We love Houston, really we do. But what we wouldn't give to make this a more walkable city. To replace some of its more culturally comatose stretches of strip malls and parking lots with the urban accessibility of a New York or Chicago. For it is in those cities where neighborhood pizza joints like Two Guys Pizzeria are a dime a dozen.
Though perhaps it's the very scarcity of hole in the wall joints serving giant greasy slices that makes us appreciate a place like Two Guys all the more.
Near the corner of Holcombe and Greenbriar, this unassuming pizzeria is a little-known lunch favorite among the Med Center and Rice U crowds. Known for its giant $6 slices that'll feed you for a day, plus a healthy selection of beer and a massive menu that covers the gamut of Italian-American street food, it's the kind of place you could envision a medical or Ph.D. student surviving on for a year.
The small dining room is a picture of old school pizzerias, with more than a dash of NYC-inspired cliche. Checkerboard red and white table cloths, the proprietor tossing dough in clear view, and an overhead laminated menu listing ingredients and specialty pies make for an endearing, if slightly banal, image of Downtown Manhattan.
While the menu is expansive, we've narrowed our review to the only thing that matters — giant made-to-order slices. They start at $5.50 for a cheese slice and increase in price by the topping. With 26 to choose from, the potential for customization is endless. Our selections were simple: pepperoni with black olives and meatball with ricotta.
While massive, the crust on both slices had toasted to a perfect crunch along the edges, making the end points the far and away best part. Despite being rather thick by necessity, lest the whole thing fall apart in transit, the dough eats like a traditional slice of NY pie. Not deep or doughy, even in the meaty center of the slice, it is proportionally thin in context to its size.
While the crust and cheese were perfection, toppings could have used some work. Meatballs were bone dry, while pepperonis were paper thin and more grease than flavor. The ricotta was decent though likely of a low quality, and olives were clearly from a can. That said, the finished result was everything you could possibly want for a $7 slice that most will struggle to finish. In fact, add an order of pizza rolls and a couple of beers and you've got a remarkably cheap yet entirely charming date night.
Two Guys Pizzeria isn't high brow pie. On the contrary. It's the kind of joint pizza exists for. A neighborhood dive with cheap slices to fall in love with. A cheaper, more local, infinitely more enjoyable experience than your run of the mill delivery chain, with an ambiance that transports you to that one place in Brooklyn where you scarfed down a slice before blacking out in an Uber — or, you know, whatever.