When I was growing up, the best time for pizza was anytime: breakfast, lunch or dinner. I’ve cut out the pizza for breakfast, but lunchtime is always a good time for pizza. That’s what brings us to the Marietta Pizza Company.

This place is quite popular at all times. You can’t get in here on the weekends. It’s not that big inside, but they have a lot of outdoor seating that goes down Powder Springs Street. The place has that pizza smell.

They are not trendy at all. No Neapolitan crusts. No wood-fired grill. Just pizza cooked old-style, because on the Marietta Square, everything is old, especially the buildings and your correspondent. We are here with son Elliott and sister Stacie. We split some salads before the meal.

The salads all have names. The Greek comes with feta, shrooms, onions and peppers. We also get “The Company”.

Lots of olives, mozzarella cheese, lettuce and tomatoes. We hold the peppers and onions because they upset Date Night’s tummy.

But we are not here for the salads. We are here for the pizza. You can get a pizza from the menu or make your own. They need to work on the names of the menu pizzas. They are kind of boring. Examples: “The Vegi”, “The White”, “The Works”, and “The Hawaiian”. I guess they aptly describe what you are ordering, but they could come up with something cuter.

Somehow, we get four people to agree to the same pizza. That’s not easy to do. Behold the Florentine Pizza…

It comes with chicken, spinach, artichoke hearts, and cherry tomatoes. The artichokes make us feel so hip. And it’s an excellent pie. The crust is crispy and nicely browned underneath. Unlike Neapolitan pizza, there’s nothing mushy about this offering.

It’s hard to believe that we have never eaten here before, but now that we are Marietta Square-ziens, we will come back. So many choices, so little room in our rapidly-expanding waistlines.

Rom-Com of the Week

Tonight’s rom-com is “Love Actually”. It’s our newly-minted (two years) New Year’s Eve tradition. We used to watch “Holiday Inn” every year, but now we are branching out.

Look at all the stars you get (in much younger versions) from 2003. Some, like Martin Freeman, weren’t even stars yet and didn’t make the film poster.

There are at least eight plot lines in this movie, but somehow they are all tied up in a bow like a perfectly wrapped Christmas present at the end. As a bonus, there’s an earlier version of “All I Want For Christmas Is You”. You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, and you will enjoy this excellent example of the rom-com genre.