Boylan Heights and Lilly’s Pizza – Raleigh

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We had some time before the storm blew in on Saturday. I had planned to go down to the Warehouse District and check out some of the shops. As I was reading about it, I learned that there was an historic neighborhood just west of there. After some Trulia, Realtor.com, and Zillow checking, I altered my thoughts about what I wanted to do. Joy was game, so we loaded the dog in the Subaru and headed into town. The first part of the neighborhood was nice, but didn’t really make us feel safe. As we got more deeply into Boylan Heights, we found several nice streets. It isn’t as upscale as Cameron Park or the neighborhoods surrounding Five Points, but was quite charming. The predominate architecture was Arts & Crafts/Craftsman bungalows. Neighborhoods like this are to me like candy to a baby.

One of the things I miss most about California is the ubiquitous bungalow architecture, but if one knows where to look there are many equally fine Raleigh neighborhoods. Hope you enjoy these pictures we took.

After walking the Americana streets of Boylan Heights, I started to feel hints of hunger.  I had read that the service at Lilly’s wasn’t the fastest so we headed that direction.  Lilly’s is reputed to be the best pizza in Raleigh.  We arrived about 11:30am and there was only a short line.  When we reached the front of the line we ordered the Super Duper medium.  Although Lilly’s offers Vegan pizzas, we went for the full on carnivore’s special.  Their drinks have free refills and he sold us two for the price of one.  On our way to our table, we snagged some paper plates, napkins and metal utensils.  Our table was by the front window.  Beside us was an old refrigerator (the kind with the coils on top) in which were free newspaper flyers.  The outdoor tables were wet from the sprinkles which had already started.

When our pepperoni-sausage-bacon-and-more pizza arrived, it looked and smelled a thing of beauty.  I really don’t know whether to rave more about the seasoning of the sauce, the crust, or the toppings.  Every aspect of this pizza was the best.  Not since buying Greek pizza in Ipswich, Mass have I tasted anything close to this pizza.  Lilly’s may not make the best pizza in the world, but they make the best pizza in my world.  A medium was way to big for two people our age to eat, so we took home three extra slices. By the time we left the line was nearly to the door.

I started thinking I had overhyped in my mind how good this pizza was.  We had the leftovers on Sunday and I was again floored by the fantastic flavor.  The thickest part of the crust was a little too chewy when eaten cold, though.  I’ll try to do a better job of eating the whole thing fresh next time.

We beat the storm home thinking that we had avoided walking in the rain.  We didn’t realize that over 80 tornadoes would whip through our area killing 24 and leaving many hospitalized (not mention the property damage).  Our home and camp are fine, as are we, but our prayers are with the many families for whom the day brought more trouble than our brief power outage.  A huge tree was blown over onto the original farmhouse at the entrance to our development, but otherwise we just had some cleaning up to do.

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