South Florida New Yorkers fret no more: Brooklyn Water Bagel will be expanding as early as this September.

No need to schlep to Delray to get a taste of your favorite Brooklyn water. Jupiter will welcome the next (and second) location to the franchise later this year. We can expect at least two Boca Raton locations and even one to hit South Beach in the months following the Jupiter store opening.

After opening in August, Brooklyn Water Bagel has been showing off their water treatment plant inside their restaurant. You don’t need to be a native New Yorker to taste the difference. Water really is a big deal.

Monster Madness enters LaSpada's new Boca Raton location

No signs. No memo. No email blast. No Facebook update. No twitter announcement. On November 2, LaSpada’s Original Hoagies quietly opened up their doors to their new Boca Raton location without telling anyone. But that didn’t mean people didn’t know.

Manager Phil Kappes, whose parents have owned and operated the three Broward locations since 1973, says that opening up a Palm Beach County store was inevitable.

“People would visit and call the other stores and ask when we would open up a place in Boca. For months [during construction] they would stop by the store to see if it was finished.”

And it was well worth the wait. Nearly double the size of its former models, the new store can sit up to 32 hoagie hounds. The three other stores sit less than half that.

While it was worth the wait, I can’t say I was patient during the process. I would frequent the Coral Springs location until the Boca store was complete. It was originally slated to open up in August, but Kappes says due to building codes, inspections, and other hold ups, the opening got pushed back three months after its original due date. While Palm Beach County admirers had to wait, Kappes doesn’t believe there were any hard feelings.

“We just opened the doors and they showed up,” he says. “We’ve had lines out the door at lunch time ever since.”

And with good reason. Kappes says customers have ventured south of the county line for the “best damn hoagies in town.” Recently voted “best sandwiches” by New Times Broward/Palm Beach for the umpteenth time, LaSpada’s lives up to their self-proclaimed description. Meat cut to order, than tossed on soft white or wheat rolls, loaded up with your choice of lettuce, tomato, onions, pickles, hot and sweet peppers and cheese, then closed with another layer of meat. Check out my love to the hoagie Gods here.

Now that Kappes and his crew have taken their hoagie creations bi-county, plans to continue opening up more stores are in the future. Possibilities include Delray, West Palm Beach, and Wellington, but definitive locations haven’t been made yet. He also says that future stores will be modeled after the Boca location. Construction for expanding the Davie store can start as early as next month.

*Editor’s Note: This post was originally published on August 25, 2009 on worstpizza.com

Half-pepperoni, half-meatball pizza at Authentic Booklyn Pizza in Boca Raton

All good things come out of Brooklyn, don’t they? The Dodgers, my Grandma, and damn good pizza.

And eventually, all good things that come out of Brooklyn migrate somewhere else. The Dodgers went to Los Angeles, my Grandma went to Century Village, and Authentic Brooklyn Pizza came to Boca Raton.

Located just east of Interstate 95 on Palmetto Park Rd., Authentic Brooklyn Pizza (ABP) currently resides in a building that doesn’t even house its very title. Under the sign “Mario the Baker” – the name of the previous tenants – ABP is still getting settled in nearly three months after opening. They don’t need that much work, really, because the sign will eventually change. But the pizza – the pizza should stay exactly the way it is.

During my recent visit, I had the luxury of eating the pepperoni pie. Large slices of salty pepperoni with a light, slightly crunchy, thin crust. If I had more room in my stomach, I would have eaten more. That pizza was amazing.

Since I’m not a big fan of inordinate amounts of sauce, I’m glad Tony the manager isn’t, either. A very little amount of sauce – what some of the other pizza eaters considered too little – was absolutely perfect for me. My theory is this: if there’s too much sauce, then there isn’t enough pizza. This pie had a great balance of all ingredients.

Me and my other pizza-eaters that day had the opportunity to try to meatball pizza as well. Sort of like a meatball sub (but less sauce, thankfully), the pizza had sliced meatballs that were the same size as the large pepperoni pizza. They were a little spicy, but I actually thought that’s what made the pizza so tasty.

I give Authentic Brooklyn Pizza 7 out of 8 slices. Maybe if they get their name on their restaurant, I can reconsider my rating.