Pizzeria GM

Pizzeria GM operates out of West Homewood, Alabama, on Oak Grove Road, bringing a New York-rooted pizza tradition to a corner of the city known more for Southern cooking than East Coast pies. The restaurant’s founder grew up in the Bronx during the 1960s and 70s, in a neighborhood he describes as rough and gritty but full of culture and life, where pizza joints and street art were equally common cultural touchstones, and traces the family’s culinary roots further back to Naples, Italy, where his father was born before eventually emigrating to New York and opening his own restaurant, Rocco’s.

At Rocco’s, the founder and his brother worked alongside their father, absorbing what the family describes as a commitment to community, customer service, and food quality that would eventually travel south to Alabama. That family continued the tradition by opening Gianmarco’s in Edgewood before bringing Pizzeria GM to West Homewood, with both restaurants built around the idea of a neighborhood gathering place rooted in history, culture, music, food quality, and service.

The menu spans small plates, salads, sandwiches, pizza, and pasta, giving diners options well beyond a simple slice. Small plates run from $8 to $24 and include a $14 meatball appetizer, $18 calamari and shishito peppers, and $18 beef carpaccio, while salads priced between $12 and $18 include a Caesar, a chopped antipasti, and a pecan-crusted fried goat cheese option. Sandwiches are priced at $18 across the board, with choices including a meatball sub, fried chicken sandwich, Arthur Ave hero, New York Reuben, and heirloom tomato BLT.

Pizza remains the restaurant’s centerpiece, priced at $21 for a full pie or $16 plus $2.50 per topping for a build-your-own, and covering a range from a straightforward Margherita to more involved specialty pies like the Calabrese, a porchetta-topped pie, and a signature pie the restaurant calls the Caserta GM. Pasta dishes, priced from $18 to $20, include a lasagna Bolognese and a spicy rigatoni vodka alongside spaghetti and meatballs, pappardelle Bolognese, and manicotti. Dessert closes out the menu with cheesecake, tiramisu, cannoli, and gelato priced between $4 and $10, giving the restaurant a full Italian-American dining arc from appetizer to dessert.

The restaurant describes pizza and graffiti as both old school art forms, expressions of creativity, a framing that captures the sensibility behind the menu and the restaurant’s overall identity. That old-school approach shows up in details throughout the space, from the seasonal menu changes to the family’s stated commitment to preserving the history and culture behind the food rather than treating pizza as a purely commercial product.

Pizzeria GM sits within the same broader family of restaurants as Gianmarco’s, giving the Oak Grove Road location a built-in connection to one of the neighborhood’s more established Italian dining names. That family history, stretching from Naples to the Bronx to West Homewood, gives Pizzeria GM a depth of culinary background not every neighborhood pizzeria can claim, and it shows up in a menu built with more care, and more range, than the format usually allows.

The small plates list alone runs deeper than most neighborhood pizzerias attempt, with an 8-ounce prime coulotte at $24, wagyu beef pigs in a blanket at $16, hot Gulf crab and spinach dip at $20, roasted shrimp at $21, fried mozzarella squash blossoms at $18, and a simpler bucket of fries at $8 for the table. The pizza list stretches beyond the Margherita and Calabrese to include a pimento cheese pie, an Italian sausage pie, a meatlovers calzone, a prosciutto pizza, a BBQ chicken pizza, and even a birria-topped pie, while the pasta menu adds fiocchi and tequila penne to the lasagna and rigatoni vodka already on offer. Coffee, espresso, iced tea, and soft drinks round out the beverage list at $3 to $4, giving the restaurant a full range from a quick espresso to a multi-course Italian dinner.