A Mack’s Man for Life: Mack’s Pizza in Wildwood, New Jersey

Forget everything you know, or think you know, about the Jersey Shore, despite the fact that most of it is probably true. You go to the Jersey Shore, Wildwood in particular, for a slice of boardwalk pizza, regardless of what travails you must face to eat it. And not just any boardwalk pizza, but Mack’s pizza. This slice represents all that is right and good about the Jersey Shore.

Mondo pizza blog Slice takes a look at Mack’s today. Adam Kuban provides a nice rundown on the peculiar construction of these salty, greasy pies, with a mozzarella-cheddar blend, sauced by a hose hooked up to a giant vat in the basement:

Pies are built cheese first, sauce, more cheese, then they hit the oven—a Roto-Flex whose multiple decks slowly revolve. It has sliding glass doors in the front and sides; the main pieman drops one in the front while his colleagues check and pull pizzas from the others. Toppings are added above the second layer of cheese, if you’ve ordered them. I’ve never needed anything more than a plain slice here, though.

I don’t even dress mine with parmesan or red pepper flakes; I eat my Mack’s straight. I’ve been enjoying Mack’s since the early ’70s, and the primal pleasure of the plain slice hasn’t changed a whit. Washed down with a birch beer, there’s very little finer than a slice of Mack’s plain with the sea air wafting into your booth and a parade of boardwalk denizens marching by. Well, a whole pie would be finer…