LJ’s Pizza Restaurant

Delicious food! Excellent service. Great pizza deals. Old fashion charm. Perfect for curing my pizza craving

My favorite by far! Love, love, love this pizza! The wings are delicious as well. Cheesy bread is worth the try as well.

I can’t say enough about this place. I LOVE their food and it is always consistent. Don’t let their tiny little shop fool you — the food is fantastic. It isn’t the big fancy restaurant they used to have with the barbershop quartets and ice cream cones, but the quality of food is the same. I get their pizza every time I come back to AZ for a visit. There is a small area to eat on site, however take out is just as good. These people work extremely hard to satisfy their customers. On a typical weekend night be prepared to wait 30 – 45 minutes for your order if you order upon arrival. They are busy for a reason! LJs is a local secret and you are crazy if you choose a different pizza place in Mesa.

What a great little hidden gem! I had heard good things about LJ’s and figured it was time to check it out for myself. Well, the rumors were true! Great thin crust pizza, quality service, short wait time, tasty wings, and all of it at a very reasonable price. Definitely a two-​thumbs up choice!

LJ’s for the win! So happy to visit today for lunch. I have not had their pizza in a while. Their new Patio Pizza location is for «real»! BYOB is cool, small salad bar, really good wings and the best thin crust pizza in Mesa! Add all this with a cozy atmosphere, good music and really nice servers makes for a must see.
Take Miller Street off Main heading north and you can miss it on the east side. A small house that has been converted into a pizza patio.

If you are reading any of the old reviews pre 2012, the old restaurant is gone and a smaller LJ’s café has re-​opened right behind where the old restaurant is located.
This place is a must for people who like think crust pizza!
Rocking pizza recipes that haven’t changed since they moved to the low overhead shack of a restaurant. The cooking method and quality ingredients are wonderful. Recommended items–
Try cheesy garlic bread.
Pork sausage topping is unique and delicious,
Specialty combos are good… try a mexican pizza sometime for a change of pace (but do a medium and get your goto pizza as well… slice or 2 good, but their typical pizzas are best.
Only thing i would say to pass on is the salad. It used to be great when they had the restaurant salad bar. Now that they pre-​package the dressings, I am not a fan. It tastes like the dressings are out of a bottle from the store vs mixed up from scratch (not sure if they actually mixed the dressings at the old restaurant, but it was good dressing I found myself craving with the whole pizza experience)
Thanks for keeping it going clay! Wish you still had the old restaurant and buffets, but of course am grateful you have the current place.
Let me know if you ever consider a franchise opportunity ! I think in the right locations it would be great

Quite possibly the best pizza in Arizona. Family owned and operated. Great place to eat.

Favorite pizza Barbecue, I have ate here for nearly 30 yrs always good and same staff.
Three generation of my family have eaten at LJ’s Pizza

My family has been coming here since I was very young, my grandma took me here, and I have taken my son here. The quality and atmosphere was SO AMAZING when LJ was still alive. He always greeted everyone at the door, smiled and said hello, and was generally concerned about your comments and suggestions. When LJ passed the whole restaurant went into a slow decline and less and less people came. I remember having to wait 20 – 30 minutes for a table at lunch time, and we went 2 weeks ago and it was dead. The pizza is still decent don’t get me wrong, it’s just not the same. May 21^st was their last day and this made me very sad… another childhood memory closing it’s doors. I am hoping they reopen under new family management and location.

Went for dinner tonight and they added a new pizza to their buffet… a loaded potato pizza! It had shredded hash-​brown like potatoes, cheddar & mozzarella cheeses, REAL bacon and chives on top. It was delicious.
And as always, the sauerkraut pizza and the spaghetti pizza were amazing.
I love this place!

It’s been said that pizza is like sex: when it’s good it’s really good, and when its bad it’s still pretty good. Well, I definitely wasn’t wearing my «O face» when I left this pizza buffet. I came here to have lunch with Rand H (I see myself as the apprentice of the Buffet Master of the Valley). The pizzas were not horrid but all were too salty for me and seemed to taste the same no matter what the topping … except for the taco pizza, which had lettuce and corn chips on it. All of them had so much oil that I could have lubed my car with the slices I had for lunch. The salad bar was OK, and our meal ended with a soft-​serve ice cream cone — and we weren’t allowed to serve ourselves for this dessert. And the bill, with tax, came to ten bucks flat! I got so much more food choices and much better quality food at The Pizza Buffet and Much Much More, at half the price! LJ’s was an interesting place to go to: it seems to have been there forever and seems to have a loyal following from the neighborhood. But because of the quality of the food and the outrageous price, this will be my one and only visit to this place.

My well educated restaurant go’er boyfriend took me here last night for a quick bite. He told me we HAD to get the supreme pizza. To our surprise they still had their all you can eat buffet still going on. After a quick discussion of our best option we decided we couldn’t lose with the buffet, considering we get the salad bar too. DELICIOUS-​ness! all the pizza was thin crust which made it easy for me to try a little bit of each with out over stuffing myself too much. during our fabulous buffet experience they had a chic play an acoustic guitar singing her heart out, which was very good. i love the restaurants atmosphere, it’s a small family owned joint surrounded by brick walls, making it a comfortable kick back spot to get your grub on. after we filled ourselves to the brim we finished our dinner off with a soft-​serve ice-​cream cone… delish! i loved this place and will be back again, hopefully soon. so i highly recommend it to anyone looking for a filling of pizza and entertainment.

Wow. I thought there was no such thing as bad pizza until I went to LJ’s.
I have never seen greasier pizza. We could end the fuel crisis if we could get cars to run on this grease. A large cheese pizza would probably get you to the moon and back.
The ingredients were horrible. Obviously, the cheese is cheap, the pizza glistened orange and yellow from the grease and cheese. The mushrooms were obviously canned. The sausage looked more like ground beef, maybe it was. There was even some sort of taco pizza with what looked like Doritos on it. Not really sure what to make of that.
The pizza is floppy and soggy, too, cut in long thin slices, no more than a few inches wide.
After a few slices I wished I had had more of the salad bar. Either that or I should have wrung out or wiped down my pizza. It felt like the grease was separating from everything else in my stomach. Not a good feeling.
The crazy thing is this place was packed! There were large groups coming in constantly, always a line to wait to be seated. This I can’t figure out. Yeah the staff is attentive and super friendly, but the food, the grease, the ingredients — unbelievable.
Obviously people loved this place. I didn’t. It was some of the worst food I have ever had. And I can’t say enough about f*ing up pizza, I didn’t think it was possible until I came here.

I’ve been going to this little pizza joint since the late 80’s. It’s a family owned spot that hasn’t experienced much change since opening in 1974, except for the name (it started as a Pizza Inn). Somewhere along the way, LJ bought out the franchise and the legend of sauerkraut pizza was born. Yes I said sauerkraut! That’s only one of very unique specialty pizzas on the menu (one of my personal favorites, along with the barbeque). In my nearly 20 years of making the occasional afternoon trek to Mesa from central Phoenix I have always been treated well by the wait staff (most of which have been there that entire time), have never been disappointed in the pizza, and usually look forward to the mini ice-​cream cone served with every meal (except when I have returned to the buffet line one too many times).
If you are a first timer, I would suggest going for the lunch buffet served Monday through Friday from 11’ish to 3’ish or on Saturday evenings from 5 to 8. You get to sample every pie they make and if you don’t see it on the serving line, just ask, they will have one made up just for you and deliver it straight to your table within 15 minutes.
As the other reviewers have stated, don’t go for the décor, but the atmosphere is relaxed and comfortable. Speaking of comfy… take the big pants along, or make sure the ones you are wearing have an elastic waist. Don’t head my warning and you may risk physical injury as overly tight pants are known to cut off critical blood flow to the remainder of the body. :)

This is an old-​school family run pizza joint reminiscent of early 70’s Pizza Huts. It is a great place to relax after work and have a traditional American Pizza.
I don’t know much about the lunch buffet, but the Pizza we ordered for dinner was delicious.
I love to support local joints like this.

I think the $ 8 buffet is cheap. A great price for sure. On the subject of the food, I couldn’t disagree more.
The crust is thin, without the benefit of being crispy. The sauce is bland and tastes like it came from #10 can. The cheese is melted is probably the best thing I can say about the pizza at LJ’s. My favorite item was the fountain beverage.
If you like to be adventurous, try LJ’s you might enjoy the sauerkraut pizza.
As for me, if I really needed to eat out on the cheap, I would rather go to Eatsa Pizza for lunch. .. the buffet costs less and the food is, marginally, better.

Mesa’s best kept secret, LJ’s is a family owned pizza joint with I swear to you, the best pizza I’ve ever had, EVER. And I know my pizza. Seems simple I guess but they do it right and I’m not sure I can really explain it. Regular to thinnish crust, not overbearing on sauce… Dont go to LJs for the ambiance, theres not much to be had, but the service is good and you absolutely cant go wrong with the endless pizza and salad lunch buffet for around $ 8. My favorite is ‘shroom, but for you daredevil pizza eaters, look for tens of odd topping combinations including the pasta pizza. If you HAVE to be in Mesa, you HAVE to be at LJ’s.