Carmela's in Longwood, FL

Carmela's in Longwood is owned by Sbarro's. It's their version of a sit-down Italian restaurant rather than Sbarro's normal food court pizza shop.

The thing to get at Carmela's is the Grandma Pizza. I've found their normal pies have been hit or miss in the past and ordering pasta or sandwiches never resulted in anything good. In the few years that Carmela's has been open here, it seems I'm not the only person to figure this out. I noticed that every occupied table in the restaurant had a Grandma pizza. On this visit, we ordered a half plain/half meatball pie. The rectangular, thin crusted pizza was cut into twelve slices. Each slice had at least one small pool of sauce, surrounded by mozzarella and topped with big basil leaves.

Carmela's is one of the few restaurants that I know of in Central Florida that offer Grandma Pizza. It's a standard on many menus in the New York area, but is a rare find in the Orlando area. Because of this, when I want a different take on pizza, I'll definitely return to Carmela's.

Carmela's Grandma Pizza

I ate at Carmela's in Longwood, FL for lunch today. Carmela's is Sbarro's version of a sit-down restaurant, and it seems like sometimes they are good, yet horrible other times. This was a good day.

I started off with some garlic knots. They hardly had any garlic on them, and weren't anything special.

I ordered a Grandma Pizza for the main course. I've had other experiences with trying Grandma Pizzas up on Long Island, where they originated, so this was somewhat of a comparison.

This pizza was thicker than the other Grandma's that I have tried, and it had large clumps of sauce and basil on the top of the pizza. Unlike other Grandma Pizzas, the crust wasn't perfectly square so I don't think the pizza was cooked in a Sicilian pizza tray. It actually a very good pizza, despite it being a bit too thick. Apparently Carmela's had a pizza cook today that knew what he was doing because this pizza was a big improvement over the last time I tried pizza here.