NYPD Pizzeria in Maitland, FL

Several years ago, the original NYPD Pizza was located on Orange Ave in Downtown Orlando. This NYPD had awesome pizza, easily the best in Orlando. Not only was it really good, but they were also pretty authentic when it came to actually serving a product that closely resembled New York Style pizza. Lou Pearlman had some sort of connection to the store so on occasion you would see local celebrities from the various boy-bands that he managed in the restaurant which was always interesting. Eventually, NYPD started opening up more stores and the original location closed. I had not eaten in any of the new stores since the original restaurant closed, so when I saw that a new NYPD Pizza had opened along 17-92 in Maitland, I was excited to give them a try.

The service in NYPD seemed very scattered, but eventually we were able to place our order. We started with an appetizer of garlic knots. All four knots came attached to one another on the plate. It gave me the impression that these came pre-made from some central NYPD distribution center. Regardless, they were still pretty tasty.

There was a camera crew taking promotional pictures for the NYPD website on the night we ate here. The extension cords being draped over tables and bright lights made the wait between the garlic knots and the pizza a bit more interesting.

Then the pizza came. What a disappointment compared to what NYPD Pizza used to be. I know I may be a bit overly critical of pizza, this was just sad...

The sauce had a really strong oregano taste. Normally I don't mind oregano, but this was overpowering, and there was a whole lot of sauce. So much so that the cheese slid around on the surface of the sauce pond, inevitably coming off of the slice. This cheese also was completely tasteless. Somehow it was there, but yet had no recognizable taste. Was it low-sodium mozzarella? Or some sort of processed cheese? I'm not exactly sure, but what's the point if it has no taste? The crust was okay, but it had no real redeeming factors to make up for the sauce and cheese. A good New York Style pizza is sometimes so nice looking that I would consider it a culinary work of art. This slice is no art:

Compare to some of the nice looking slices of New York Style pizza I've had since the creation of this blog:

And then once again, compare to my second messy NYPD slice.

How does a restaurant that I once held in such high regard fall so far? Was it the expansion of NYPD into a good size chain with locations in several states? Since the store was pretty new, maybe they didn't get into their pizza making groove yet or perhaps I just caught NYPD on a really bad day. I hope so, but it didn't leave a good first impression as my reintroduction to NYPD pizza...