Fortel’s Pizza Den

My favorite pizza in St Louis. Pure mozzarella, no provel. Don’t bother getting extra cheese; there is already a ton. If you like veggie pizza, I’d recommend Tomato/​Artichoke/​Garlic over their standard veggie special. Order one size larger; leftovers are awesome.

The Bo’s spicy pizza is tops!!! Good selection of appetizers and things besides pizza. Friendly place with plenty of room. Outdoor patio is good for cards games on tv, a good pizza, and Icy cold beer! Love this place

I’ve been here once before, without leaving a review.
Service is fast, and the pizzas are amazing-​just about any topping you could want, prepared fresh, and more than plenty to feed a family.
I’ll definitely be coming back to try out a few different pizzas. The nacho pizza, which I had during this trip, was delicious, and the Dorito topping gave a nice crunchy texture.

Best pizza (Shelly’s) in STL. Great dinner salad too. We are 20 plus year customers.

Came in for a lunch break from a work meeting. Had a few coworkers with me.
Came in around 11:30. The restaurant was almost empty except for one table of guests. I ordered the lunch pizza with pepperoni and a salad.
Most of the experience is self serve which I actually like in these kind of places. Get your own refills, take your own trash, easy peasy. The food came out relatively quick. The salad came out almost immediately and I had the perfect amount of time to finish before my meal. The woman who checked on us and took our dishes was very friendly. The restaurant was clean for the most part. The food was very good! Salad was perfect and pizza was good. Could’ve used more pepperonis but it tasted fine.
We waited at the counter for almost a full 5 minutes before anyone came to take our order. The lady who took our order at the counter was very short and semi rude. Made one of my coworkers feel stupid for asking if the fries pictured in the menu were the kind of fries they serve. The men’s restroom was absolutely disgusting. Plain filthy. I didn’t even go, I just washed my hands and left as fast as I could.
Overall the food was good, the service was good and bad, and the restrooms are gross. But I will return!

This is the «original» Fortels Pizza Den. I’ve been a customer for more than 25 years. The family has tried to maintain the standards that founder Bob Fortel set when he first opened this mom and pop pizza joint. The real winner on the menu is the pizza. Everything else is second rate. But the pizza– yum– St. Louis style at its best!
The crust is always crunchy and has a slightly sweet bite to it. The sauce is awesome and they use a lot of it, which I love. Don’t skimp on my sauce! The sauce is thick and smooth, very tomatoey with a hint or spices. Their pizzas have a provel, mozzarella blend. It melts in all the right places and leaves long, luscious threads of ooey cheesy goodness with every bite!
Seating is pretty ample here including a nice outdoor area, weather permitting. There’s a decent selection of soft drinks, beers and wines. The salads and apps are just ok– mostly pre-​packaged frozen items. I’ve had their sandwiches several times and the roast beef with their au jus is very tasty on a nice crusty bread.
What can I say, you can’t go wrong with the original mom and pop pizza joint of SoCo!

I would only go 3 star’s. But my husband loves it and so does our son. So I’m giving 3 star’s.

The wedding party we were in decided we wanted pizza late night, and we ended up ordering from here. Everything was fantastic, they really load these pizzas up, and it all seems like high quality ingredients too. If we lived here, this would be a regular stop for us. The buffalo chicken pizza was seriously impressive, and we had the wings and the onion petals too, which were both good. The wings were meaty and not dried out, which seems rare these days.
Only gets 4 stars because the guy who took our order on the phone and checked us out at the shop was rude. Definitely worth it despite that though.

As a follow up to Fortel’s in Kirkwood, I decided to try this location closer to my home. I can’t say that it was the worst pizza I’ve ever had (Cecil Whittaker’s takes that trophy) but it definitely wasn’t a contender for the best pizza I’ve either.
I opted for the same thing from the Kirkwood location — pepperoni pizza and spicy hot wings. The wings were slightly better than the ones I had previously, but they were still a little too tough for me. The wing sauce was pretty good. The pizza on the other hand was way too cheesy and gooey for me — crazy right? Who complains about pizza being too cheesy and gooey? The cheese to sauce to topping to crust ratio (lol that was a lot) was off — too much cheese and sauce vs equal parts of all 4. I found myself having to eat it with a napkin because the cheese would just stretch and stretch while the sauce would fall from underneath. And it wasn’t the most flavorful ingredients either. It was just loads and loads of cheese and sauce on top of a lackluster crust.
And it was pretty expensive for a 14″ 1-​topping + 8pc Wings — $ 25. I want to say I’ll give them another try, but I think I’m pretty much over it for now.

Have been getting the Bob’s Favorite for eons and it’s a consistent gem

Excellent Pizza!!! Straight up Mom and Papa shop. Order at the counter, seat yourself, self service drinks. Someone does bring out your pizza (you get a numbered tag). That person also clears you table as needed. Atmosphere was bright, clean with tables and chairs. Pizza was Great! Sauce was just right plenty of cheese, thin crust. My only complaint is that I will probably never eat there again because I live 6 ½ hours away. Personally I would have asked for the pizza to be cooked a couple of extra minutes. I like my cheese slightly brown and my crust slightly more cooked. It was not underdone I just would have liked it cooked slightly more. Defiantly worth the visit!

How have I NOT tried this place sooner?! I’ve lived here too long to not have tried it and I have lots of lost time to make up for!
Coworkers brought some Fortel’s in to work for someone’s birthday and I immediately ate way too much. It was insanely delicious and addictive. I’m not a (**as I say this I’m ducking**) huge fan of the typical STL style pizza. This is thin crust but the consistency is more like a hand tossed thin — perfect! The toppings are very generous and delicious. I went after this with my husband (to make sure it wasn’t a fluke) and we ordered the same delicious pie, just as scrumptious as the previous one. Now if we are going out for pizza, hubby wants to go here! We are fans!

The Shannon’s Deluxe and Buffalo Chicken are our favorites. This is the original Fortel’s and they do it right! We had a great experience here today.

OMG, So good! Hadn’t been in YEARS, ans was meeting a friend in the area. Also, it’s the new year and I’m SUPPOSED to be dieting… this was a great place to indulge! The pizza just tasts fresh, the dough is thin but flavorful. The sauce is fresher than the norm. I am an Imos fan. I don’t get it all the time, but when I want pizza my philosophy is «go for it». Get what you really want and don’t worry about calories. Go back on your diet tomorrow ;)
Fortel’s was quick, friendly and I can’t stress enough-​FRESH! The ingredients were really piled on too! I’ve gotten pizzas where you can literally count 7 pieces of sausage on it. This is not that. It was actually the most loaded pizza maybe I’ve ever seen. It’s set up so that you order at the counter and seat yourself and get your own drinks, so no table service. At one point though, someone from the kitchen came out and asked us if everything tasted good. That exceeded my expectations, as it seemed to be a place where they just drop off a pie and that’s about it. Recommended!

This was my first time. I was on a date and he was a smart aleck but I am not going to let that affect my review. I did not know that we had to order at the counter, so we sat at the table before we were told to order at the counter. I love that they have Pepsi and Coke products. I love that you can choose your crust, your sauce and your toppings. My date was not very brave, next time I am going to do the white sauce. We had the chicken with mushroom and spinach. The house salad was amazing and enough for two people to share. Anthony, the busser was so funny and friendly, he even encouraged us to steal the pizza server, he rinsed ours off and stashed it in our to go box…
Check it out…

Reuben pizza little topping and what makes me very angry, if you tip the waiter on a credit card, the whole house splits the tip. So the waiter gets little of it. That’s ludicrous. Never to return. $ 32 for a medium pizza, small salad, 2 drinks and mini cheesesticks.

Before reading the rest of this review take this statement into account… We did not order pizza!
We were in the mood for chicken wings and ordered 1 order of each on the menu. They arrived (delivery) fairly quickly but they were so ridiculously over-​cooked we gave up trying to eat them. It was late enough at that point not to call and complain. There was no moisture left in them and they were dry as a bone. There was not much meat on them to begin with and the BBQ sauce was the worst I’ve ever had. Lesson learned… DON’T BUY CHICKEN WINGS FROM FORTELL’S

The place was filled to the brim with rabid children.
And for 1 appetizer, 2 drinks and 2 large pizzas, it was $ 50…which was painful for my wallet. The place looked dingy. The cups we had gotten for the liquids were dirty when handed to us, the guy saw it and swapped us for nicer ones. We werent there long and our appetizer was laid on the table. It was janky. $ 6 for about 6 battered shrooms. We were pissed. They were not even delicious. We were close to going up and demanding our money back when the pizza was delivered.
Their pizza honestly redeemed them. It is LOADED with toppings and is effing delicious. I can usually devour half of a large pizza, but I could only eat ¼ of this pizza bc it was so topped.
I would go back only for their pizza.

We were recommended to this place from a good friend. Being from Chicago my wife and I; we can really appreciate good pizza. Arriving way after dinner time, we were greeted by Mark who took our order.
He was extremely pleasant. The pizza was one of the best we have ever had.
This establishment is one of the most impeccably clean restaurants including the restrooms.

Had my first golf lesson at Tower Tee the other day and while driving to class I noticed this Fortels in Affton. It gave me flash backs to when I worked at Plaza Frontenac and we’d order multiple pizzas from the Fortels in Kirkwood for the entire store. Damn, those were good pizzas.
All I could think about in class was Fortels Pizza and the scene in Fast Times at Ridgemont High where Sean Pean had a pizza delivered to class. I resisted the urge and kept my focus on my long shot. Knowing I could stop and get carryout on my way home.
After class, my first stop was Fortels. One of the nicest thing about Fortels pizza is no provel cheese, they use 100% Mozzarella Cheese.
(I’ve always thought Mozzarella sounds like the sister of Crurella De Ville or a Drag Queens name) Another thing that makes the pizza at Fortels stand out is the sauce, a flavorful mix of sweet & spicy.
Tonight’s order was a 12″ Sausage & Peperoni and a Large House Salad with house dressing. Once I got home I realized the salad was way to much and placed in icebox for a work lunch the next day. In fact it was so big, it made lunch for two days. It was nice that they had given me two small containers of dressing, they must have known. The pizza was very good, I just can not allow myself to indulge after every golf class.
Special perks at the Affton location is Gluten Free Crust and Lottery Tickets. What a deal pizza and powerball all in one stop.