Cheaps eats.
Carlos| 7.6.10 @ 4:51PM
Tsk. How could so many good Spectator readers be so wrong? For your and their information, the best pizza in America is served at Crozet Pizza, located in Crozet, Virginia. And it has been so for the last 30 years or so. Why America's best pizza should be located in a little country crossroads burg like Crozet is a mystery for the ages. But nevertheless, there it is.
jordan fans | 12.26.10 @ 8:32PM
Good bolg, thank you for sharing! I will come back and read the other article. I wish everyone in there has a good time.
DVD to iPhone 4 Mac | 1.4.11 @ 5:03AM
I like the space.
I like travelling, someday I'll take up my backpack, treadsroad journey.