Frank's Pizzeria

Frank's Specialty White Pizza skips tomato sauce altogether: olive oil and fresh garlic under mozzarella, parmesan, and Romano, then four add-ons chosen from a list that runs to artichokes, sundried tomatoes, roasted peppers, feta, and roasted vegetables. It comes in every size, tray included, and stands vegetarian as built. It is the newer arrival on the board and the clearest house-specific move on a menu that otherwise covers the full range of a Niagara Falls pizzeria — pizza by the size, hot and cold submarines, jumbo wings, lasagna, salads, and a short run of sides.

The pizza itself rewards reading past the cheese-and-sauce baseline. Builds climb by the topping — one item, two, three, on up to a deluxe — from a suggested list broad enough to keep regulars experimenting. Sweet and Spicy lays spicy pepperoni across thin crust and finishes it with a drizzle of honey. The Pepperoni and Works carries the classic load, while the White Vegetarian swaps in cheddar with broccoli or spinach and a run of optional vegetables: mushrooms, olives, onions, peppers, pineapple, tomato, fresh garlic. A cup-char American-style pepperoni, the newest thing on the board, curls and crisps at the edges for anyone chasing the char. Sizes run from a four-slice mini through small and large to a twenty-four-slice party tray, the line that exists for a crowd.

Away from the oven, the Steak Sub Deluxe is the one to know: steak with cheese, lettuce, tomato, onions, mushrooms, and sweet peppers, the dressed-up version of a hot-sub roster that also runs to hot Italian sausage, meatball, veal, white chicken breast, and back bacon, with deluxe cold cuts and dressing on the cold side. Jumbo chicken wings come mild through extra hot, with honey garlic and Cajun in the mix, served the standard way with celery and blue cheese. Homemade lasagna shows up with two meatballs, bread, and butter. Lukey Fries bury golden fries under mozzarella and a chilli meat sauce; a Greek salad heavy with feta and oregano, a Caesar, garlic bread, and poutine fill out the rest.

Put together, the menu describes a kitchen built to get food out the door. Frank's takes orders ahead by phone and delivers across the old town, and the spread is priced to feed a household without strain — a party tray, a couple of subs, and an order of wings will cover a weeknight or a kid's birthday for not much money. The headline cuisine reads Italian, with a Greek and Mediterranean streak that surfaces in the feta, the oregano, and the salad, but the working identity is broader still: pizza and subs at the centre, wings and sides around them, a single tray sliced into twenty-four pieces when the order has to feed a houseful. Gluten-free crust is available on request for anyone who needs it.

The address is the other half of the story. Frank's has worked a Bridge Street storefront in the older part of Niagara Falls, the Queen Street District, since 1971 — a few blocks back from the tourist strip and the falls, on the side of town where people live rather than visit. That distance is the point. This is the number a local dials when the question is dinner and not sightseeing, a counter that has kept the same name and the same job across the decades while the menu shifted about as slowly as the street around it; the cup-char pepperoni is roughly as new as anything gets. On a given night the order writes itself — a tray of pizza built up to the deluxe, a couple of subs, a box of wings with celery and blue cheese, and a delivery run out into the old-town streets.