Lovejoy has two locations. This is the one on Main St. I’ve had a few people request a review of Lovejoy, and they seem to be clawing their way into contention as an underdog for favorite places in the city. Their wings are making a statement as well, entering into Buffalo Spree’s top contenders for best of Buffalo. This new location is small, but really centrally located if you live in Allentown or even some of the more southern parts of the Elmwood Village. 2/$5.50 + pop. Bring em out bring em out.

Beautiful slices. You can tell right away that the cheese layer is thick and looks perfectly done. Reminds me of Carbone’s. Standard pepperoni, but a lot of it. Two hefty slices for the price. Everything looks to be in order. Hopes are high.

As I imagined, the pepperoni are typical pork cup-and-char, but they are a little thicker than normal. The pizza itself is pretty thick, so it’s nice that they stood out in the bite. The cheese was laid on heavy and absolutely delicious. Browning pattern is dead on, but as you’ll see in the next pic, this wasn’t exactly a fresh slice.

This photo makes the pizza look pretty effing gross, but its more to show how little the cheese melted on the re-warm. This is a bitch of an equation to get right, because the dough shot coming up is pristine, and if it were left in the oven longer to melt all the cheese, the bottom would be charcoal. Long story short, delicious cheese but it didn’t fully melt. Cooled cheese > burnt dough. Would not have been an issue when the pie was fresh. The sauce doesn’t look like much, but it was heavily seasoned and really exceeds its nasty appearance. Zesty, but for sure hurt by the fact that it is little dried out.

The dough is outstanding. A lot of this is due to the guy who waited on me heating it perfectly. When looking at a cross section of a Buffalo-Style slice, I believe in a ratio of quarters. The bottom 3/4ths of the dough should be fluffy with a crispy bottom, and the top 1/4th should look a little raw and be chewy. Lovejoy hits that dead on.

Adding to the magic, their crust has some wonderfully browned bubbles (pictured here) that released a little steam even after being reheated, and add a lot to the pie for me. It’s not easy to make crust interesting, especially when getting slices, but this is the best way to make it more than wasted pizza space.

Overall, Lovejoy was a great Buffalo-Style slice. Straight out of the oven would have bumped it up a bit, but still not to the echelon of a few of the other great Buffalo-style slices I’ve reviewed. Everything about this pizza says “above average”, but nothing outstanding. If you like this classic style and live in the Allentown area, this (so far) is probably your best bet to satisfy in the vicinity. The results are in.

Dough🥖: (A) The pizza wizard who re-heated this did so perfectly. It’s also textbook Buffalo with an excellent crust.
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Cheese🧀: (B/B+) Fresh, this could have been a high A.
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Sauce🥫: (B-) Delicious, but very dried out.
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Pepperoni🍖: (B+) Thicker than average and liberally applied.
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Overall🍕: (B+) The wing shot is in here for a reason. They had these sitting in the warming oven to order, so I did. The hype is for real, man. These were delicious. They were not piping hot by any means, but my god they were very crispy big wings. I didn’t even bother to ask what sauce they were in, but it was sweet and a little spicy. These were the best wings I have ever had from a pizzeria. Probably not good enough to make me walk past Gabriel’s Gate (though I’ve had 1 or 2 shitty orders there), but if I really wanted wings with my pie, Lovejoy would be a no-brainer for my vote. Thank you so much, Lovejoy. I will be back.