OPEN wide

According to my calculations, by the time the average American has reached 30, he or she will have consumed 6.2 metric tons of pizza - enough to fill King Tut's tomb twice and deplete most of Holland's cheese surplus.

Evidently, Americans can't get enough pie.

But why is the American-made pizza that arrives at my door so puny and bland? Jeez Louise, give me a can of Cheese Whiz, some anchovies, a pack of Saltines and a blow torch and I could outdo most of the major chains.

After giving up on finding superlative pizza in this part of the world, a friend convinced me to reconsider. He dragged me to Momo's, a funky, independent little pizza parlor near the corner of Tennessee and Basin streets.

Look closely, though, because it's tucked away in an ancient strip mall that's so old it was once visited by Herman Melville. Trust me, Momo's is nothing fancy. But what it lacks in the Martha Stewart decor department it makes up for with primo pie and plenty of personality.

The first time I visited Momo's a hand-lettered sign on the door read: "WELCOME TO MOMO'S. BIN LADEN IS A PUNK. COME ON IN."

You just don't see thoughtful political sentiments like that on the doors of corporate-run restaurants.

Inside, during lunch rush, the place was like someone had kicked a wasp nest and run. It was buzzing with college students, high-school kids, working guys in paint-splattered overalls and a few suits who'd made their way over from downtown. It's like that most days.

Momo's keeps taped music cranked to the max on the tiny restaurant's impressive sound system. The song selections are loopy and eclectic. Sit at the bar or a booth for an hour, and you might hear Frank Sinatra, The Brady Bunch, David Allan Coe, The Doors, John Coltrane and a song sung by Fred Rogers of "Mister Roger's Neighborhood" fame.

"We play the music louder than we should, but we do everything a little bigger and louder than we should," owner Don Dye, 43, said.

Dye is not telling a lie.

Momo's official motto is a promise to serve "Slices As Big As Your Head."

This is not a an idle threat.

Trust me, unless you hung out with Andre the Giant or The Elephant Man, you've never met any human being who has a noggin as large as a single slice of pizza from Momo's.

We're talking massive. A single slice will dwarf an average-size dinner plate or, if you remember the '70s, a record album jacket. Each piece ($2.50) is custom-created for the customer on the spot, and there's no such thing as delivery service. There's also nothing sitting under a heat lamp at Momo's. Toppings - anything from pineapple to pesto to fresh spinach - are piled on at 50 cents a throw. The crust is thin and sweet to the taste. It's a deal.

"The most common mistake people make on their first visit is ordering three slices," Dye said. "They always leave with two of the slices in a box."

An extra-large Momo's deluxe pizza is bigger than many sovereign nations in the Balkans.

"We've had people come in here and order the extra-large pie and then not be able to get it into their compact car," pizza chef Robert Jeter said. "I saw two guys in a Miata leave here with one of our giant pizzas, and they had to hold it over their heads on top of the car. It was like they were moving a mattress or something."

So much for portion-control.

Of course, hand-tossing a pie that measures 32 inches across takes skill.

On a recent weekday afternoon, Jeter and fellow pie guy Christian Coltharp-Parr were slinging and spinning dough like the pros they are. The dough fanned out into round white sheets as they tossed the expanding putty high into the air. It looked like they were throwing beach blankets over their heads.

"It's part of the show and the atmosphere," Jeter said. "We'd toss 'em larger than 32 inches if we could, but we can't. The doors on the pizza oven are only 32 inches wide. We've got to stop somewhere."

"You just learn it by doing it," Coltharp-Parr, a senior English major at FSU, said. "It takes about four months to learn to throw pies this large. There's no school that teaches this."

"We have trouble finding boxes large enough to fit the pizzas in," Dye said. "We just sort of cram them in there the best we can. They spill out over the edges. We can't even special order boxes big enough."

Dye, an attorney by trade, bought Momo's from the original owner two years ago. He said he has resisted tampering with the restaurant's low-tech approach, which includes orders handwritten on tickets and whizzed down to the chefs on a clothesline contraption. A beaten-to-hell cowbell signals runners when an order is up.

"I thought about computerizing and updating everything when I started, but I think low-tech is good," he said. "It has a certain ambiance."

And a certain appeal.

Obviously, the secret has gotten out about Momo's. During the Friday night before this year's Miami-Florida State public 'Cane-ing in Tallahassee, Dye and his crew were slammed.

"We had 1,000 come through here on that Friday," Dye said. "This a restaurant that seats 50."

In early 2002, Dye is planning to re-create a little slice of Tennessee Street in North Tallahassee. He's opening a second Momo's near the tony Mozaik restaurant off Market Street.

Don't worry, though, Dye said, "we're going to take the atmosphere with us."