When Franco Manca announced the location of its Manchester site, more than a few eyebrows shot towards hairlines.
Near Piccadilly Gardens? Are you sure?
The much-maligned area's food and drink offering has been steadily improving with the arrival of operators like Bundobust, Shoryu Ramen and Tampopo, but there's still a long way to go before the area is rid of its well-publicised problems - and that detested wall.
With pizzas starting from a fiver, Franco Manca's affordable fast casual offering makes sense in this busy, central site on Mosley Street, actually, leaving the shopping crowds with plenty of change for a Primark splurge next door.
Founded at Brixton Market in London in 2008, the chain has expanded like an out-of-control sourdough starter, sprawling to 30 sites across the capital and creeping towards most of the UK's major cities.
The Manchester site is its 50th, based in the grade II listed old Lloyd's Bank building opposite the bus station.
Inside, a retrofitted industrial look jars with the space somewhat, with walls chipped back to bare breezeblock above arched windows, with concrete ceilings exposed above suspended ducts and vents.
It's a lo-fi look that makes sense when you're an indie on a shoestring in an Ancoats new build, less so here.
It's busy when we arrive just before noon on a weekday, but not with customers.
Milling around in the middle of the restaurant are a group of people who seem to be on familiar terms with the staff, and who possibly work here too.
We're greeted and seated with a smile but service veers from comically erratic to downright disinterested from hereon out.
A man in a coat and a backpack with an espresso in his hand breaks from the group to come and ask if we're ready to order drinks as we wait for another friend to join us.
I have no idea whether he works here or not, but he summons over someone who definitely does.
I ask for a pale ale, and the definitely-a-staff-member looks at me quizzically and points at the menu.
"We have wine."
"I know. I'll have the pale ale, please."
The 'No Logo' beer (£3.85 for a 330ml bottle) is made for them by Kent brewery Shepherd Neame, and it's crisp, clean and quaffable.
(If you are interested in the wine, there's a short list drawn from Piedmont, Abruzzo and Sicily, all organic and/or biodynamic, from £4.50 a glass.)
There's also a handful of cocktails including two negronis - a regular one and a sbagliato version.
Sbagliato translates roughly from Italian as 'mistake', supposedly after a bartender accidentally used sparkling wine instead of gin in the classic aperitif.
It's not a mistake as far as I'm concerned, adding a light fizz to the usual short and bitter drink, and at only £5.50 it's considerably cheaper than most city centre cocktails.
The food menu revolves around Neapolitan sourdough pizza, made with dough proved for 24 hours and fired in a huge domed oven at the heart of an open kitchen.
A marinara (£5) is a good test of any pizzeria's mettle, with nothing for the dough and sauce - the only main components usually made in-house - to hide behind.
This base could sadly use a little subterfuge - it's scorched on the bottom and stiffer than the soft, floppy crusts that typify Neapolitan pizza.
It takes some pretty vigorous sawing to cut through - I can pick it up between finger and thumb and it stays perfectly horizontal.
It's saved by its sweet tomato sauce, dribbled with fruity extra virgin olive oil and a blizzard of dried oregano, with a gentle peppery heat from the basil and slivers of garlic strewn through it.
The polar opposite to the rigid base across the table, the vegetarian special (£8.90) sports only a light tan and a floppy bottom.
Presumably these pizzas have come from the same oven, but this one's had just enough of a blast for the mozzarella to melt without turning its base into a functional frisbee.
The crust is heavy though, so dense I can feel it re-kneading itself back to a doughy lump in my chest.
It's topped with artichoke that holds the perfect amount of bite, sweet strips of red onion, fresh tomatoes and dollops of 'seasonal pesto'.
I can only assume that the season is that bit of autumn when everything is a bit drab and uninspiring - it needs more seasoning and more herb.
The chef's special (£9) is buried under so much baby kale it takes a while to notice one of its main ingredients, Colston Bassett stilton, seems to be missing.
There's no blue cheese in evidence - if there is, it's melted into an indiscernible puddle with the mozzarella - and only a smattering of flabby, under-crisped pancetta, with none of the spice the menu speaks of.
A glug from a bottle of potent chilli oil puts that right.
It needs it, to offset the tooth-aching sweetness of the caramelised onions that have been cooked down to jam.
A scattering of crispy onions has a straight-from-the-Morrisons-salad-bar air about it.
The restaurant quickly fills up as the lunch hour ticks round and it's a good 15 minutes before our plates are cleared away and dessert orders begrudgingly taken.
Two slabs of cake (£3.95 each) duly arrive, speared with spoons. They look like a threat.
One is a damp almond sponge drenched through with lemon, the other a dry and dense chocolate and hazelnut.
It's a Venn diagram of moistness: somewhere in the middle lies the perfect cake.
There's a lively lunchtime buzz by the time we pay up.
If the service can warm up to match it, it'll be an inviting addition to the area.
The pizzas are a cut above anything you'll find nearby at chains like ASK Italian, Zizzi and Bella Italia - and better value too - but you don't have to go too much further to find places like Rudy's, Honest Crust and Noi Quattro putting them in the shade at similar prices.
Franco Manca has the Byron Hamburgers feel of a London chain that's arrived too late to the party, with too little to bring to a Manchester market already crowded with homegrown, independent restaurants doing it better.
It's a step in the right direction for Piccadilly and no doubt it'll do well here.
But it's unlikely to steal a slice of the pie from the locals.
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