Cheese. Freshly grated in the salads, piled high on the pizzas and then, the sweetest way to eat cheese of all, the many cheese cakes, cheese takes many important roles at Ahart’s Pizza Garden.

Cheese. Freshly grated in the salads, piled high on the pizzas and then, the sweetest way to eat cheese of all, the many cheese cakes, cheese takes many important roles at Ahart’s Pizza Garden.

The restaurant grates mozzarella, cheddar, provolone, ricotta, Swiss, gorgonzola, parmesan, feta, fontina and goat cheese in house. They, along with 50 ingredients including turkey, capers, shrimp, broccoli, tuna, and of course all of the traditional favorites, top the gourmet pizzas coming out of Randy and Bonita Ahart’s oven.

The couple opened the restaurant in 2003 and began serving pies based on recipes received from Randy’s family and added some new creations along the way.

“This is some of the best pizza I’ve ever had,” Evelyn Hardison said of the Greek pizza, topped with olives, spinach, red onions and feta cheese. “It’s delicious.” While Ahart’s signature pizzas are $17.99 for a 14”, they are truly tasty and original, and conveniently numbered for easy ordering.

For example, the No. 4, the Texas fajita, includes fajita chicken, avocado, tomatoes, red onion, green peppers, jalapenos and cilantro; No. 6, the Tchoupitoulas, contains andouille sausage, cajun shrimp, onions, peppers and garlic; or No. 12, the Basicalla, has a walnut pesto sauce in lieu of the usual tomato sauce and is topped with feta cheese, sun-dried tomatoes and black olives. “We have some regulars who have tried every pizza we have,” Bonita said. The crust is of the thin and crispy variety, but for the cost of an extra topping they’ll put two together to create a thicker base.

The Ahart’s dining room includes a mix of professionals and construction workers on lunch break, often eating a quick and hearty sandwich, local families having dinner and college students wanting something more creative and friendly than the pizza chains offer.

Many of the customers’ favorite part about Ahart’s comes after they have eaten the pizza and the server comes around with a platter filled with slices of some of Bonita’s cheesecakes.

“I would lay in bed some times and just think of what I could do with a cheesecake,” Bonita said. Maybe it was divine inspiration that led her to create Oreo, banana split, Key lime, white chocolate, turtle, Mandarin orange, pistachio and over 20 other types.

“They’re not like other cheesecakes, I don’t bake them and I don’t use eggs,” said the cheesecake creator, also an artist who grew up in a small Illinois town with a heavy Italian population. That combination of creativity and Italian heritage makes for some delicious cakes and pies.

THE DISH:

http://www.ahartspizzagarden.com