Fortel’s Pizza Den

Right by my dad’s store and I always order their pizza. Always great and never disappoints.

Best pizza in the world! The toppings are spread generously from edge-​to-​edge. Bob Fortel was a very nice man. God rest his soul.

The best pizza in west county. Reminds me of the original Godfathers when I was a kid. Great service. Family owned. Dine in, carry out, or delivery. The best!

Very overpriced pizza. The Pizza isn’t bad by any means but not something I’d purposely come back for. Just mediocre.

I officially became a fan of Fortel’s after I ate here three times in ONE week. That’s right, me, who hardly ever eats pizza, was craving this place THREE times. Being from New York, I prefer thin crust over deep dish. However, when I came here and tried «St. Louis» style pizza aka imos, I was shocked. I mean, I’m really fine with the mozzarella cheese. But imos tasted like old mozz cheese on a soggy cracker. That’s why I was so skeptical about trying this place. BUT…
As far as thin crust (aka STyLe pizza – get what I did there?) goes, this place is legit. All of their ingredients taste so fresh, and they are abundant with their toppings, even with the prized ones like BACON. For example, when I picked up a slice, it started to bend because it was so loaded with toppings. I eat it as soon as I get it so that the crust is nice and crispy. Sauce is nice and tangy and the place smells like one of those old pizza parlors-​wish they made this scent in a cologne YUM. They always seem to have a groupon going on so be on the lookout! Some Unilocalers said their sizing is small – I wouldn’t know since I always get their family size which is HUGE.

The specialty pizzas are loaded. The Shannon’s deluxe is great. My only negative is that it is a bit expensive.

Wanted to try a new place for lunch today and found this place on Unilocal and figured would give it a try. Got there around 2:15pm and it was absolutely dead. My two companions and I were the only ones there. There were two employees in the front of the building. Neither of which greeted us when we arrived. We sat and reviewed the menu.
Having never been there before, we were unaware that you have to go up to the counter and order. There is no signage pointing this fact out and the chick at the counter didn’t offer the advice till after about 20 minutes.
Ordered two lunch specials with the 9″ pizzas and one of the 10″ Cornbread’s Mojo Pie. Food came out slowly considering we were the only people in the place. Food was okay, nothing super impressive. Salad was fresh and pizza was hot and not too greasy.
Overall not too impressive and not really worth the price.

Continuing our search for pizza that meets our taste preferences, we went back to Fortel’s, having been away for many years. We recalled it as being okay and decided it was worth a try again. The best thing of the night was that the beer was very cold and the heavy mugs were also very cold so that we ended up with a little slush on top of the beer when first poured. Fortel’s is a good place for families with kids. It is busy and does a lot of carryout business.
The pizza has a fairly thin crust that is crisp and crunchy. They offer five sauce choices but really why would you want barbecue sauce or gravy on your pizza. Bob’s one-​of-​a-​kind red homemade red sauce is St Louis sweet, way too sweet for us. You may like it this way. It is claimed to be unique, be we found it to be just another excessively sweet sauce that seems to be prevalent around here.
They are generous with most of the toppings. We ordered our usual Italian sausage, green olives and fresh mushrooms. It came out literally covered with olives and mushrooms. I ate three squares before I noticed that I did not taste Italian sausage. I actually thought it was AWOL, but it was there albeit in very small quantity. I pulled off a lump or two and ate them and found them to be very weakly seasoned. In general the quality of the toppings is low end. We like the salt and vinegar added by green or calamata olives. These green olives added little flavor even though there were more there than I would add if making it myself.
Finally the cheese. At least it was mozzarella. They even make a point of this on the front of their menu. However, again, the cheese industry is letting us down. This mozzarella was not the buttery, rubbery stuff that we look for. There was not a lot present and it had about the consistency of a process cheese and lacked salt. It would have been helped by having it bubbly and browned a little. It is just melted and not flavorful. It was much like the bad mozzarella that Domino’s uses.
We will keep looking, but not at Fortel’s.

My sister recommended Fortel’s Pizza on a recent trip to St. Louis. We were glad they serve thin crust pizza. When I ordered our pizza they asked if we wanted canned or fresh mushrooms. Who prefers canned anything? We also ordered the appetizer combo for $ 8.99 which was quite disappointing. Everything seemed to come from frozen, nothing home-​made. At least make your own onion rings Fortels, that’s a mark of a decent pizza place. You order at the counter and take a number to deliver it your table. The dinning room in this location feels like your eating in a long hallway. There was some sort of game room in the back where it appeared to be hosting a kid’s birthday party. Certainly not the best pizza I’ve ever had, but decent. Perhaps the other locations have a little more ambiance as it could use some.

Excellent pizza

So here we go. I’m going to write a good review of a St. Louis style pizza. Let me back up a little bit. I moved to St. Louis almost two years ago from Chicago (my home town). I lived in other places briefly over the years but always ended up back in Chicago. This past move may have become somewhat permanent (at least in the near future) and I have been trying to find a good place to get pizza ever since I moved here. My wife likes a local place called «Imo’s» which I will not get into as this is not pizza. Of the other places I’ve tried the only one I can find that is indeed a good pie is «Pi» Pizza, but deep dish pizza is a rarity in my diet, even when I lived in Chicago I would eat it like twice a year.
Last week we got take out from Fortel’s in Ballwin. I had been reading reviews and this was absolutely the last place to try. This was it. I was considering buying a pizza oven before I went here.
Anyway, we got Bob’s Deluxe which was loaded with toppings. The crust, was indeed, CRUST! It was crisp and had flavor. The cheese was not oily goop (like another pizza mentioned in the article), it was regular mozzarella of substantial quality. Sauce was the biggest surprise– something wonderful here. It was excellent… some of the best I’ve had. Toppings were fresh, bountiful, and of notable quality.
I’ve finally found a pizza worth eating in St. Louis!

Good quality pizza, although too much meat for me, I would order here again though. Had a 14″? size half pineapple, half bacon, all green pepper (one half for my vegetarian daughter, one half for me).

Been a few times. They’ve got lots of appetizers (including beer-​battered mushrooms, cheese sticks, toasted rav, meatballs, olivenos, fried eggplant, onion rings, chicken fries, fiery fingers, chicken tenders, beer-​battered fries and jalapeño bites), salads, sandwiches, pasta. .. and, well, PIZZA! Dessert pizzas, too!
Lunch specials include 9-​inch pizza, toasted rav and spaghetti.
They’ve got seven sauces and 29 toppings to build your own pizza, and there are specialty pizzas named after. .. I guess the Fortel family members.
Ate-​in once. Other times, carryouts. Quite fine, tasty pizza — four sizes (16-​inch family, 14-​inch large, 12-​inch medium, 10-​inch small). The sizing seems a little on the small side.
Usually get a split pie with my less adventurous son. He gets either cheese, double cheese, or cheese and pepperoni. He declares it good! I get Shannon’s Deluxe (sausage, Canadian bacon, mushroom and onion) or just make up my own of sausage, hamburger, black olives and onion.
First time there, got an appetizer and a beer while waiting for the carryout pie.
The cheese they use is a Mozzarella blend.
And they’ve got a birthday club you can sign up for online.

One of the three best pizza places in St. Louis, serving a huge variety of pizza and some very cool specialities. We love the Mexican pizza, complete with a layer of Doritos on the top. No Provel cheese here, this is real pizza and every kind we’ve tried is tremendous. I’ve just recently seen coupons for them in various direct mail pieces, and that is a new development. Fortel’s is worth every cent, but is not cheap pizza. Overall, highly recommended!