They don’t deliver. They don’t take credit cards. They don’t have a website. And they don’t advertise.

What’s more, they have only one location and no plans to expand. They have no plans even to upgrade one single thing at the current one, which is equipped with 30-some-year-old ovens and one cash register.

Despite all common knowledge as to how to grow a business–which owner and MBA grad Peter Anastasopoulos certainly has to excess–somehow Chesapeake Pizza seems to have done everything right. Business is, as they say, booming. Guests come from all over just for this pizza. Located on Route 168 on the way down to Nag’s Head, vacationers from New York (who know a thing or two about pizza) regularly stop in for a slice as part of their yearly tradition. Everyone–from backwards cap-wearing 20-year-old dudes rolling up in raised pickups to frail, little 80-year-old ladies rolling up in big ol’ Cadillacs–comes flocking.

I had heard of this perfect slice from writer Greg Epps, who last fall rounded up the best pizzas in the Seven Cities for “Top Pie-ority.” Then yesterday, when our photographer Doug Nicholson (who at 21 is all earnestness and enthusiasm) told us “there are very few reasons to come to [his hometown of] Chesapeake other than for Chesapeake Pizza”–we were sold.

“Take Battlefield Boulevard for 15 minutes into Great Bridge,” he directed us from Towne Place at Greenbrier, “and it’s five minutes once you cross the bridge.”

Indeed, nothing along the way proves the city as anything extraordinary; executive office parks, sparse woods, supermarkets. You forget that at one point in our country’s history, men died in these fields in the name of independence. On the other side of the Albermarle Chesapeake Canal, you’re greeted not by markers of the Revolution but by a monstrous corner Chili’s, a Taco Bell/KFC Express and a Papa John’s stand.

But then, when you pull up to the green-roofed, tinted-windowed Chesapeake Pizza, a holdover from the age of distinctly 1970s architecture and design, you think, “Now here’s a place with some character.” Inside, it’s the same. Brown pleather booths. Everywhere fake wood veneer. Green Formica ceiling–it looks almost exactly like the diner in the opening scene of Pulp Fiction.

A sign warns you right away that only cash is accepted (sometimes checks, if you’re a regular), but there is an ATM in the foyer for your convenience. And if you have any question that the place is old school, in the dining room you’ll find a bunch of elderly customers seated sporadically. But maybe that had a little to do with our dinner time–4:30 pm.

A very pregnant and lovely waitress named Jen promptly took our order of a large half-cheese, half-veggie pizza. Curiosity piqued, we asked Jen a thousand questions about the business to which she finally responded, “Would you like to meet the owner, Peter?” Of course we did. And of course we were all the more enchanted to be dining in a place where you can easily chat with the owner.

As we waited and stuffed ourselves with a pizza that proved to be worth the drive and all the hype, we noted the simple ambiance. Across the street Great Bridge Middle Schoolers were scrimmaging on the football field. Over the speakers a local radio station played John Mayer, Gwen Stefani, Boston. All of it was charming in the delicious glow of our vanished pizza pie. Delicious for its pan-cooked crust, not so oily like a Pizza Hut pizza, crunchy and substantial enough to hold fresh, chunky toppings of robust peppers, mushrooms, and black olives, sweet tomatoes, and a thick layer of cheese.

Peter, who emerged from the kitchen in sneakers, shorts and a black t-shirt, looking like he was ready for a long-distance run, was humble to our compliments. Well-groomed and athletic, Anastasopoulos is a handsome guy in his 30s–not what we expected from the restaurant’s design and decor.

But, as he told us, it was his father, Greg Anastasopoulos, who built Chesapeake Pizza. He came to America from Greece by way of Boston, where he learned the restaurant’s recipes. “It’s really a New England pizza we serve,” the younger Anastasopoulos said, “not quite a New York pizza, but just as good.”

Greg and his brother-in-law Steve Giannakoupoulos built the restaurant in 1973, nearly 300 years after the Battle of Great Bridge. “And I was born in 1974,” said Anastasopoulos, “so I grew up here.

“A lot of these older customers knew me from when I was a little kid. We’re one of the oldest restaurants in Chesapeake.”

“I remember when this was just a walk-up pizza stand on the corner,” said Lil Oman, a regular in her 80s. Oman is the widow of former Chesapeake mayor Sidney Oman, who she moved to Chesapeake with from North Carolina in 1963.

Oman’s devotion has been unswerving over the decades: “It’s the best pizza you can get anywhere in the world.”

“I took a month and asked some of our regular patrons what we should do to make this place better,” said Anastasopoulos, “and they told me not to change a thing.” Anastasopoulos, who received a degree in financing from Virginia Tech and then an MBA from Old Dominion, “had lots of ideas about how to improve the restaurant while I was in college.

“But they actually got mad at me when I tried to remodel,” Anastasopoulos explained. “So we still do everything the same way my dad did it in the 70s.”

It is the great American story. But the pizza? It’s even better.

Chesapeake Pizza is located at 424 Battlefield Blvd. S. (757) 482-4444 is their phone number, and you’re kidding us if you think there’s a website.