Cappy’s Pizzeria Owner Is Happy To Focus On Pizza, Salads & Calzones!

EVEN THOUGH I keep asking him to add some more menu items, Harold Hasselbeck, the owner of the Cappy’s Pizzeria in the City Plaza at Tampa Palms shopping center, says he’d rather keep doing what he does well than bring on additional menu items and spread himself and his small, but happy staff too thin.

OK, I get it, especially when everytime I take the office to Cappy’s, everyone is still happy, despite the comparatively small menu selection. Although the laminated menus themselves feature way-cool album covers on one side and the menu on the other, which fits well with the super-funky dĂ©cor and vibe at all four Cappy’s locations (Seminole Heights, South Tampa and Riverview are the others).

In previous reviews of Cappy’s, I’ve always explained that even though this uniquely decorated, full-service dine-in and carry-out pizzeria serves both thin-crust and deep-dish pizza, it’s a little bit of a misnomer to call Harold’s thin crust “true New York style” or his deep dish pizza “true Chicago style,” but that doesn’t mean that both styles aren’t delicious, because they are.

But, we’ll get back to the pizza in a bit. For starters, Cappy’s only offers cheesebread ($4.25) and breadstix ($3.25, served with a side of a deep-red, thick marinara dipping sauce) and a variety of salads, all available in small sizes from $4.50-$5.50 and large sizes for $7-$8.50. Our favorites at the office are the large Greek salad shown on the next page — which features lots of feta cheese, kalamata olives, pepperoncini and a nice-sized scoop of Cappy’s house-made potato salad, with a slightly sweeter house-made dressing — and the small tossed salad with Cappy’s house-made Italian vinaigrette dressing, which is a perfect appetizer-size salad for two.

Cappy’s also adds feta to its non-traditional Caesar salad and although I’m not the biggest fan of spinach salad myself, Cappy’s has a spinach & goat cheese salad with white raisins, shaved almonds and a house-made honey balsamic vinaigrette that got rave reviews from the couple at the next table on our most recent visit.

Pizzas & Calzones

Cappy’s opens every weekday at 11 a.m. (noon on Saturday & Sunday), and offers great lunch prices, like single NY-style cheese slices for $2.50 and $3 if you want one topping. I’m partial to the sausage and premium meatball toppings (see below) at Cappy’s, but there are almost 30 different toppings available, with veggies like artichoke hearts, banana peppers, carmelized onions and jalapeños to meats like anchovies, bacon and ham and premium toppings also are available.

There are also lunch-sized calzones for just $5, which comes with mozzarella, a side of marinara sauce and two fillings of your choice. You can even add extra fillings for just $1 apiece.

There also are lunch combos such as two one-topping slices or a one-filling, lunch-sized calzone and a fountain drink for just $5.99, or add a mini-salad (smaller than a small) of your choice to your $5.99 combo and the price is just $8.50.

You can order small- or large-size NY-style pizzas (with a truly crispy crust) and small-, medium- or large-size Chicago-style pizzas for lunch or dinner (Cappy’s Tampa Palms stays open until 9 p.m. on Sun.-Thur. and until 10 p.m. on Fri. & Sat.) and in addition to the regular toppings, you can add premium toppings like chicken, goat cheese, feta and sun-dried tomato.

NY-style pizzas start at just $9.00 for a small or $11 for a large, up to $14.50 for the small and $18.50 for the large“Cappy” (with sausage, ham, pepperoni, fresh mushrooms, onions and green peppers). Our office gobbled up the large Cappy (we ordered it without sausage).

Chicago-style pizzas cost the same for a small as the NY-style and the medium deep-dish costs the same as the large NY-style. The large Chicago style starts at $14 for just cheese and we ordered sausage and meatball that even if I wasn’t in training for a four-mile kayak race, I probably still couldn’t have finished more than two filling wedges of at a time.

Cappy’s also offers a nice variety of  beers on draft (I love the Peroni and Fat Tire), plus red and white wine and red and white sangria by the glass, as well as wines by the bottle.

Cappy’s Pizzeria is located at 16019 Tampa Palms Blvd. For coupons worth $3 off a $20 purchase and $5 off a $30 purchase, see the ad  on pg. 41 of our last New Tampa issue. For more information, visit CappysTampaPalms.com or call (813) 512-8947.

Cappys Pizzeria Of Tampa Palms Delivers Great Meals

cappys-chicago-3
Looking for delicious, but not too-thick Chicago deep-dish pizza ? Try Cappys Pizzeria in the City Plaza at Tampa Palms shopping center. Other favorite dishes include the large Greek salads, the veggie pizza, the calzones and the small New York-style pepperoni pizza.

Even if I never tell you that Cappys Pizzeria, located in the City Plaza at Tampa Palms shopping center, is my absolute favorite pizzeria in New Tampa or Wesley Chapel, I will say that I have never had a bad meal at this inviting, uniquely decorated little gem.

Cappys Tampa Palms managing partner Harold Hasselback says that even though his pizzeria has never been #1 in either our annual Reader Survey or on my list of favorite pizzerias in the area, he’s proud that the five Cappys locations together have won the “Best of the Bay” title from Creative Loafing’s readers an amazing nine times.

“People always ask us why we don’t do wings or pasta or other Italian specialties, like other pizzerias,” Hasselback told me during my most recent visit. “I tell them that, at Cappys, we’d rather do everything we do the best we can do it and the fact we’ve won so many awards from not only Creative Loafing, but also Tampa magazine tells me we’re doing it right.”

And, that logic is hard to argue, as Cappys is unassumingly always packed for lunch and dinner and offers great craft beers (like Cigar City Brewing’s Jai Alai) on draft, although I still prefer the mass-produced Italian Peroni beer, as well as house red and white wines and six different wines available by the bottle or glass (including a chardonnay, sauvignon blanc, a chianti, pinot noir, merlot and cabernet sauvignon).

Salads & Starters

Whether you choose the Caesar, tossed or Greek salad at Cappys, I assure you that the “small” could feed two people for dinner if they ate nothing else, or at least four people as a normal side dish/starter. The large salads are really family-sized, feeding at least 4-6 (or even 8) people each, depending upon how much other “stuff” each person also plans to eat. 

Our office favorite is definitely the Greek salad shown at the top of this page. It’s got the usual iceberg lettuce, pepperoncinis, onions and black olives, all topped with a zesty, authentic-tasting Greek dressing, feta cheese and enough potato salad for two or more people to enjoy as its own side dish, in addition to your salad course. I did say they were big, right?

I also really love the “small” tossed salad, which is served with a mild Italian (not balsamic) vinaigrette dressing over a variety of mixed greens, including plenty of tasty red cabbage that gives the salad a unique flavor. And, the Caesar dressing and croutons are spot on, too.

Our office also highly recommends Cappys crispy calzones and especially, the cheesebread appetizer and garlicky breadsticks served with a savory marinara sauce for dipping. My personal opinion is that ordering any of the three is overkill if you’re also getting pizza and salad, but Cappy’s cheesebread, breadsticks and calzones are all excellent.

Crust Me!

While it may not be what I remember from when I lived on Long Island or New York City, I do enjoy Cappys thin-crust NY-style pizza, because I love any pizza crust that crunches and even Harold’s too-thick-for-me-but-not-as-thick-as-most-Chicago-deep-dish pizza is crisp enough to cut the roof of your mouth (Note-if the roof of my mouth isn’t both burnt and cut, I probably didn’t enjoy my pizza).

cappys-veggie-pizzaOn our most recent visit, we sampled “The Cappy,” with ham, pepperoni, green peppers, onions, mushrooms and some extremely tasty sweet Italian sausage (other meat and fish pizza toppings include anchovies, tasty meatballs and even grilled chicken).

But, speaking of sausage, I will admit that my favorite deep dish pizza at Cappys is a large with pepperoni and sausage only. You have to eat it with a knife and fork and it still is covered in an outstandingly chunky tomato sauce that I genuinely love, so really, who’s complaining?

I also have friends who highly recommend the “The Veggie” at Cappy’s, which is topped with green peppers, onions, mushrooms, black olives and fresh tomatoes, although I’m not the biggest veggie pizza fan. Vegetarians also can add artichoke hearts, green olives, basil, broccoli, feta cheese, spinach, sun-dried tomatoes and of course, pineapple.

Don’t Miss These Specials!

If you check out the Cappys ad in our most recent New Tampa issue, you’ll find coupons worth $3 off any purchase (dine in or carry out) of $20 or more and $5 off any purchase of $30 or more. The coupons can’t be combined with any other offers, but they save you a little bit of money on what I am confident will be a tasty meal at Cappys, which is perfect for everyone from families with kids to senior citizens.

Cappys Pizzeria (16019 Tampa Palms Blvd.) is open seven days a week for lunch & dinner every day. For more information, visit CappysPizzaOnline.com, or Facebook.com/CappysTampaPalms.

Cappy's Pizza: New Tampa’s Place For NY & Chicago-Style Pizza & More!

*IMG_0377By Gary Nager

If you’re looking for truly authentic thin-crust New York or deep-dish Chicago-style pizza, Cappy’s Pizzeria, located in the City Plaza at Tampa Palms shopping center, may not necessarily be the best place for you. But, that doesn’t mean owner Harold Hasselback’s Cappy’s Pizzeria location (there are five total, including in Seminole Heights, Riverview, St. Petersburg and the original Cappy’s in South Tampa, which moved once; but this is the only location Hasselback owns) doesn’t have delicious pizza and awesome “big salads” (see below), it just means you have to have an open mind about crispy crusts (in both Cappy’s NY and Chicago-style ‘za), delicious red sauce, quality cheese and fresh, delicious meat and veggie toppings that can’t be pigeon-holed into being “just like anything other than Cappy’s style,” Hasselback told me on our office’s recent visit. “Some say our New York style is more Jersey style, but our customers really seem to love it.”Continue reading