Heading to Paulie Gee’s for Slices and Nostalgia

Back in early April I wrote about my search for top-notch slice shops in the Philly region. While the area isn’t hurting for good pizzerias, many of the better ones don’t offer slices and I don’t always want to get an entire pie – especially at lunch-time. Online browsing turned up a couple of places that appeared to have good potential – one each in Center City (downtown Philly) and South Jersey. I hit the latter first and posted about it here. 

It took me a little longer than planned to get to get to the other spot – Paulie Gee’s Soul City Slice Shop, which sits on a quiet block of 13th Street just north of where Center City meets South Philly. But it finally happened for lunch Tuesday. 

Paulie Gee’s is not native to Philadelphia. It initially opened in the pizza mecca of Brooklyn, but success led to expansion to a few other cities, including this Philly spot. 

The interior is an absolute trip. Aside from a very modern-looking bar, the rest of it appears to be something out of my youth in the 70s and 80s – including an old console TV with classic video games and a vintage soda machine. 

After enjoying a quick lap around the place, I moseyed up to the pizza counter and took a good look at the selection. There were a handful of options, but I kept it simple by going with a slice each of plain cheese and The Mootz (plain white).

It was just after they opened for the day and there was a row of open booths from which to choose. I grabbed one and took my photos before digging in. 

The crust proved to be as good as it looked. As I like to say, it met at the very desirable intersection of crispy and chewy. And the sauce and cheese were beautifully proportioned, with the former also having a nice touch of sweetness that I always find appealing in a pizza sauce. 

The Mootz  – or white – slice was also very good in terms of flavor. As is usually the case with white pizza, it was garlicky, but not as over-the-top in that regard as a couple of others I’ve tried recently. If I had a minor complaint, I thought it could have done with a tad less cheese. The crust didn’t hold up quite as well as it did for the plain slice, and I would guess that was due to the weight of the cheese. 

But I still enjoyed the flavor enough to more than make up for that slight issue and took a slice home to my wife who appeared to swoon when taking her first bite. 

I thought about how much I enjoyed both the atmosphere and pizza at Paulie Gee’s while watching my wife devour her white slice and mentioned that we’d likely be at least semi-regulars there if we still lived in Center City. She simply nodded in agreement while continuing to chew.