A Visit to the Big Apple

A Visit to the Big Apple

One of my favorite pizza places in Jerusalem is Big Apple Pizza. It’s a franchise, and Jerusalem has three stores: two downtown and one in a new shopping center near where I work. Tel Aviv and Eilat have one franchise each, too, but I haven’t sampled them yet.

Each franchise in Jerusalem has memorabilia from New York City and from the rest of the US. One of the downtown stores even has a mural of the New York City skyline.

Of course, my favorite part of Big Apple Pizza is the pizza. It’s delicious, and I highly recommend it. While I’m at it, there’s something else about Big Apple that I like: the music.

Each franchise of Big Apple pizza plays the sort of music I grew up with. One branch even has tapes of radio broadcasts from popular rock-music radio stations in the greater New York area. (Imagine sitting in downtown Jerusalem and hearing what’s being played on Long Island—without benefit of laptop!) The branch I walked into yesterday was playing “Black Dog” from Led Zeppelin IV. And yes, nostalgia sells ... even for one who wasn’t much into rock as a teenager.

But besides the excellent pizza and the music from my youth, what really sold me on this new Big Apple Pizza franchise was its collection of license plates. The other Jerusalem franchises have collections, too, but this one takes the cake ... I mean, the pie. When I was a child traveling with my family, I used to enjoy looking out our car window and seeing license plates from different states, sometimes even from different countries. Now, you can get all the license plates you want from eBay. That’s what Roni, the franchise owner, did.

For anyone who is into license plates, here’s a bunch for your delectation. I’d include a slice of pizza, too, but I haven’t figured out how to upload one yet.