Review of George's Restaurant: Why Does Anyone Go Anywhere Else for Pizza?

George's Restaurant in the Bay Dale Shopping Center in Arnold (1274 Bay Dale Drive) is one of the best parts about living around here.   George's has an unassuming exterior and a kind of weird interior, it looks like a combination of an Italian restaurant in Brooklyn and a Greek traditional diner.  It also has some oddities, such as lots and lots of pictures on the walls, and silverware wrapped in saran wrap.  However, since I grew up in New York, I know that weirdness can often lead to extremely good finds. And that is the case here, my fair readers.  Don't be shy; undress your silverware and use it to eat the best Greek and Italian food around these parts.

George's is kid-friendly, and although it can be somewhat cramped, there are high chairs available and the servers are very nice and accommodating toward families with children.  George's son is a good guy and he works there frequently and is very sweet to my kids.  To save you from looking at the kids' menu (which has the standbys of chicken fingers, spaghetti and meatballs, etc), here is what to order for the kids: pizza.  You can get one huge slice of pizza for $3.50 for lunch, and this is enough for both of your children to split, if they are 2 and 3 years old, like my kids. This means a meal for $1.75 per small child.  The pizza is high quality, and is the only pizza in the area that reminds me of the pizza in Bensonhurst where I grew up.

My suburban kids do not even know what this big metal thing is
http://www.brianrose.com/journal/bensonhurstel.jpg

Anyway, for the adults, there are many delicious options, including Greek salads, chicken gyros, souvlaki (with homemade tzatziki sauce), any kind of pasta it seems at all, any kind of Greek dish at all, salads or anything with steak or shrimp or salmon, veal parmigiana, chicken marsala, stuffed jumbo shrimp scampi, really anything.  I am not being lazy here and overgeneralizing.  Check out the menu, I think everything in the world (specifically, in Greece or Italy) is on this menu, and it is all delicious.  My favorite for lunch is the mini-Mykonos Greek Salad with chicken gyro on pita for $9.95.  I have also enjoyed the Linguine Putanesca which is only $8.95.

Of course, the pizza is not just for kids. Whenever we have a big event, we order pizzas from George's and everyone raves about them.  George's has an absurdly varied menu of pizza toppings.  You may be sensing a theme, which is that George's may be a touch obsessive, but without obsession, who can come up with 26 different pizza options not including the 8 "specialty" pizzas?  Not some lazy slug who gives you naked silverware, I can tell you that much.

For dessert you can get tiramisu, Greek baklava cheesecake (yes that's one thing), a chocolate covered mouse-shaped chocolate mousse with eyes and a face that your children will fight over (or that you can use as a bribe for behaving in the restaurant), rice pudding, cannolis, and lots of other cookie and cake type of things including delicious almond cookies that are worth their caloric content.  Where else can you get a mouse that is made of chocolate mousse?  In Brooklyn, that's where.  But nowhere else around here.  

That's enough for my kids but what will the other customers eat?

Here is one solid complaint about George's: it is not open on Sundays.  We always want to go to George's on Sundays, and then we are screwed and have to eat at the other mediocre pizza places around.  Yes, they are mediocre, and no, you won't realize this till after you have eaten pizza at George's.  George, open up on Sunday!  

Finally, go for this alone.  You only live once.