Most of the pizzerias in Sarasota and Manatee counties serve the type of thin-crust pies that originated in New York City’s Little Italy in the early 1900s. But not all of them. A person notable exception, which I included in my ideal pizza spots tale that ran in February, is Demetrios’ Pizza Property in Bradenton. 

Located on Cortez Street West due to the fact opening 46 several years in the past, Demetrios’ is renowned for its soft-crust pan pizzas, which are positioned in one particular-inch-deep pans and baked in 1 of the restaurant’s six gasoline ovens. Greek immigrants Dimitrios “Jimmy” Sokos and spouse, Helen, joined by his sister-in-law Paula Ludera, worked in New York City eating places before relocating to Bradenton and adopting a alternatively one of a kind tactic to pizza generating.

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Demetrios' Pizza House on Cortez Road in Bradenton.

“Our pizza considering that day just one has been a combination of different varieties of pizza,” said Gus Sokos, the son of Jimmy Sokos and longtime co-proprietor of Demetrios’ with his aunt, Ludera. “You hear of Sicilian, Chicago and New York pizza and we’re a combo of all of them. In the 1970s, there wasn’t significantly in Florida. There have been a few pizza locations in city: us, Pizza Hut and one more family members-owned palace named Mario’s. We ended up the only pizza areas in city and our combination of all the distinct models was the key, which is what made us a strike.”