I had lunch last week at Italian Family Pizza with an opinionated guy from Queens. He loves pizza, this guy, and he especially loves Italian Family Pizza, a relatively new place on First Avenue. To orient you to his pizza convictions: Big Mario's and Via Tribunali are all right; he does not care for Piecora's or Delancey. Doesn't he find Big Mario's too crowded at night? Yes, but he enjoys it in the way a cultural anthropologist would. Does he know how much work Delancey put into their pie? Yes, he is conversant with the backstory—a blogger and a pizza-obsessive met cute online, cross-country crust research ensued, pizza place named after New York subway stop opened to widespread acclaim. But, despite the R&D, it's Delancey's dough that does not meet his expectations.

"Now his dough," the guy from Queens says, gesturing toward the back of the humble cinderblock storefront of Italian Family Pizza, "his dough is worth eating..."

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