Crust & Co. in Jermyn, PA: A Newer NEPA Pizzeria With a Vodka Margherita Worth Traveling For

I walked in, ordered, paid the bill, and reviewed the pizza like every other customer. No heads-up. No comps.

Crust & Co. is one of the newer additions to the NEPA pizza scene, and because the word really hasn’t gotten out about this place yet, I went in without a lot of preconceived notions about what I was going to find.

What I found was a small, unassuming pizzeria turning out some seriously thoughtful pizza — including a Vodka Margherita that immediately gave me a reason to come back.

A Small Shop With an Open Kitchen

Crust & Co. is a small operation. There are just a couple of tables in the front dining area, so I’d characterize it primarily as a takeout-oriented pizzeria where you can certainly sit down if you’d like. Parking is on-street.

The front dining area was dimly lit during my visit. The kitchen in the back, on the other hand, was bright and completely open to view.

I always appreciate an open kitchen. I love watching the craftsmanship — dough being handled, pizzas being assembled, everything coming together before it hits the oven. But an open kitchen also gives you a pretty good look at the environment where your food is being prepared. What I saw at Crust & Co. was a clean, organized food-preparation area and a small staff working hard.

That openness fit the personality of the place. This isn’t a big, elaborate restaurant. It’s a small neighborhood pizza shop where the focus is clearly on the food.

Bringing Some Jersey Pizza Influence to NEPA

The owner of Crust & Co. is an experienced, longtime pizzeria owner who originally comes from New Jersey, and I think that background is important in understanding the pizza he’s making here.

He’s bringing some of those New Jersey and New York pizza influences with him to Northeastern Pennsylvania. We’re not talking specifically about a Trenton tomato pie or another narrowly defined New Jersey regional style. Instead, I saw that Jersey influence in the ingredients, execution, and overall character of the pizza.

There are plenty of New York-style pizzas out there that can start to blend together. Crust & Co.’s pizza struck me as being a little more premium and distinctive than the commodity New York-style you can find almost anywhere. There’s character in the dough. There’s thought in the sauce. The cheese is quality. And there are some more creative specialty pizzas that give the place an identity of its own.

I tried two pizzas during this visit: a New York-style pizza with half cup-and-char pepperoni and the Vodka Margherita. They gave me two very different looks at what Crust & Co. is doing.

New York-Style Pizza With Cup-and-Char Pepperoni

The Pizza Prince was with me for this review, and naturally he wanted pepperoni. He’s generally a plain cheese or pepperoni guy, so ordering the New York-style with cup-and-char pepperoni on half gave us a good baseline for evaluating the shop.

The crust was the first thing that stood out. There was quite a bit of flavor and character in the dough, particularly around the cornicione — the outer ring. It had a really satisfying combination of crispness, lightness, and airiness around the edge. As you worked toward the center, the characteristics changed. The pizza became a little chewier and more foldable, while the bottom maintained a light crispness.

I really enjoyed that contrast. This wasn’t a cracker-crisp pizza from edge to edge, and it wasn’t a soft, floppy slice either. The outer crust had that airy crispness and character; the center had enough flexibility and chew to make it a very satisfying New York-style slice.

The sauce had plenty of personality. My palate told me these were likely California tomatoes — very low acidity with plenty of natural tomato flavor. The sauce was seasoned well without covering up the character of the tomatoes themselves. That’s an important distinction. You can season a pizza sauce so aggressively that all you’re tasting is what’s been added to the tomato. Here, I could still taste the natural tomato flavor while the seasoning gave the sauce its own identity.

The cheese appeared to be a good-quality mozzarella. I don’t know the specific brand being used, so I won’t speculate, but from a flavor and performance standpoint it tasted like a quality product. The mozzarella had a mostly neutral profile with perhaps just a touch of saltiness, and it worked with the sauce and dough rather than dominating either.

Add in those little cups of pepperoni and you’ve got a really well-executed New York-style pizza. Familiar enough that anyone looking for a traditional NY slice should be comfortable ordering it, but with enough going on in the crust, sauce, and ingredients to separate it from the more generic versions of the style.

The Vodka Margherita Was the Star

As much as I enjoyed the New York-style pizza, the Vodka Margherita was the pizza that really grabbed my attention.

This is essentially a play on a Margherita, except instead of traditional tomato sauce, Crust & Co. uses vodka sauce. And this vodka sauce was outstanding.

Vodka sauce is generally a creamy blush-style sauce combining tomatoes and cream, and what I liked about this particular version was that it remained tomato-forward. The creaminess was certainly there, but it didn’t bury the tomato flavor.

I also picked up what tasted to me like pancetta or some other type of cured meat in the sauce. Whatever was providing that flavor brought a savory, meaty, and slightly smoky dimension that gave the sauce even more depth. It was rich without becoming one-dimensional.

One of the technical details I noticed: the vodka sauce was applied to the pizza before it went into the oven.

That caught my attention. Cream-based sauces can be tricky when subjected to the intense heat of a pizza oven. Depending on the ingredients — and particularly the quality and milk-fat content of the cream — a vodka sauce can break down under heat and leave you with undesirable flavors or even an acrid, sour quality.

None of that happened here. The sauce maintained its richness and creamy texture while still delivering that vibrant tomato flavor. It came through the bake beautifully. I’d describe the finished vodka sauce as delectable.

Then you have fresh mozzarella along with a generous application of grated Pecorino Romano, Parmesan, or a similar hard Italian cheese bringing another salty, savory layer to the pizza.

Put everything together — the flavorful crust, tomato-forward creamy vodka sauce, smoky and meaty undertones, fresh mozzarella, and grated cheese — and this thing was a flavor bomb. Indulgent. Savory. Creamy. Cheesy. But with enough tomato flavor cutting through everything to keep it from tasting heavy.

This was an instant hit for me. The owner told me the Vodka Margherita is one of his best-sellers, and after eating it, I understand exactly why.

The Pizza Prince Gives the Vodka Margherita His Approval

Maybe the biggest endorsement of the Vodka Margherita didn’t come from me. It came from my son.

Remember, the Pizza Prince was the reason we ordered the pepperoni in the first place. He’s typically a plain cheese or pepperoni pizza guy. I wasn’t necessarily expecting the more complex Vodka Margherita to be his favorite.

But he loved it.

In fact, after we finished eating and got into the car, he asked me if he could have another slice of the vodka pizza for the ride home.

That told me quite a bit. This pizza has enough complexity for an adult pizza nerd like me to sit there analyzing the sauce, dough, cheese, and cooking characteristics — but it’s approachable enough that a kid who usually sticks with cheese and pepperoni wants another slice.

That’s a pretty good combination.

One More Pizza I Need to Try

There’s another popular Crust & Co. pizza I didn’t get to try on this visit, but it’s already on the list for next time: a white New York-style pizza with cup-and-char pepperoni, ricotta, and hot honey.

Pepperoni, ricotta, and hot honey on a white pizza sounds like a combination that should deliver salty, creamy, spicy, and sweet flavors all at once. After tasting what Crust & Co. did with the Vodka Margherita, I’m particularly interested in seeing how that one comes together.

Friendly Service in a Small Neighborhood Shop

The food wasn’t the only thing that stood out.

The owner made us feel like family from the moment we walked through the door. The entire staff was friendly and respectful. It’s a small crew working in a small shop, and I got the impression that everyone was hustling and genuinely trying to earn your business.

There was no sense of going through the motions. Between the owner talking pizza with us, the staff working in the open kitchen, and the hospitality we received, it felt like a neighborhood pizza shop that wants people to come in, enjoy the food, and come back.

Pizzaiolo’s Notes 🍕

  • A great crust does not have to have the same texture from edge to center. Crust & Co.’s NY-style pie deliberately transitions from airy-and-crisp cornicione to chewy-and-foldable center to lightly-crisp bottom — three distinct experiences in one slice.
  • Applying vodka sauce before the bake is a technical bet the kitchen has to earn. Cream can break down under pizza-oven heat. That Crust & Co.’s doesn’t tells you they’ve dialed in the sauce formulation and the bake time.
  • The pancetta-tinged savory depth in the vodka sauce is what separates a great vodka pizza from a generic one. That extra dimension is the whole ballgame.
  • Ingredient quality is showing up everywhere on this menu — dough character, low-acid tomato sauce, quality mozzarella, and the hard-cheese finish on the Vodka Margherita all reflect a Jersey-influenced sourcing philosophy the region can benefit from.

Final Thoughts on Crust & Co.

For a newer pizzeria that hasn’t had a huge public rollout yet, Crust & Co. is putting out pizza that’s worth knowing about.

The New York-style provided a strong baseline — flavorful dough, airy and lightly crisp cornicione, chewy foldable center, low-acid tomato sauce, quality mozzarella, and cup-and-char pepperoni. It’s a very good NY-style with some Jersey influence and enough attention to ingredients and execution to distinguish itself from the crowd.

But the Vodka Margherita is the pizza that would make me travel.

That’s the distinction I’d make between the two. I’d happily eat the NY-style pie again. But when I’m thinking about a pizza that gives me a specific reason to make a longer drive — the Vodka Margherita is that pizza. I’d travel an hour for it.

More importantly, it gave Crust & Co. an identity in my mind. There are a lot of places to get a New York-style pizza. It’s much harder to create a pie where someone leaves saying, “That’s the one I need to go back for.”

For me, at Crust & Co., that’s the Vodka Margherita — which locked in at a 8.3 Overall on the scorecard, one of the highest scores I’ve handed out this year. And apparently the Pizza Prince agrees.

What I’d Order Next Time

  • The Vodka Margherita — again, no question.
  • The white NY-style pizza with cup-and-char pepperoni, ricotta, and hot honey — the salty-creamy-spicy-sweet combination is calling my name after this visit.
  • Whatever seasonal or off-menu specialty the owner is running that day — the creativity on the specialty side is where this shop is really separating itself.

My Takeaways

  • 🍕 A small, takeout-oriented neighborhood pizzeria with an open, clean, organized kitchen
  • 🇮🇹 Real New Jersey pizza influence showing up in ingredients, execution, and character
  • 🍞 A NY-style crust that shifts intentionally from airy-crisp cornicione to chewy-foldable center to lightly-crisp bottom
  • 🍅 Low-acid California-style tomato sauce that’s seasoned well without covering up the natural tomato flavor
  • 🧀 Quality mozzarella that partners with the crust and sauce instead of dominating them
  • 🌶️ Cup-and-char pepperoni execution on the NY-style pie
  • 🥛 A tomato-forward, pancetta-tinged vodka sauce applied before the bake and coming through beautifully — the technical highlight of the visit
  • 🏆 The Vodka Margherita — an instant hit and the pie I’d drive an hour for
  • 👨‍👦 Pizza Prince approved — asked for a second slice for the ride home
  • 🤝 Friendly, hustling small-shop hospitality from the owner and staff

Have you been to Crust & Co. in Jermyn? Which specialty pie should I try next — the white pepperoni-ricotta-hot honey, or something rotating on the menu? Drop your recommendations in the comments.

Pizza is Similar to:

  • Other Jersey-influenced NEPA pizzerias where owner background shows up in ingredient sourcing and execution
  • Elevated vodka-sauce pizzas where the sauce is tomato-forward and applied pre-bake
  • New York-style pies that intentionally play with texture contrast between cornicione, center, and bottom

Rating Table

A quick note before the table: the writeup above is my gut read — the in-the-moment experience of the visit. The scorecard below is my technical scoring on the standard six-category NEPA Pizza Review rubric — Crust, Sauce, Cheese, Taste, Crispy/Cooked Properly, and Value. Both are honest. I stand by my gut take of what I enjoyed most in the moment, and I stand by the technical scores I locked in after careful reflection.

Gut Ranking (in the moment)

  1. Vodka Margherita — the instant hit and the pizza I’d travel an hour for
  2. New York-Style Pizza with Cup-and-Char Pepperoni — a very good NY-style with Jersey influence and quality ingredients

Technical Scorecard

RankPizza Ordered (New York Style)VisitCrustSauceCheeseTasteCrispy/CookedValueOverall
1Vodka MargheritaAugust 20267.98.88.18.97.87.58.3
2NY-Style Pizza with Half Cup-n-Char PepperoniAugust 20267.87.98.17.97.67.57.9

Gut ranking and technical scorecard agreed exactly — the Vodka Margherita was the standout in the moment, and it stayed the standout 24 hours later on the rubric. The story of these scores lives in Sauce (8.8) and Taste (8.9) on the Vodka Margherita — both elite-tier numbers that reflect the tomato-forward, pancetta-tinged, technically-precise vodka sauce that came through the bake beautifully. The Cheese score of 8.1 across both pies is a very strong signal about ingredient quality — fresh mozzarella and hard-Italian-cheese finish on the Vodka pie, high-quality standard mozzarella on the pepperoni, both scoring the same. The NY-Style pie earned a very solid 7.9 Overall with matching 7.9 in Sauce and Taste and a 7.8 in Crust — a really good baseline pizza that would be a headline pie at a lot of shops but sits in the shadow of what the Vodka Margherita is doing next to it. I stand by my gut ranking of what I enjoyed most in the moment, and I stand by the technical scores I locked in 24 hours later.

Crust & Co.
618 Washington Ave, Jermyn, PA 18433 · Lackawanna County
Takeout-oriented neighborhood pizzeria · Open kitchen · New Jersey influence
On-street parking

Speaking of great sauce — Crust & Co.’s pancetta-tinged, tomato-forward vodka sauce on the Vodka Margherita is one of the most memorable pizza sauces I’ve eaten in NEPA this year. See how it stacks up against the rest of the field in our NEPA Pizza Review coverage. And if you’re building pizza at home, our Amazon affiliate picks are linked on the site — every click helps keep NEPA Pizza Review independent and ad-light.