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.
7 Responses to Pizza Prince
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They did relocate one more time to 1720 W. Verdugo Ave. also in Burbank. If I remember, they were there for only about two more years. The Prince had the best pizza outside of NY. We were heartbroken (and still are) that they eventually closed. They had been around since 1962.
Didn’t he have another location in Norwalk? When I was a kid in the 70′s my mom dated a guy who owned a couple pizza places called Pizza Prince. One in Norwalk and I believe one in Burbank. My friends and I used to fold the pizza boxes for him for fun.
they also had restaurants in North Hollywood, Van Nuys and Atwater.
I too remember Pizza Prince in Norwalk California next door to Luckys market. I was also a kid in the 70s and we always got our pizza from there. It was the best! But then, the Nipponese took it over in the early 80s and everything went to hell fast! The dough tasted like old leftover stagnant cooking oil and rice noodles. It was terrible! Then the original owners I think bought it back, but then folded not long afterwards.
Pizza Prince was my first restaurant job while I was a freshman in high school. I was hired to work for 2 hours every afternoon making the pizza sauce. The canned tomato sauce was up a steep library-style ladder and I remember it was very dicey coming down the steps. The first day I worked there I started to wash up before mixing the sauce with my hands when the owner told me to “stop” that sweat was his secret ingredient to the sauce. Don’t worry, he was only kidding. The back-of-the-house was always clean the cooks always washed their hands and that was the secret for a Pizza Prince great pizza. Pizza Prince was great training for me as I later opened and owned over 300 restaurants.
My family lived on Cadillac Av, and later on Guthrie, just off of La Cienega in the 60′s, and then moved over to Beverlywood in 1969, and even though I was too young to really experience their pizza, my dad still claims to this day, that Pizza Prince’s pizza was he best he’s ever had since moving out to California from Boston in 1959. He was really sad when the La Cienega location closed in the mid 70′s.
I would agree with those who thought the pizza was one of the best pies made in So. Cal. They also gave you a pretty decent slice for 50 cents. There used to be a really good pizza store on Santa Monica Blvd. near Gardner. I recall that you had to open a screen door to get in.