At his corner pizzeria in Fulton, Brian Atkins and his wife serve a genuine pizza reminiscent of ones served in Brooklyn.
"It's a traditional pizza," he said. "When New Yorkers come in and they tell me it tastes just like being home, that's what it's all about."
Atkins and his wife, Karen, are the owners of Brooklyn Pizza, one of the restaurants anchoring the Brick District in Fulton. Their restaurant was recently awarded a certificate of excellence from Trip Advisor, a travel website where people can post reviews on restaurants, attractions and hotels.
Good reviews on Trip Advisor, Atkins said, are essential when managing a restaurant.
"It's for maintaining high ratings on Trip Advisor," he said. "Trip Advisor is important in the business. People google it, and it pops up. If they see good reviews, they come in. Usually people look at online reviews."
His journey to pizza nirvana began on a simple family vacation to Mid-Missouri.
"We spent 16 years in Fort Lauderdale before we came here," he said. "We came to visit my sister who lived in Tebbetts. We had never been out here before, and we thought it'd be a good place to raise our boys."
Although they moved from Florida to the Midwest, Atkins grew up in a heavily Italian area of Brooklyn, New York. Growing up, many of his friend's parents were in the pizza business, he said.
His love of pizza, combined with a career managing restaurants for popular pizza chain Sbarro's, prompted Atkins' wife to encourage him to open his own restaurant, he said.
"When I turned 60, Karen said, 'Why don't you open your own restaurant?'" Atkins said. "I always liked the pizza business in Brooklyn; a lot of my friends grew up in first generation Italian families."
After deciding to open a pizzeria, the perfect location opened up on Court Street in Fulton, Atkins added.
"We found this place on the corner, and thought it'd be a good location," he said. "It kind of reminds us of the pizza places we went to in Brooklyn with the bricks and everything."
The ambience helps his crew serve fresh pizzas to customers each day. Atkins said his pizza is neopolitan, influenced from the original style of pizza created in Italy.
"It's from Naples," he said. "One of the first pizzerias in New York was named Lombardi's. There were a lot of offshoots from there."
Pizza's rise to popularity, Atkins said, was a result of Americans living abroad during times of war.
"What made pizza popular was World War II," he said. "Soldiers went to Italy and tried pizza and loved it. Naples-style pizza is the pizza we eat, that's why it's called Neapolitan."
The commitment to tradition has kept his restaurant's menu simple and focused, said Atkins.
"We're not trying to be what we're not," he added. "We make everything fresh. We're not really an Italian restaurant, we're a pizzeria. We don't have a complex menu; we don't have strange toppings or any of that stuff. We do pizza."
The menu consists of fresh, homemade ingredients, even down to the meatball and sausage, Atkins said.
"The meatballs I make, and the Italian sausages are our recipe," he said. "We also make a meatball pizza that's pretty popular."
The attention to detail and authentic pizzas have won over customers, Atkins said.
"We see people liking it and supporting us," he said. "I love to cook the pizzas and come out to check on people and see how they like it."
The name of the restaurant alone should be enough to get people in the door, Atkins said. He encourages anyone who hasn't tried his authentic pizza to give it a try.
"If I saw a place called Brooklyn Pizza, I'd want to go there," he said. "If you like good pizza, you should give us a try. We actually use real pizza ovens, not conveyor belts."
Atkins also said he has noticed several new restaurants springing up in Fulton. It's something, he hopes, will put the town on the map as a culinary destination.
"Good competition means good business because people come to town," he said. "We all have good restaurants. People will start coming here and realize what's going on."
For now, Atkins said he is just focused on working hard and spreading the word about his authentic pizzas.
"I never say, 'I've made it,'" he said. "You can't just sit back and stop working. I'd love to have a second place. It's not in the works, but it's definitely on my mind."
Brooklyn Pizza wasn't the only Fulton establishment to be recognized by Trip Advisor. The National Churchill Museum on the campus of Westminster College was also awarded a certificate of excellence.
