By Heather Francis, VRG Volunteer

Traveling to Screamer’s Pizzeria went smoothly; from Penn Station we headed to downtown Brooklyn. We jumped on the A train heading downtown on 8th Avenue express and got off at Hoyt-Schermerhorn Street and then transferred to the G train heading up to Brooklyn-Queens Crosstown. When we reached Nassau Ave./Manhattan Ave., we got off and headed up the stairs. Immediately in front of us was a huge Blue Sign that had a vertical sign saying “Vegan,” with Screamer’s in small print.

I walked into the Pizza shop starving, ready to dig into pizza. The shop is small, but has a lot of character. The pizza shop is identical to a hole in the wall pizza shop you may stop in. We glazed over the menu which was on a huge mirror stretching from the door to the cash register. My girlfriend and I wanted to purchase an entire pie and we decided on Buffalo Cauliflower and a vegan take on Hawaiian Pizza.

After waiting twenty minutes, we were handed a glorious box filled with pizza. The toppings filled almost every space mounting over gooey vegan cheese and red pizza sauce. We devoured the freshly baked pizza pie. My first slice was the Hawaiian pizza and it was superb. The pineapple and vegan ham had the perfect amount of sweet and savory. I decided that the buffalo cauliflower one was my favorite. I had never had buffalo chicken with ranch, and trying the buffalo cauliflower pizza topped with ranch, was a new experience itself along with trying this 5 star rated pizzeria. The crust on any pizza is a factor in deciding whether or not it’s worth to come back, and I know that I personally will be traveling to Brooklyn again to one day try another one of their specialty flavored pizzas. They even have vegan cannoli’s on the menu, which is something I’m dying to try.

A cool part about the location of this place, is the ice cream store next door: The Van Leeuwen Artisan Ice Cream shop. This ice cream shop has a whole blackboard full of vegan ice cream flavors to choose from, and after devouring two or three slice of delicious pizza, who can say no to gourmet ice cream? I definitely didn’t.

For more information on this restaurant please visit: http://www.screamerspizzeria.com

If you would like to learn more about dining out in New York as a vegetarian or vegan, go to the VRG’s online restaurant guide at http://www.vrg.org/restaurant/New_York.php or visit our national restaurant guide at www.vrg.org/restaurant/index.php