Back in the early 2000s, Dallas was a town divided into four camps. There was the Campisi’s crowd, centered around SMU and the Park Cities, near the Campisi family’s so-called “Egyptian” pizza place. Pizza by Marco drew another set of supporters. A third group favored Louie’s, the windowless dive on Henderson.

Younger folk who had traveled to New York with only enough money to sample street food à la Tony Manero gravitated to Sal’s, home of greasy, floppy Big Apple neighborhood pies. The big four have since been overshadowed by authentic Neapolitan parlors and steady gourmet ovens. Indeed, many pizza aficionados now wonder why we ever praised such places. But Sal’s remains a prime example of the storied New York crust. The toppings are inexpensive, the presentation careless, but the experience still reminds one of Saturday Night Fever’s famous opening scene. There’s no preening.

Even inside the Legacy storefront, Sal’s keeps things on the down-low, with inexpensive furnishings and relatively bare walls. But that’s about as good as it gets. While the rest of the pizza world invested in wood or coal ovens, artisanal cheese, tomatoes with a name attached, and imported meats, Sal’s remained a relative cheapskate. It’s just pizza—and not at all fancy pizza.