A Review by D&D Diners
We were happy, and how can you not be at Happy Joe’s Pizza and Ice Cream?! At the entrance, the mural on the wall, a tribute to their founder, Iowa’s Joe Whitty, and to the connection to Oro Valley, is a fun little history lesson with help from the Oro Valley Historical Society. The staff is cheerful and welcoming, and seating is comfortable and well-designed. Patrons can dine in the main room or in the bar near the entrance, which serves generous, well-made cocktails, beer, and wine.
The restaurant is definitely geared toward families, with its game room (the door can be closed to keep noise levels manageable), a train riding along tracks around the ceiling, and even a room where patrons can practice their golf swings while enjoying menu items.
Happy Joe’s Pizza & Ice Cream. Marketplace, Oro Valley, AZ
Our meal started with Pretzel Bites, served with two sauces to choose from. The queso and garlic herb butter were the best accompaniments to these perfect Midwest-style appetizers and left plenty of room for the main entrée – for us, it was pizza, of course! And what a menu to choose from – thank heavens we brought our appetites. Naturally, we had to try the famous Taco Joe’s Pizza, something Joe invented the same year Oro Valley became a town. We also ordered the Happy Joe’s Special and the Texas Smoked Barbecue Brisket Pizza. It’s a good thing their sizes are small, medium, and large. We had to try the three that seemed most intriguing. The Taco Joe’s Pizza fits in with Tucson’s Hispanic flavoring, made with the restaurant’s special refried bean sauce, taco-seasoned beef and sausage, and topped with lettuce, tomatoes, provolone and cheddar cheese blend, and taco chips – Joe Whitty’s take on a Tucson favorite dish.
And then our taste buds were introduced to a Midwestern-style pizza: Happy Joe’s Special Pizza, with the restaurant’s own pizza sauce, mozzarella, provolone, and cheddar cheese blend, Canadian bacon, and sauerkraut. Sauerkraut on a pizza? Don’t knock it until you try it – a unique flavor we could enjoy during Oktoberfest!
Our third entrée was the Texas Smoked Barbecue Pizza with the restaurant’s own barbecue sauce, mozzarella cheese, a blend of provolone and cheddar, smoked brisket, pickles, onions, and more barbecue sauce. The meat was plentiful, and the barbecue sauce had that incredible tang you expect in a southwestern dish.
Now the name of the restaurant is Happy Joe’s Pizza and Ice Cream, so we had to finish our meal with the last part of the name. The ice cream counter greets you as you enter the restaurant, reminding you to leave room for dessert. It was difficult, but we managed to enjoy a dish of ice cream, happily prepared by one of the fun staff members. Of course, we added some of their plentiful toppings, rounding out an enjoyable evening at Happy Joe’s. We could also have had a cone, an oversized sundae, a float, or a milkshake. Ice cream gets many uses at Happy Joe’s.
Amazingly enough, if pizza isn’t your thing, you have a wealth of other menu items to choose from – pasta, wings, salads, flatbreads, and sandwiches. They even serve a Sunday morning breakfast buffet that includes omelets, cinnamon rolls, burritos, sausage, scrambled eggs, and, yes, breakfast pizzas.
It is said that Joe Whitty sought out and engaged the child in all of us, and that was so evident the night we were at Happy Joe’s – families, neighbors, dates, and good friends, enjoying the evening and arguably kids’ favorite food!
