I love it when this happens! You know how you think you know the vibe of a place, any place, and you discover that there is this completely different way to do it? This happened to me recently at Townies. You know Townies, the colorful place with a giant pink chair and a large garden – no, that is a farm, actually – right in the geographical center of Amelia Island.
Heretofore, I had stashed Townies in the groovy pizza pickup-and-delivery place in my mind. In the past, when I have needed a quick, hot, satisfying pizza, I have always relied upon Townies. This works especially well when visitors are expected and they are hours late, as Townies closes at 8 p.m. weekdays and 9 p.m. on weekends.
Recently, friends with four tweens and teens were visiting us, but they were stuck in traffic; dinner out was not going to proceed as planned. Luckily for us, Townies was available, and we ordered pizzas, salads, pizza rolls, garlic knots, and monkey knots. Like monkey bread, Townies’ monkey knots are pizza dough drizzled with icing. My young friends gobbled all of these and wanted more.
My rule is generally to enjoy my own quite fabulous salads at my house and to enjoy salads out only when they are compelling. Recently, Sherry Carter and I went to Townies to “see what we could see,” as my grandmother used to say when we were open for adventure. We found Rob, positive, helpful, funny Rob. A nicer person I have rarely encountered at a quick-service restaurant. He greeted us and guided our order. Rob assured us the salads were special indeed, and then he dazzled us with an incantation that I could not resist: “Add bacon for an extra-special touch.
Bacon! As one who eats meat as an added flavor, crispy fresh bacon is truly flavorful. My tastebuds cheer: ‘Hey, everybody – we are getting bacon again!’ Bacon was a nice addition to our salads, Sherry’s Spinach and my Greek. The Townies Spinach Salad has bacon as an ingredient, but it is possible to get extra. Greek salads I do not think of as having bacon, but this one did and it was razzle-dazzle.
Rob brought blue cheese chips for us to enjoy while our orders came together. These were almost like eating blue cheese straight up, which I have done. We each had a slice of our favorite pizza, Sherry’s The Dirty Dina and mine The Travolta. The Travolta is the white pizza, meaning it has no “pizza sauce,” per se. I think of white pizza as a canvas for my flavor art, and I get excited when I can choose ingredients I don’t keep around my own kitchen.
Build-Your-Own pizza makes you the pizza chef: You choose your crust, sauce, cheese, protein, and vegetables. Vegan cheese, garlic, roasted tomato, and anchovy on cauliflower crust with Sriracha sauce? Ham and pineapple with Ranch sauce? You can even get half-and-half of two completely different pizzas. It’s a pizza lover’s dream.
On T. J. Courson Road between Winn-Dixie and Bank of America, look for the building that looks like an art installation. Sit outside or in, take out, or ask for delivery. Choose your own pizza adventure. Townies is located at 819 T.J. Courson Road.