New Haven Style Pizza at Bobalu's Southern Cafe in the Florida Keys

Rumor has it that one of the finest pizzas in the Florida Keys is to be had at Bobalu's Southern Cafe. "Pizza at a Southern Cafe," this I had to see! So Friday last I dropped in on the radio show, Reelin' in the Keys, with Cal Sutphin, to check this rumor out. The first thing I had to do was find out was how pizza ended up on the menu of a Southern Cafe. So here is that story.

Doug Meeker and his wife Debbie had a successful life in the vast northern country known as the northeast US. When they had had enough they moved to the Florida Keys to relax and enjoy life. Their love of entertaining and the lack of type A personality type projects led them to plan a small restaurant where they could share their joy of cooking with the residents and visitors to the Keys.

Doug and Debbie wanted to limit the menu of their restaurant to showcase their favorite recipes. New Haven style pizza was to be the main offering since there was no real New Haven style pizza available in a thousand miles.

About six years ago, Bobalu's Southern Cafe became available. Doug and Debbie decided that that was the perfect location for their small restaurant. Bobalu's was a local's favorite with simple but delicious southern cooking. Fresh roasted turkey and dressing, pan fried pork chops, liver and onions and hamburger steaks just to name a few.

The vegetable side dishes like green bean casserole, fried corn, black eyed peas, collard greens, lima beans, okra and tomatoes and sweet potato casserole to name less than half of the available sides, really made Bobalu's Southern Cafe Southern.

The Meeker's decided that they could not change the menu by dropping all the local favorites so they just added their specialties to the menu. Doug and Debbie found out that a menu with over ninety items involved a bit more work than they anticipated and decided to slowly reduce some of the items that were fairly common.

Hamburger steak was the first to drop off the menu. Doug told me, "Hamburger steak can be had anywhere so I thought that was a good place to start down sizing the menu. People kept ordering hamburger steak even though it wasn't on the menu. Now we sell twice as many hamburger steaks as we did when it was on the menu. So I guess we will keep the menu as it is."

Now the once retired Meeker's own and operate a quaint roadside restaurant with over ninety regular menu items plus daily specials and homemade desserts. (Death by Chocolate pie caught my eye.) Of course there is New Haven style pizza made with dough shipped from Connecticut to ensure authenticity.

My review of the pizza is somewhat limited. I only sampled the Garbage Pie, Doug's Favorite, Pepperoni and Cheese and a pie to be named later loaded with Italian sausage, peppers, onions and a few other goodies. The Garbage Pie has sausage, pepperoni, bacon, peppers, onions and mushrooms, an excellent choice for carnivores. Doug's Favorite has bacon, garlic and Key West pink shrimp with either a red or white sauce (I had the red sauce, but will try the white sauce next trip to compare). The pepperoni and sausage, well that was the control pizza required at any taste test. The pie to be named later was loaded with Italian sausage. The onions and peppers lightly done just to accent the mounds of sausage without over-powering.

That is a lot of pizza sampling for one morning, but you have to do what you have to do for a good pizza review. They all were great! The crust is thin with the perfect crunch starting light at the tip of the slice and increasing in crunch to rim. The red sauce was fresh and flavorful. All the toppings were the finest available, especially the shrimp and sausage, yum! In case any vegetarians are still reading this article, there is the Garden Pie and Dustin's Veggie Delight which you can review on your own.

If you are on your way to Key West, Bobalu's is on the Gulf side at mile marker 10. Stop in if you are looking for good meal. With ninety items on the menu there is surely something that you will enjoy. Have a cold beer and some of their homemade potato chips while you try to decide. Bobalu's Southern Cafe does not accept credit cards, just cash or personal check. Bobalu's is open Tuesday through Saturday from 11AM to 10 PM. They do not have delivery but for takeout call 296-1664.