Pizza Prince

The best pizza I ever had in my life was at an unassuming little stand on La Cienega Boulevard, about five blocks south of Pico. In the late sixties/early seventies, Pizza Prince served an incredible pie. I worked for a while in that area and lunched on Pizza Prince pizza at least twice a week. And then I introduced the girl I was dating to their cuisine and suddenly, she didn’t want to eat anywhere else…which was jes’ fine with me. My friends and I were all heartbroken one day around 1973 when the building suddenly turned into something else run by someone else. (It went through a couple of identities and is now a taco stand.)

Then one day a few years later, I was leaving an appointment out in Burbank and turned onto an unfamiliar street only to find a familiar logo — Pizza Prince! Same lettering style and everything. What’s more, when I went inside the same guy who’d run the La Cienega stand was there kneading dough and he even recognized me. As he heated me some slices, he explained his old landlord had doubled the rent so he relocated, even taking along the same oven and most of the same kitchen gear. Sure enough…same wonderful pizza. I made a mental note to return there often and two weeks later, dragged a bunch of friends towards its doors, promising them pizza so fine it would spoil them for life. You probably see this coming but I didn’t: The place was closed. Out of business, apparently. As far as I know, it never reopened.