New Haven Style Pizza at Bobalu's Southern Cafe in the Florida Keys

Rumor has it that one of the finest pizzas in the Florida Keys is to be had at Bobalu's Southern Cafe. "Pizza at a Southern Cafe," this I had to see! So Friday last I dropped in on the radio show, Reelin' in the Keys, with Cal Sutphin, to check this rumor out. The first thing I had to do was find out was how pizza ended up on the menu of a Southern Cafe. So here is that story.

Doug Meeker and his wife Debbie had a successful life in the vast northern country known as the northeast US. When they had had enough they moved to the Florida Keys to relax and enjoy life. Their love of entertaining and the lack of type A personality type projects led them to plan a small restaurant where they could share their joy of cooking with the residents and visitors to the Keys.

Doug and Debbie wanted to limit the menu of their restaurant to showcase their favorite recipes. New Haven style pizza was to be the main offering since there was no real New Haven style pizza available in a thousand miles.

About six years ago, Bobalu's Southern Cafe became available. Doug and Debbie decided that that was the perfect location for their small restaurant. Bobalu's was a local's favorite with simple but delicious southern cooking. Fresh roasted turkey and dressing, pan fried pork chops, liver and onions and hamburger steaks just to name a few.

The vegetable side dishes like green bean casserole, fried corn, black eyed peas, collard greens, lima beans, okra and tomatoes and sweet potato casserole to name less than half of the available sides, really made Bobalu's Southern Cafe Southern.

The Meeker's decided that they could not change the menu by dropping all the local favorites so they just added their specialties to the menu. Doug and Debbie found out that a menu with over ninety items involved a bit more work than they anticipated and decided to slowly reduce some of the items that were fairly common.