PJ’s has pizza: A menu refresh for the Princeton classic

The rich, nostalgic smell of syrupy pancakes, buttery eggs, and salty homefries wafts onto Nassau Street. It’s 11 a.m., and a line has already formed out the door of the Princeton staple PJ’s Pancake House. Over the past month, new signs surrounding the establishment have read: “We’re not just breakfast anymore!” and “Now Serving: Artisanal Brick Oven Pizza.” The town classic is now moving beyond just breakfast, breaking into a wider range of menu items.

As stated on their website, PJ’s Pancake House has been around for a whopping 62 years and is best known for its breakfast and brunch options, including over 20 different mainstay pancake varieties, as well as a rotating special. Since 2011, when ownership shifted, the menu has turned to include more lunch options, and has expanded to include vegan, vegetarian, and gluten-free options to accommodate evolving dietary preferences and needs. The only meal they’re not commonly associated with is dinner — which the restaurant now hopes to change.

Pizza is now fresh on PJ’s menu. PJ’s co-owner John Procaccini shared details on why he thinks the restaurant’s pizza stands out.

“My recipes, and our sauce, and our cheese, and our oil, all that stuff is imported directly from Italy, and the flavor is just completely different,” Prococcini told The Daily Princetonian.

Prococcini also shared that PJ’s uses double zero flour for their homemade pizza dough, which is an extremely refined type of flour that creates a soft, slightly stretchy, and outwardly crispy crust and is seen as the gold standard for pizza dough. The sauce is also made in-house, using San Marzano tomatoes imported from California with the remaining sauce ingredients being imported from Italy.

Despite having a casual diner vibe, PJ’s takes their pizza very seriously. Along with the quality ingredients, Prococcini told the ‘Prince’ that PJ’s spent weeks installing a brand-new brick oven, which is used exclusively for the pizza.

But why, out of all dinner foods, choose pizza for the menu?

According to Procaccini, there’s a “lack of quality pizza in town… where students could actually access or walk to easily” — something that could be contested, despite the recent closure of Proof Pizza.

Procaccini clarified that he’s “not saying [the other options are] not good, just… they’re different” when compared to PJ’s “artisanal” recipes. Coming from an Italian-American family closely connected to their European culture, Procaccini shared that as a kid, he “never went to the pizza shop” because his mother could always “make it better.” At PJ’s, he wants to continue using the family recipes he learned from her.

For now, the pizza is only available after 4 p.m. at the Nassau Street location in order to boost dinner sales specifically. At the other locations, a full bar helps attract evening customers, which the Nassau location lacks. According to Procaccini, pizza sales have doubled for PJ’s each week as more and more people learn about it. Most of the sales have been from sit-in customers, with only a few calls for takeout pizza, which Procaccini hopes to change as word continues to spread and dinner sales increase.

“All my life,” Procaccini said, “[I’ve] been trained to understand [pizza].” With their new brick oven and old family recipes, PJ’s offers something fresh in their well-known, homey environment.

Lulu Pettit is a member of the Class of 2027 and a staff writer for The Prospect from the suburbs of Philadelphia. She can be reached at lp3153[at]princeton.edu or via her Instagram [at]itslulupettit.