Downtown's Newest Pizza Place is a Surreal Trip To Childhood

All that's missing is Urkel on TV

Photo courtesy Fratesi’s Pizza

Remember when you were a kid, when you’d stroll down to the local National Chain Pizza Place® and stuff yourself stupid for, like, $5.99? You’d mix every soda in the fountain to a create a lemon-lime-orange-root-beer battery acid you called “Suicide” or “Graveyard” or, if you were really dark, “Adam Walsh.” Then you’d play a few rounds of Ivan “Ironman” Stewart’s Off-Road, stroll home, and complain to your mom that there was nothing to eat in the house.

It was, literally, the highlight of your life.

The problem with nostalgia is that if you actually could go back in time, you’d discover all of it was pretty awful. You’d remember the crust was actually made of recycled pizza boxes. You’d wonder how pellets of meat were ever legal. You’d realize Ivan “Ironman” Stewart’s only claim to athletic fame is a video game in terrible pizza places.

But what if you could take all the vibes of that childhood pizza shop, put them somewhere nice, and serve pizza with qualit…