Pizzerias of the Tower's generation were never much on looks, and the Tower still isn't. There is some forward motion: the Tower is now open for lunch, and accepts credit cards.

Only the Tower survives, and only in its second location on Veterans Blvd., which has been there since 1971. The original Tower Of Pizza opened in 1970 on Downman Road in New Orleans East, and grew out of a loosely-allied group of similarly utilitarian pizzerias, including Sandy's in Arabi and Artista on Franklin Avenue. The spaghetti is the mountain of white pasta with a big splash of red sauce on top, and to be avoided. The salads are enormous and very good for biding the time while you wait for the made-from-scratch pizza. Despite that, the flavors hold together here, and the product remains respectable. Add more stuff, and the crust begins to get flaccid. Add pepperoni or sausage and it gets a bit oily. Even a cheese pizza here slightly overloads the crust. Thin crust, hand-tossed, baked in the old-style Blodgett ovens, with lots of a somewhat sweet sauce. The pizza is exactly as it was when I was a regular customer of the Downman parlor in college.

Which is to say that it's highly Americanized, but not mechanized the way most pizzerias have become. The Tower really does serve the kind of food that the city's first pizzerias did back in the 1950s. One of the neon signs in the windows beams the charmingly retro expression 'Pizza Pie,' the other 'Spaghetti.' This is no affectation. You know something about this place before you even step inside. Metairie 2: Orleans Line To Houma Blvd: 2104 Veterans Blvd.

Tower of pizza, metairie