Sorry to everyone who has been hoping for awesome gigantic pizza and watermelon after their hikes for the past four years! Feel free to drop some other local recommendations in the comments below.

**UPDATE October 2018** USA Deli went out of business in 2014. And it would also be the perfect way to reward yourself after a calorie-burning afternoon at Stissing Mountain.

I haven’t been back in a little while, but if someone went there and ate some gigantic pizza based on this recommendation, it would warm the cockles of my heart (if hearts have cockles). I’m always glad to see that they’re still in business in what seems like a pretty remote location. One year, the owner went into his garden out back, picked some fresh watermelon and sliced it up for us. They also have that 28” pie that is bigger than a wagon wheel. The owners were always so friendly to us, even though we couldn’t always understand each other (there are newspaper clippings on the wall about the family coming here from Kosovo). Our hiking group used to do this hike every summer, and we’d always go to the USA Deli afterwards. If you can eat three of those slices, you deserve to have your picture hung on a wall somewhere. If you wanted to, you could easily wear a slice as a cape and fly around the room. That scale doesn’t take into account the USA Deli, though, which is just a short distance from the trailhead, and which serves the largest slices of pizza I’ve ever seen. The difficulty rating for this hike is a 6, which, according to the Scientific Hike Difficulty Rating Scale, means you are entitled to eat at least three slices of pizza afterwards. My friends were never disappointed at this hike, and you won’t be, either. Walking at a good clip, it takes about 45 minutes to get from car to tower, a relatively short hike for such awesome views. When I used to live a little bit further north, this was my go-to place to bring out-of-town visitors who really liked to hike.

Tower pizza pine plains ny