Olives, Pittsford

You might not ordinarily think of a Greek restaurant as a place to go for pizza, but why not? Although it's not too common around here, there are a couple of styles of pizza in this country commonly known as Greek pizza. I'm guessing, too, that the concept of putting toppings on flatbread and baking it is fairly widespread throughout the Mediterranean.
So it shouldn't come as a total surprise to find pizza on the menu at Olives at Schoen Place in Pittsford. I was tipped off to this by a reader quite some time ago, but I finally got around to trying it.
Olives offers eight different pizzas, and the "Spartan," with mozzarella, goat feta, and kasseri cheeses with tomatoes and onions, was both recommended and sounded good to me.
The crust on this personal-size pizza was about a quarter of an inch thick, and the dry underside bore some grill marks. The interior had some visible air holes and was a bit chewy, while the thin edge was dry and crunchy, with a toasted flavor.
As it often does in any dish, the feta took center stage here, lending a sharp, salty pungency to this pizza. It was not completely overwhelming, though, and I could also easily detect the flavor of the tomatoes (mostly from the underlying layer of sauce rather than from the sliced tomatoes, though the latter weren't bad, and of the onions as well. The pizza was also well dusted with dried herbs that gave it an added dimension to the overall flavor profile. All the toppings worked well together and with the crust.
You can look over Olives' menu on their website, but it generally covers all the standard Greek fare, from gyros to souvlaki, as well as some entrees that you won't find at your basic Greek diner. As far as the pizza goes, you won't find any cheese-and-pepperoni pies on the menu, but there are plenty of places around where you can get that. Next time I might try the Athenian, which is topped with roasted red peppers, artichokes, kasseri cheese and garlic spread.
And yes, this was good enough for there to be a next time. I generally don't care for "faux" pizzas made using pita bread, which I've seen at some Greek or Middle Eastern restaurants, but this was pretty good. Not an everyday kind of pizza, but a nice change of pace, and quite tasty. I'll give it a B.
Olives Greek Taverna, 50 State Street, Pittsford 381-3990
Mon. - Thu. 11 a.m. - 8 p.m., Fri. & Sat. 11 a.m. - 9 p.m.

Good Guys, Ridgeway Ave.

Last month, Constantino's, a pizzeria on Ridgeway Avenue that I reported on a year ago, closed for good, which is too bad, because they made some decent pizza.
The good news is that the space is now home to the second location of Good Guys. I did a blog post on their original location in Chili in May 2009, giving it a B- for pretty good thin crust pizza. I was curious to see how the new Good Guys stacked up, so I swung by recently to check things out.
My cheese slice was quite thin. The crust itself was maybe 1/8 inch thick. The non-greasy underside was a bit floury on the surface, and nearly but not quite charred. It was a little crisp, and easily foldable. The thin lip at the edge had pretty good flavor and was nice and crisp.
There was not much sauce on this slice. It leaned more toward the cheesy side of things, with a uniform layer of melted, slightly tangy mozzarella. I could taste the sauce, which had a tomatoey flavor with a touch of herbs to it, but it stayed mostly in the background. The herbal flavor of this slice was accentuated by a fairly generous sprinking of dried herbs, which were visible across the surface.
Good Guys offers 20 pizza toppings, and five specialty pizzas, mostly geared toward carnivores. They also do calzones, wings, wraps, quesadillas, salads and sides.
This was not quite the same as the slice I got at the Chili location of Good Guys, but for the most part I liked it. For me, the crust could've been just a tad thicker, or at least had more of an interior, with some interior air holes. And a little more sauce would've helped balance out the crust and cheese. Still, it was a reasonably good thin slice of pizza, with pretty good flavor, and I'll give it a B.
Good Guys Pizza, 2532 Ridgeway Ave. 225-8788
Mon. - Thu. 11 a.m. - 10 p.m., Fri. & Sat. 11 a.m. - 11 p.m., Sun. noon - 9 p.m.

Empire Pizza, Empire Blvd.

Note, Aug. 15, 2011: this establishment was formerly a second location of the downtown pizzeria, The Pizza Stop. It is no longer associated with the Pizza Stop and is now operating under a different name, although ownership and management remain (partly) the same as when it opened. The following review was written shortly after this pizzeria opened and remains here as an historical record.
It took 24 years, but earlier this month the Pizza Stop finally opened a second location, on Empire Boulevard in Penfield (though most people probably think of it as Webster). Naturally I was eager to try it, although I pretty much knew what to expect:  the same, authentic New York style pizza served at the original on State Street. While consistency can be an issue when a pizzeria has multiple locations, I didn't expect that to be the case here, as the new Pizza Stop is run by the son of Pizza Stop co-founder Jim Staffieri. And sure enough, the pizza here was, to my palate at least, virtually indistinguishable from the original.
Ordinarily, I would go for a cheese or pepperoni slice, or one of each, but on this visit, fresh slices of the meatball parm pie were available, and I could not resist. And, just to change things up a bit, I got a white garlic slice as well.
The crust on both slices was, of course, thin, although the meatball parm slice was noticeably thinner than the white. And both were nicely charred underneath.
As I was eating the white slice, it occurred to me that one hallmark of a great crust is that you can fold it in half without breaking it in two, but when you do, small surface cracks should appear on the underside. That shows the proper balance of pliability and crispness, and the white slice had that exactly.
That slice was topped by a uniform layer of mozzarella that was dusted with dried herbs. The top was bit oily though I'm not sure if that came from the cheese or from the actual application of olive oil. It was also quite garlicky, in a good way. I couldn't see any garlic, so I'm assuming it lay under the cheese (I gobbled it down too quickly to stop and check). But I'm pretty certain from the flavor that this was chopped garlic, not garlic powder.
Oddly, the white pizza doesn't seem to be on the printed menu, so maybe it was a daily special. Or maybe it just got left off the menu for some reason.
As I mentioned, the meatball parm slice was quite thin. With the relatively heavy toppings, it almost had to be folded, though the underside still had some outer crispness. I've described Pizza Stop's meatball parm pizza before, and this was essentially the same, so I won't repeat myself here. But it was very enjoyable, a great blend of flavors, a bit spicy, and quite moist - almost "juicy" - without being sloppy. And despite its thinness, the toasty, crisp-yet-chewy crust made a great base for the toppings.
The menu here is pretty close to the State Street Pizza Stop's, with some variations. The most noticeable difference is that wings are available here. There are also a few specialty pizzas that don't appear on the menu at State Street (although you could probably special-order them there, as all the toppings are available).
The space here is not huge, but there's fairly ample seating. And although they were fairly busy when I stopped, there was not the mad rush that you sometimes see downtown, so the atmosphere was a bit less hectic.
To get down to specifics, the white pizza here was rather minimalistic, with little more than dough, cheese, garlic, some herbs and perhaps some olive oil. That's really getting back to pizza's roots - tomatoes didn't arrive in Italy until after Columbus, remember -  but it was almost too minimalistic for me. Still, it was executed well, and that's just a matter of my personal preferences. And the meatball parm slice was, as I said, very enjoyable.
In more general terms, Pizza Stop seems to have pulled it off - opening a second location that's as good as the original. So once again, a solid A rating from me.
Pizza Guy note: as a reader pointed out, Joe's Brooklyn Pizza, which opened last year in Henrietta, is in the same family, literally and figuratively, as the Pizza Stop. Although the sauce at Joe's is a little different from Pizza Stop's, the pizzas are pretty similar, so you might consider Joe's as a third, unofficial branch of the same pizza family tree.
Pizza Stop, 1778 Empire Blvd., Penfield 347-4050
Mon. - Thu. 11 a.m. - 9 p.m., Fri. & Sat. 11 a.m. - 10 p.m., Sun. noon - 8 p.m.
Pizza Guy note, 12/22/10:  The Empire Boulevard Pizza Stop is no longer affiliated in any way with the original downtown location.
Pizza Guy note, 4/26/11:  for a more recent review, go here.