In the Kitchen with Alex’s Pizza
Philly’s Alex’s Pizza brings family favorite pies – plus breakfast, milkshakes and smashburgers – to new location on the boards
A mural that welcomes visitors into the new Alex’s Pizza at 1214 Boardwalk captures a bit of the journey the Philly-based pie has made this year. Patrons can see where the shop first took root in the City of Brotherly Love, opening its doors 61 years ago in the Roxborough neighborhood, and how the business has now grown to its second location in Ocean City.
The new shore spot is spearheaded by Dylan Bear, Matt Melady and Richard Ennis, the latter with a fair share of Alex’s Pizza experience under his belt after teaming up with four business partners to buy the Roxborough location from the previous owners in 2023. While not an owner, Dylan has been involved with the original locale the past few years, too. And, having grown up in Roxborough and neighboring towns, the entire OC trio has known the pizza – and its delicious OG saucy
swirl – since childhood. The Ocean City shop is going to be different from its original Roxborough location in a few key ways: more than pizza is on the menu (including breakfast!), patrons can grab a single slice (or two or three) and families are welcome to dine in (or take out). One way it’s not straying from the original? Its high quality pizza recipe perfected more than half a century ago in Roxborough is staying the same. In fact, maintaining quality fare and a quality
experience for their community is a top priority for the new business owners.
“We’re quality and community driven,” Dylan said. To learn more about that quality commitment, what exactly is on the menu and how visitors and locals alike can make Alex’s Pizza a new family favorite, Ocean City Magazine caught up with Dylan just before the shop held its grand opening in May.
Q: What’s Alex’s Pizza’s origin story?
A: Alex’s Pizza was opened in 1961. It’s just a staple in the community. A family
favorite. Always had the swirl pie, which was very unique back in that time. Over the course of the years, it’s changed hands a couple times but that same recipe has survived.
Q: There are a lot of places to grab a slice in OC. What’s the concept behind Alex’s Pizza and what sets you apart from other pizzerias?
A: What sets us apart from different pizza shops is our quality. Just better pizza.
We spent hours and hours and hours refining this pizza that people know and
love, but making it healthier. Unbleached, nonbromated flour, top-of-the-line
ingredients. You can have that pizza that you love but feel better after eating it.
We’ve really taken steps to make it healthier.
What sets us apart too is we’re a thin crust pie. That’s something Alex’s has
always been and we stuck to that. It’s just better pizza.
Q: What made you decide to open a second location in Ocean City? Do you have a connection to the town?
A: Growing up, we all come from humble beginnings. I never had a shore house,
but I was fortunate enough to have a family friend that had a house at 46th and
Asbury in Ocean City. So from a very young age, every August we went down
for my birthday week, and I got to experience everything down there that a
young kid would love.
Alex’s Pizza is so family oriented and so family driven. I’m only 29 – Alex’s has
been open for 35 years longer than I’ve been alive. We talked to some of the
oldtimers that have been there, and why they love Alex’s so much is because it
forced them to eat with their families. Everybody who talks about Alex’s talks
about their family. You got a pie and had to bring it home – you couldn’t eat it
at the pizza shop. I always thought that was so unique. And what better place to
bring such a family oriented tradition than to America’s Greatest Family Resort,
Ocean City?
Q: So, is the Ocean City shop styled like Roxborough?
A: This is going to be totally different. It’s going to be exactly what you would
expect a pizza shop on the Boardwalk to be. We’re going to have dine-in seating,
slices out the front window. We’re going to have breakfast in the morning for
those people who want to get up and get after it. We’ll have milkshakes.
Q: Breakfast, milkshakes – tell us more about your expanded Ocean City menu.
A: We’re going to have breakfast sandwiches on kaiser rolls, coffee, cold brew,
and breakfast burgers. Bean2Bean Coffee Company is a popular coffee shop in
Philadelphia. We’re bringing their coffee in, made fresh.
We’ve gone the milkshake route, too. It’s going to go hand-in-hand with the
smashburgers we’re offering. The smashburgers are perfect to-go sizes for the
Boardwalk. Our shop is designed so you can order at the front window or come
in and sit down. The smashburgers are served in a little sleeve, so it’s a perfect
to-go option, too.
And then our pizzas – we’re going to have your plain pie, your pepperoni pie,
your sausage, your white pizza. We’re going to have a good amount of options
but nothing crazy. We really want to be committed to putting out as many good pizzas as possible. We’re a pizza shop first and foremost. We just want to be good at what we’re known for, and that’s pizza.
Our goal is to have a good menu but don’t get too crazy. If you can keep
it simple, you can keep it really good.
Q: What’s your personal favorite item on the menu?
A: I’m a boring pizza eater. I love a plain slice. Outside of a plain slice, my favorite is sausage and long hots.
Q: If you were going to grab breakfast from the new shop, what are you getting?
A: I’m a bacon egg and cheese with a cold brew – black – on the side.
Q: Are you going to be open year round?
A: We’re going to try to be open as long as we can. Ideally, March to Thanksgiving – just try to stay open as long as we can until we go to weekends. We’re going to strive to be open year round. We’d love to be that shop people have in the winter time.
Q: I know you’re big on supporting the community. Why is that something you want to focus on?
A: What’s really important to me, Rich and Matt is that we’re a community-first group of guys. We want to be involved. We love supporting our first responders. We want to be full time members of the community and really help out where it is needed. Whether it’s local sports teams, the fire department, police department, donating pizzas, things like that – just giving back. When you’re a small business in a community, the people you serve are the people that keep you afloat.
Giving back to them and making sure that they know we appreciate them – there’s nothing more important in business than doing that. You’re nobody without your customers.
By Kristen Dowd