Crust Brick Oven Pizza Brings 'Specialized' Pies To St. James

ST. JAMES, NY — Crust Brick Oven Pizza opened its doors in St. James last Saturday. The business hopes it will manage to offer the Town of Smithtown community and beyond something different as far as pizza goes.

"We’re a very specialized type of pizza place," George Cosentino, the owner, told Patch, referring to the menu.

It starts with the fact all pizzas are baked in a brick oven, hence the restaurant's name. The product comes in 12-inch personal pies in varieties including Margherita, Sophia Rossa, Hawaiian, Bianca, Bufalina, BLT and more. The signature pie is the Baby Clam pizza, which comes topped with chopped baby clams, mozzarella, bread crumbs, grated cheese, roasted garlic and olive oil.

"I think it’s a good market," Cosentino said. "There are no brick oven pizzerias in this particular area that are like our place. We’re not a typical ‘pizzeria.’ The things that we make are unique and different."

One of the shop's specialty items are "pouches."

"It’s not your typical hero bread or typical sandwich," Cosentino said. "It’s made with the dough from the pizza, it goes in the oven and it blows up like a pouch. Then we stuff that with whatever you want: chicken cutlet, veal cutlet, cold cuts, arugula, caprese."

Salads and calzones round out the rest of Crust's offerings.

Cosentino said he hopes to draw customers based on Crust's different approach to pizza and other traditional pizzeria fare. He encourages people to dine-in as opposed to take food out, for product purposes.

"We’re more of a come-in-and-eat type of place, not so much takeout, because brick oven really doesn’t travel that well," he said. "We really like to have people come in, sit down and have a fresh pie out of the oven to really taste what it’s all about."

Crust Brick Oven Pizza can be found at 739 Middle Country Road, St. James. The store is currently open seven days a week from 11:30 a.m. to 9 p.m., though hours/days of operation are subject to change a couple of months from now.

Photos

Photos courtesy of Crust Brick Oven Pizza Inc.