The Search for Quality Pizza Continues

One of the services that helps us maintain our home and premises is owned by a fellow who loves good food and who is always asking us about new restaurants that we’ve tried and liked.  In turn, he has provided us with leads on a couple of good ‘foodie’ eateries.

Recently, we’d been talking about pizza and just how difficult it is to find good pizza in East Tennessee.  He told us about Jaboni’s Pizzeria in Knoxville.  It’s located on Kingston Pike/TN Hwy 11, quite close to West Town Mall.  Note the covered outside dining area.  We’ve never been able to understand the ‘charm’ of eating outside…when you are right next to a major thoroughfare. 

Interestingly, there is another Jaboni’s Pizza located in Maryville Tennessee.  The menus are similar but not identical.  It appears that Jaboni’s might be a franchise operation...to be determined.    

Jaboni’s Knoxville has a full bar.  It has a nice bright and updated look to it but in the mid-afternoon on a weekday, it was very quiet.

I took two photos showing the rest of the inside dining area.  It is well lit and it pretty much fits the look of most ‘modern’ pizza restaurants.  FYI, there were 2 tables of customers dining outside next to Kingston Pike.  Laurie wasn’t too crazy about my second photo because she’s in it!

Note the slogan/statement on the wall behind Laurie.  Both Jaboni’s locations claim to provide “A slice of Long Island”.

Our waitress was Kellyann and, as it turned out, she is actually from Long Island New York.  She was very pleasant, friendly and helpful.  She explained the menu to us, especially the pizza options.  We ended up building our own. 

Four specialty pizzas are offered, including a 12-inch “Cauliflower Pizza…gluten free with cheese and tomato sauce. ($12.95 plus $1.95 for additional toppings.  Then there is the 9 slice “Stuffed Meat Pie” with Italian sausage, mozzarella, pepperoni and ham. ($49.95)

In addition, Jaboni’s Pizzeria offers 18” Neapolitan, Sicilian, Grandma’s, Margherita and White Pizzas.  Pricing for these ‘basic’ pizzas just includes cheese, seasonings and tomato sauce.  In the order I listed them above, the price is $18.95, $19.95, $19.95, $23.95 and $23.95.

The other option is to start with basic pizza and build your own.  We prefer thin crust so we ordered a Neapolitan Pizza.  We added Basil, Garlic, Pepperoni and Sausage.  Pricing on ‘build your own pizzas’ includes up to 5 toppings of your choice.  A half topping is $2.95 and full toppings are $3.95 each.  Half toppings count as a full topping against the 5 that are included in the ‘build your own pizza’ plan.

Our pizza looked good when it was served.  It included sausage, pepperoni, garlic, basil and half mushroom. ($28.95) We did like the crust…nice and thin and firm enough to support the toppings.  From there it sort of went downhill. The garlic was like the kind that you buy in a jar from the supermarket, we couldn’t taste the pepperoni and the sliced sausage (vs chunks) added nothing to the pie.  Actually, when picked off and eaten by itself, we thought that the sausage had a ‘funky’ taste.  Our search for quality pizza in East Tennessee continues with Tellico Grains in Tellico Plains still the champ…with no close ‘restaurant based’ contenders.

Jaboni’s Pizzeria in Knoxville does offer a number of hero’s and Italian entrees.  This restaurant is located at 7403 Kingston Pike.  Phone: 865-394-9734.  Website: Jabonis - Pizza, Italian Restaurant, Pizzeria.  Perhaps we were too harsh or we ordered wrong… If you try Jaboni’s pizza and you have a positive experience, give me some feedback.

You may have noted that I ended my feedback on Jaboni’s Pizzeria with a statement that we haven’t found any ‘restaurant based’ sources for pizza in the area that are better…or even close to Tellico Grains Bakery.

Well…sometimes one finds something that you didn’t expect in an unlikely place.  Yes, I agree, this isn’t a slice of pizza.  It is flatbread with tomato sauce, mozzarella cheese, pepperoni and sausage.  It was Laurie’s dinner the other night, so she ‘dressed it up’ with olives, red pepper flakes, coarse ground black pepper and a bit of parmesan cheese.  She let me have a couple of pieces with the olives removed. 

We both really liked this faux pizza as it had the thin crust we like and we could taste the quality of the pepperoni and sausage that came with it.  This 'take and bake' pizza is now our second favorite ‘pizza’ in East Tennessee.  Where did we buy it?  We found it in the deli area of the Publix Grocery Store in Farragut Tennessee.  It was a happy surprise!

Just click on any of the photos to enlarge them…

Thanks for stopping by for a visit!

Take Care, Big Daddy Dave